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Business events involve a plethora of marketing and sales activities including research, public relations, lead generation, selling, brand building, to name some of them. They are basically PR campaigns amalgamated with sales calls. You cannot really take them as simply marketing or simply sales moves. But you could call them a hybrid of marketing and sales activity. Business marketers spend billions of dollars on corporate events and [http://www.fantastictradeshows.com/shows/ tradeshow marketing].apparelnews.net Corporate events could be anything like road shows and client conferences.jumousa.com The trouble lies in the fact that the business marketers are quite unaware of what they achieve out of these investments. Here are a few things to consider while we aim at how these events can be best planned and strategized. The marketing strategy should feature hosting of events that drives the best result.
If we continue with the tactics that we always have had, without considering the ROI, it could end up in sheer expenses. The business objective should be of prime concern and the event should be in the right lever to meet the objective. A good event is only about targeted visitors. It is no use having a fabulous booth but not the right people for business. A lot of planning and discipline goes into arranging events and trade shows. While designing and planning tradeshows and events, make a plan to attract the potential buyers and cut down on the list of visitors that are non prospects. Be precise on how you choose the visitors and work on the marketing plan accordingly. Plan and then use the funds and in course of time, measure the returns. Business events should not be too difficult to measure.
Corporate events should be measured according to specific marketing plans. Corporate events are an expensive way to build your mailing list up. There are other compelling options in the marketing toolkit. So even if you manage to draw more customers to your tradeshow that is less jazzed up than that of your competitors' and you get more targeted customers than them, it proves you did your homework well. A well planned business event marketing activity thus works well towards a stronger ROI. You cannot rely on the D-Day shows only. You must have promotional shows too.scoremoresales.com Promotions are much needed to draw the targeted attendance.
You must aim at getting quality contacts. Lead capture is a crucial part of the lead management process. Diligence and attention is what is needed for lead capture. Build a strong lead base before going into any more investment in event marketing. Business, as we all know is all about people, and a successful corporate event is all about gathering the right people for business. Targeting the best audience and catering to them leads to good business. Select, motivate, and train the sales and marketing team for the best lead capture. Managing events is certainly not a child's play. You have a myriad of activities starting from setting the event venue up, the jazzy exhibits, the hospitality part of it and also the logistics. Pay good attention to every single aspect of it to get a good turnover in business. Automating your business processes and work flows with online event registration techniques should increase the efficiency of your staff. Acteva's integrated and comprehensive business solutions help you with event registration, attendee relationship management, and community networks. You can now create, promote, sell and manage all corporate events, enterprise training, workshops, product launches, Expos and Tradeshows quite effortlessly.
Trade show exhibiting is one of the most cost effective direct marketing tools available to business today. But while some trade show exhibitors seem to always hit home runs when they exhibit at trade shows, other trade show exhibitors seem to regularly strike out. To be a successful trade show exhibitor, one needs to bring traffic to their trade show booth. Unfortunately, many trade show exhibitors confuse quantity and quality. A high volume of trade show booth traffic isn't very helpful if it isn't quality traffic. The key to successfully promoting one's trade show booth is to focus on getting QUALIFIED PROSPECTS.
With this in mind, let's discuss three common trade show booth promotion mistakes. Many companies sign up to exhibit at a trade show and then leave it at that. They figure that they'll sit in their booth and attendees will just show up. Studies have shown just the opposite. Many attendees make it to less than half of the trade show booths at a show. The good news is that most attendees will make it to the booths that they hear about in advance and then make plans to visit. The lesson to learn is this: if you don't promote your booth, you may find yourself sitting alone for a significant part of the show. A common trade show booth promotion technique is to have a raffle or giveaway.
You tell people to drop their business card in a fishbowl and one lucky person will win an IPOD or other such thing at the end of the show. The problem with this approach is that your giveaway has nothing to do with your product or service. You may end up with a stack of business cards, but when you start cold calling people you'll find that they just wanted to win the IPOD, and they have no interest in your business. Another common mistake is to hire a magician or other entertainer to perform at your trade show booth.
The problem with this approach is that people will want to watch the entertainer, not talk with you. And again, they'll probably have no interest in your company. Even worse, you may end up with a wall of non-prospects blocking access to your booth for those people who are prospects. SO WHAT SHOULD YOU DO? The key with any trade show promotion is that it should target QUALIFIED PROSPECTS. First, you need to determine who your prospects are, and what makes them qualified prospects (so that you know who to target and how). Then I always recommend sending out a pre-show mailer to all the registered attendees. Two mailers spaced out are even better.
Your mailer should tell attendees about your booth, what you'll be showing, and why they should stop by. At the show, you want to be sure to have a trade show booth that has bold, eye-catching graphics, and that tells attendees what you do and how you can help them. Your trade show booth graphics need to bring in QUALIFIED prospects, not every random Joe that walks by. Next, any promotion that you do must attract qualified prospects. If you are going to have a raffle, consider having it for a chance to win one of your products or services.
The only people that will enter are people that need your product or service. You'll stand a better chance of selling to those that don't win when you call them, as opposed to the person that just wanted the free IPOD. If you do have a raffle for an unrelated item, be sure to ask each person a set of questions before your enter them. The set of questions should determine if they are qualified prospect, and whether you want to spend your time calling them after the show. The key to successfully promoting your trade show booth is to remember that you want to bring in qualified prospects. Any promotion you do should result in a list of qualified prospects, not a stack of business cards from everyone that attended the show. Doing your promotion right will make your post-show follow-up much easier and far more enjoyable.
As part of our series Pro Tool, we're looking for that must-have device in your line of work, be it a pair of scissors, notebook, or bicycle. The next item in our series? A deck of cards. Professional: Scott Tokar, tradeshow magician. Pro Tool: Bee Stingers playing cards. Click the media player above to hear more. As a nonprofit news organization, what matters to us is the same thing that matters to you: being a source for trustworthy, independent news that makes people smarter about business and the economy. So if Marketplace has helped you understand the economy better, make more informed financial decisions or just encouraged you to think differently, we’re asking you to give a little something back. Become a Marketplace Investor today - in whatever amount is right for you - and keep public service journalism strong. We’re grateful for your support.
It often surprises me how little thought and efforts wholesale suppliers put into the preparation of their stalls and sales staffs’ training for a tradeshow. If you have decided to participate in a tradeshow, it is important to avail the opportunity and make proper efforts to utilize it. Careful consideration is required to pick the tradeshow that would best suit your business niche, earns you maximum return on investment and justifies your attendance. The prime purpose to attend a tradeshow is to get your customers’ attention and your competitors are there with similar goals. Here are some tips from Wholesale Page’s experts, which will help you make the most from your wholesale tradeshow presence.
Tradeshows give equal opportunity to everyone to promote their Wholesale Products and services before the target audience but to justify your presence at a tradeshow and ensure success you need to be specific about your business objectives. You should decide if it is about getting more leads, entering into a new market venture, introducing a new product, or maintaining your market position. Instead of attracting them to see ‘what we have got ’, you must give a particular message to your audience. Focus more on your objectives and you will certainly have a successful tradeshow presence. If you are taking part in a particular tradeshow, you have to work more on its marketing aspect and begin the preparations well before the tradeshow begins.
Do not just rely on those pre-printed invitation cards or flyers that tradeshow organisers send to corporate buyers. Corporate buyers will receive these invitations not just from tradeshow organisers but from several other wholesale suppliers as well. You can standout among your competitors by personalizing your invitation message. You must give a reason to corporate customers to meet you at the tradeshow. What to do to get attention? The sales booths that are managed poorly, have uninviting display and apparently nothing special to get attention, fail to attract visitors. Decent budget is required to highlight your stall with lights, electronic boards and multimedia yet there are many other things that you can do make your booth appealing. A creative approach and tempting message can get you visitors as well as potential customers’ attention.
For instance, address issues in your display message instead of listing down the solutions you provide. For instance, instead of saying ‘Get legal consultation from us’, you can write, ‘want to protect your assets from creditors? ’ or ‘find how to reduce tax’. Though both messages have the same meaning but have different impacts on the visitors. Stand in front of your booth with welcoming body language and smile. Invite people to your booth and communicate with visitors in an easy to understand language. Leave your company jargons in office. Communicate with visitors and indulge them in conversation with the help of literature such as premium brochures and with samples of wholesale products or demo of services that you offer.
Leave them with a smile and assure them that you will post these brochures to them later so it can save them from the hassle of carrying it all along day around. Posting a brochure is itself a follow up. If you will keep these few pointers in mind, you can surely make the most from your next tradeshow presence. Author's Bio: Sasha Gibbs is the Marketing Analyst at Wholesale Pages and has been sharing her expertise on Wholesale Products for many years. Please Register or Login to post new comment. Data or Technical Plan: Professionals Can Help you Ace it!
There is nothing that will boost your product more than a powerful pitch. If the story regarding your product is compelling enough, you don't even have to have a booth (The owner of my company, got an order without a booth, so I have first hand knowledge of that happening). I am not suggesting that you don't get a booth, so don't report me to the booth police. However, if your pitch produces a yawn, the most attractive booth won't save you! You might as well save your dignity by writing a check for the cost to exhibit and staying home. Okay, I recognize that what I have said might seem harsh and I am not trying to scare anyone, but even a supplier in deep denial should recognize the truth of that statement. Here is the bad part; most people think that what they have to say is interesting.
I hope that I am not the only one who has done this, but someone was telling me a story and I was thinking, "blah, blah, blah, please let this end". The point is don't let your product's life end by delivering a boring pitch. The question is: How do you know if your pitch is boring or compelling? You have to figure out what is interesting to your audience and test the pitch with a thick-skinned attitude. Test your pitch on someone who is allowed to be brutally honest and don't get defensive. Remember that your money is going to go down the drain if you don't produce a good pitch. Before you can test your pitch, you have to develop one and sometimes that can be difficult.
There is help available. 1. It gives you a profile of all of the attendees and their roles, so you know who you are talking to and can tailor a pitch to what your target might find appealing. 2. It gives you the elements of an effective pitch, so you have a blueprint to follow. 3. It provides you with some do's and don'ts, so you don't make the critical mistakes buyers have said they hate (the author listened to a panel of buyers detailing their likes and dislikes).toptenwholesale.com 4. It provides you with some examples to get you started. 5. It is a training manual for you and your staff to ensure that everyone is on the same page.