The Petoskey and Traverse City home shows are a few months away and there is still time for Northern Michigan businesses to prepare for how they can maximize those events. Many businesses devote all their resources slated for an event to the exhibit or the activity on the show floor. These tips from MyNorth Media share ideas on how to set the stage with customers and potential customers before the event and how to follow up after the event is over.
To break through the clutter of all the messages bombarding consumers today, a marketer should hope to deliver his marketing message a minimum of three times. If one hears a message three times, one is more likely to remember it. In events, if your prospect hears a message before, during and after the event you’ve hit the three-time minimum.
So here are some methods of delivering a message three times around your participation at a home show:
Pre-Event Communications
Tell your current customers, prospects, suppliers, industry opinion leaders and journalists what you’ll be doing at the home show, including new products, demonstrations, special offers and tips you’ll be sharing.
• Signs in your store• Flyers in customer bags
• Flyers in your statements, invoices and other mailings
• On your website, facebook, MyNorth.com Community, Twitter
• Your Blog in MyNorth.com’s Community
• On hold and voicemail messages
• Your signatures on all your emails
• Email newsletters
• Advertising (include your booth number and any new products you’ll be demonstrating)• Press releases
Post-Event Communications
Follow up with prospects from the show as well as all the audiences in your pre-event communications. More than 85% of the materials taken away from a show end up in the recycle bin.
• Repeat all the pre-event communications• Email your audiences to update them on what happened at the show and offer any special deal extensions
• In your advertising, continue the messages you started in the pre-show communications adding, “as seen at the xyz show.”
• Follow up with journalists that attended the show and offer to send samples or provide more details about your products and services.
• Talk about what attendees learned at the show on your website, facebook, MyNorth.com Community, Twitter—and of course, in your MyNorth Community Blog. • Share the materials you provided at the show and photos of your booth.
Next month … Ideas on how to build your prospect list at the show …