Business events, such as trade shows, conferences, and networking sessions, can be a valuable tool in promoting your business product or service. Not only do these events provide opportunities to showcase products and services, but they also allow for face-to-face interactions with potential clients and partners. Additionally, attending industry events can provide insight into emerging trends and challenges within the market, helping marketing experts stay ahead of the curve. As such, we professionals must understand the various benefits of business events and develop strategies for leveraging them effectively.
Today I run through some simple strategies you can use to maximise your event experience and a list of quick takeaways.
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Transcript (Unedited)
The importance of having a well-planned and executed event cannot be overstated. It’s all too common to overlook crucial details, like having a clear goal or a hero content piece, until it’s too late. To avoid such issues, here are a few things that any informed comms pro should consider.
Firstly, it’s crucial to have a specific goal in mind for your event. Whether you’re launching a product, publishing a report, or recruiting, it’s important to know what you want to achieve from the outset.
Secondly, it’s vital to research your audience, so you can tailor your messaging to their interests and needs. This includes understanding what’s hot (and not) in your industry, as well as connecting with fellow speakers or panellists to explore potential commonalities. Doing these things can also help you to promote your event more effectively on social media.
Thirdly; having your post-event follow-up prepared before the event is always a good practice. This ensures that when you’re tired and your feet ache after the event, you won’t have to worry about talking to people or drafting emails. Your pre-prepared email will already have CTAs, information about your website, and contact details. It’s also a good idea to include a picture of your stand to give it a personal touch. This allows you to respond to inquiries and follow up on leads promptly without any added hassle. Ultimately, preparing in advance can save you time and effort in the long run.
Other strategies are useful such as;
It’s worth considering repurposing existing content or piggybacking on current news topics, both of which can lend freshness and relevance to your event.
And it’s important to remember that your event is primarily a learning opportunity, rather than a sales pitch. By keeping this in mind, and by decoupling your success metrics from your sales figures, you can help ensure that your event is informative, engaging, and ultimately successful.
Ensuring you create a buzz around your trade show experience is important, social media is a great tool to utilise. People are eager to hear about what they missed out on. Why not post a brief LinkedIn summary of your experience, highlighting any noteworthy interactions or takeaways? Be sure to act quickly as people tend to lose interest in such content as time goes on. Regardless of length or platform, remember to focus on the key aspects of your experience that stood out the most. By doing so, you’ll increase your brand’s visibility and provide value to those who couldn’t attend the trade show themselves.
Finally measuring success is vital – what does success look like and how will you get there? Making sure you have metrics in place that will
Here are some quick-reference takeaways for you;
– Have a clear goal for your event
– Research and understand your audience
– Have a hero piece of content that covers your goal
– Organize a pre-copy at your stand to make meaningful connections with people
– Piggyback on particular news agendas to repurpose and use something with a new perspective
– Include an interactive element to reach your goal
– Research what’s hot and what’s not to ensure that the topic of your talk is not stale
– Connect with fellow panellists and tag them to increase your reach on social media
– Decouple your talk from your sales lead stats and instead focus on educating your audience