Issue: 2
July 2010
Please note that the text below is from issue 2 of the EMC Business Bulletin.
If you are exhibiting at the 2010 EMC Symposium, now is the time that most exhibitors start to tell the attendee audience why they should visit their booth. The days of simply showing up to a tradeshow and hoping for buyers to walk by are long gone. These days, to get a return on the increasing cost of exhibiting, research shows companies must also promote their exhibit. The key is to do it before the show. Attendees’ schedules are busy, so most have at least an outline plan of how they will spend their time; therefore, exhibitors must get on the attendees’ agendas before the show.
Over the last few years I’ve seen some pretty good ideas on how to achieve this. Here are my top 5 ideas, used by other Interference Technology clients, to energize their past EMC Symposium sales and marketing efforts:
TOP 5
- Survey attendees prior to the show, to see who is attending, likely purchasing needs, etc., followed up by sales team efforts to set up one-on-one meetings at the event. Needs good organization skills, but very effective.
- Entry to a prize promotion at the exhibitors’ booth. The trick here is to be creative with the prize – make sure you offer something that appeals specifically to engineers (and not to kids and families!). Then “promote the promotion” before the show and during the show on a daily basis. Prize promotions should have an element of fun, so don’t be afraid to hype it. For example, did you see the NEC Informatec / Wii promotion last year with the Japanese cowgirls??
- Free copies of new whitepaper, app note, catalog to pick up at the exhibitor’s booth. Content is king! So if you have valuable information to offer, let attendees know where they can get it!
- Invitation to a special event, e.g. product demo, presentation, technical paper. This works best if you require some kind of pre-registration to attend.
- Free sample at the booth (mostly by EMI components and materials suppliers). You can enhance your free sample offers by also putting on demos in your booth showing how the EMI component or material works. And don’t forget to collect the contact information of everyone who takes a sample.
4 SYMPOSIUM MARKETING TOOLS
Most of these ideas were communicated to the attendees (and non-attendees) using different Interference Technology electronic media tools, that we offer around the Symposium event. Over the next few weeks, we will be publishing a series of 4 different media to the attendee (and non-attendee) audience, which can be leveraged by exhibitors as sales and marketing tools. Find out how other EMC suppliers have built contacts, leads and their brands around the Symposium, and throughout the year in our report, “Sales and Marketing Tools for the 2010 EMC Symposium.”
