If you’re like most B2B marketers you still find that tradeshows are in your marketing plan. Even though it’s against your better judgement, you know that there’s been a shift in buyer behaviour, you know that trade shows are costly and often don’t deliver an ROI.... but your sales team insist “All our competitors will be there! If we’re not there we don’t exist.” Sound familiar?
So how can you align this old-school marketing activity to the new buyer behaviour? Can you think differently about your trade show marketing programs? Can you provide educational and entertaining content that connects with your customers on an emotional level, while standing on a stand?
The way to do this is to integrate your traditional marketing programs with more modern inbound marketing strategies and ideas.
Here are just some ways to ensure that your tradeshow is the best it can be.
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Be remarkable
The trade show floor is a busy, noisy place. And for the most part, everyone is doing the same thing. They have the same standard booth, with their company name and logo in the pre-assigned area. They have a few brochures, posters, cheap branded giveaways and a rolling PowerPoint presentation with the features of the product... Yawn... How are you going to stand out? The biggest stand in the best location is one way, but what about some other creative ideas? Do you really need the booth structure? Where would people want to congregate? Can you be there instead? I once turned a tradeshow booth into a café. It was quite an idea in the 90s.. before coffe carts were ubiquitious. The booth location was in an out of the way area, but with a great view overlooking the trade show floor. By making it a destination, and providing free coffee, we had people seeking us out and hanging around our stand for much longer than your typical 3m x 3m booth.
The Hubspot team also knows how to be remarkable at tradeshows. At at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference a few years ago they made all their staff wear bright orange track suits – a cruel and unusual punishment I know, but they stood out, no matter where they went, they were clearly identifiable Hubspotters. They also gave away free marketing assessments using their Marketing Grader tool. Which was not only educational and engaging but marketing genius... lead capture and qualification all in one.
I’ve done many different things at tradeshows from serving up Krispy Kremes donuts at break time, celebrating St Patrick's Day with green beer to creating great, limited-edition trade-show giveaways that not everyone can get - first-in, first-served!
Hubspot’s unicorns are a terrific idea that sets them apart from the standard pens & stress balls. The unicorns are a hit as they’re cute and people will give them to their kids. Things that the kids will love are always popular. The goal is to make your stand the buzzing, place to be.
What could you do to be remarkable?
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Communicate
Have educational content available on the stand and have engaging people have helpful and curious conversations, not sales conversations on the stand. If you can, send your consulting team along, as well as the sales team. Offer advice and valuable information. Provide an interesting piece of content that can be downloaded via an iPad on the stand and emailed immediately to the attendees inboxes. This gives them something tangible in exchange for their contact details - and provides something to read in the dull sessions.
Identify your prospects needs and build content from there.
Offering free giveaways for throwing your card in a goldfish bowl is so old school.
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Be there
We've all done stands where the team on the stand are actively ignoring anyone who comes by. That's just a complete waste of your time. No playing on phones on the stand! You are there to actively engage with people, not check your emails. Make sure that you coach your stand team with some engaging conversations starters.. and if possible pick the more outgoing members of staff to be on the stand. Perhaps run a competition internally for who registers the most content downloads on the stand. Standing on a stand can be boring, but it's you can also make it fun... buzzword bingo anyone??
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Follow Up
Make sure that you follow up the conversations that you have on the stand on the same day or at least back in your hotel room after each session. Reach out and connect with them on LinkedIn. Remind them of the conversation you had.
Ensure that you have a post-show follow-up campaign set-up and ready to go immediately after the trade show. Perhaps a special offer only for tradeshow attendees, or a copy of the presentation given by your speaker.
These are just a couple of ways to make your tradeshow more effective, and more fun. What's your favourite way to be remarkable at an event, so you're not just remembered for the colour of your balloons.
