Engage Your Audience With Well-Planned Trade Show Events
Building products companies are looking for ways to engage their prospects and customers at events and tradeshows. The return companies are experiencing on events is pushing marketers to find new ways to attract the right leads at the right time.
Many of the companies we work with now used to run into roadblocks regarding their events, so we asked them about these frustrations and how they could be resolved: Did you launch your event with your new logo? Did you utilize updated branding messages and a large screen with your scrolling presentation? Do you still feel like you look like everyone else? What customer experience do you want to portray?
Think of the ways to increase the experience that people have with your company, your products and your service. Are they memorable? Are they different? Will leads share the experience with their network? These are just a few questions you need to ask as you begin to plan out ways to improve the connection with your audience at your next event and trade show.
Here are the first five ways to maximize your customer experience. Check back next week for the last five in this series:
- Make your exhibit unique:Design your exhibit and event space with unique materials. Think beetle kill wood, reclaimed barn wood or recyclable materials. Whatever the case, think outside the box while also staying true to your brand.
- Create a theme: Connect your audience to your brand and to the problem they are trying to solve. Can your exhibit or event look like a gas station, a store, a ski shop or something unique to your brand? If so, take the idea and run with it to create a powerful customer experience.
- Enable technology: Marketers must look through the sales lens to understand what is a perfect qualified lead and develop the sales enablement tools to help this process. Make sure not to overlook the importance of sales enablement technology both at your event and in preparation for your event.
- Engage employees: The #1 item people usually remember about your exhibit is your staff. Make sure your staff agrees with the trade show objectives, clearly understands the product and the customers’ and prospects’ needs. And hey, bringing out your best, brightest and most charismatic folks certainly won’t hurt things.
- Let people play: Create a reason for customers and prospects to engage your event and trade show exhibit. A top item has been adding a photo booth to your exhibit and creating an opportunity for a branded message that the prospect takes home with them, as well as the connections through social channels they engage while sharing the images. People like to touch, learn and experience. Consider utilizing large touch screens people can pick up and engage with—you’re guaranteed to stand out more than the booths that use three or four iPads for this purpose. Another idea: Create a touchscreen map with nearby restaurants so attendees can create a reservation while printing out a branded map. This is very memorable and sticks out in someone’s memory.
These are just a few ways to maximize your customer experience at trade shows and events. If you are looking for ideas on ways to improve your trade show booth or upcoming event, give ER Marketing a call and discuss how to make your event marketing memorable.
