Trade shows or exhibitions are popular sales opportunities for technical businesses, and provide a great example of how effective marketing can complement your sales effort and help you to win more business. They also provide a great example of how \u2018sales\u2019 without \u2018marketing\u2019 can be a waste of your precious money.<\/p>\n
How many companies still attend exhibitions, at great expense, without telling their prospective customers in advance that they\u2019re going, and why they should visit the stand? The answer: lots of them.<\/p>\n
Modern marketing technologies including e-mail, News and Blog feeds (via your website) and social media are low-cost and highly effective methods of communication, enabling you to \u2018warm up\u2019 your contacts before the exhibition \u2013 to tell them that you\u2019re going, where they can find you (hall and stand number), why they should visit you (your unique service offer), and how they can pre-arrange meetings with you. By doing this you\u2019ll be on the front foot when you get there \u2013 with potential customers warmed up and lined up for sales meetings.<\/p>\n
Once the exhibition is underway, your competitors are likely to be doing everything they can to attract your prospective customers to them, with product\/service launches, drinks receptions as well as sustained communications announcing their on-stand activities and service benefits.<\/p>\n
You need to keep communicating with your prospective customers throughout the exhibition, via social media, e-mail or text, to keep you at the forefront of their minds and draw them back to you.<\/p>\n
When your prospective customers get home, they\u2019ll no doubt find a \u2018to do\u2019 list as long as their arm, a pile of paperwork and the usual problems to sort out. There\u2019s a real possibility that they\u2019ll forget about that promising discussion you had at the exhibition, and that your sales effort will lose its momentum. It\u2019s also likely that, while they really like your services, they\u2019re just not ready to buy yet.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where \u2018lead nurturing\u2019 comes in. First of all you need to get those prospective customers onto your marketing database, and connect with them via social media. Then you need to \u2018keep the conversation going\u2019 by providing them with targeted information that \u2018solves their problems\u2019 \u2013 about how you can increase their productivity, reduce their down time, maximise their profits. This will keep you and your services at the forefront of their minds and gradually build their trust in you, making them more likely to come to you when they\u2019re ready to buy.<\/p>\n
As we highlighted last month your marketing should be little and often, don’t stop just because your back from the exhibition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Trade shows or exhibitions are popular sales opportunities for technical businesses, and provide a great example of how effective marketing can complement your sales effort and help you to win more business. They also provide a great example of how \u2018sales\u2019 without \u2018marketing\u2019 can be a waste of your precious money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n