Despite society’s expedition into the virtual jungle, tradeshows have managed to remain a valuable way to market your brand in the real world.
Tradeshows offer attendees something that today, can oddly been seen as both novel and nostalgic: face-to-face marketing. It allows you to get out there and meet your prospects, look them in the eye, share an inside joke and make a true and lasting connection. The most effective way of promoting your organization via tradeshows is by coupling the old-school idea of face-to-face marketing with the contemporary concept of content marketing. It’s also important to not only consider your marketing efforts during the show, but before and after the show as well.
Pre-Show
A well-crafted content marketing strategy will include a plan for the days and weeks building up to the show. It will create new leads before you even step onto the exhibit floor and enable your sales team to set meetings with potential new customers during the event.
At this stage, there may be a mad rush to finalize and print the content that you will be taking with you to the show, including: product brochures, white papers, product demos, press kits, video tutorials and sales presentations. But it’s important to also consider things like social media and blog posts that offer a preview of what’s to come in order to get people curious and excited about what you have planned.
What to post on social media before the show:
- Let your customers and prospects know you’re going to the show.
- Invite your audience to visit your booth at the show.
- Hints about announcements that you will release at the show.
Additionally, before the show, it’s key to develop a plan that outlines the content that your team will create during the show.
During-Show
Depending on the size of the event in question, your schedule is likely to be extremely tight at the show. However, it’s imperative that you keep content top of mind because tradeshows can be a certified content goldmine. Three days at a big tradeshow could potentially deposit three months of fresh content into your pipeline, so pay attention. And if you’re too busy to do so, task your entire team with generating content by taking notes and posting photos, videos and tweets about what’s happening on the show floor. Another option is to bring a colleague along whose only job is to focus on content.
Key content opportunities to look out for during the show include:
- Questions – Write down every question asked by potential customers, passersby, journalists and anyone else that crosses your path.
- Keynotes – what were the key takeaways?
- Product demonstrations – use these to create video content.
- Photos – create a photo log of the event by posting pictures on a photo sharing site like Facebook, Google+, Snapfish, Flickr or Photobucket.
- Sessions – pay particular attention to the Q&As at the end. Write down every question that comes up during each session.
- Remember to always use the show’s Twitter hashtag, tag the show’s Facebook page and post to its LinkedIn group.
What to post on social media during the show:
- Tweetable quotes from keynotes and speakers
- Photos of your booth, sales team, celebrity sightings (a hot trend at tech conferences these days)
- Video of product demos, keynotes, panels
- General comments about the exhibit floor
- Let attendees know where your booth is located
- Details about conference after-parties
- Media announcements coming out of the show
Post-Show
To create influence, you need to build relationships with your audience every day of the year and continue the flow of communication after the event. Here’s when you utilize all of those questions from customers, journalists and Q&A attendees that you wrote down during the show. If one customer has a question it’s likely that more people have the very same question. Content that answers customers’ questions (solving their problems) is THE most valuable content you can create.
Use your answers to these questions to develop blog posts, podcasts, social media posts, SlideShare presentations, white papers, contributed articles and so much more. Also, don’t forget to add them to your sales presentations, FAQs on your website and anywhere else your audience will find them.
What to post on social media after the show:
- Overall thoughts on your experiences at the show
- Key takeaways from the show
- What you learned at the show
- Thanks to those who met with you at the show
- Shout outs to the organizers of the show
- Recommendations on how the show could be improved upon next year
With careful planning and a commitment to continuous content creation, you can maximize your tradeshow marketing budget by curating content that will continue to bring visibility to your organization long after the exhibit floor closes.