Coming up with a promotion strategy for your booth at The Event Planner Expo will be the most effective way to connect with the attendees before, during, and after the show. Exhibiting your products or services without a plan will get you nowhere fast and the most operative promotion ideas will always be the ones that are developed precisely with the attendees in mind. Even if The Event Planner Expo is right around the corner, you need to know where to focus your time and energy, rather than randomly trying things out.
For savvy booth marketing you should always be deliberate in your approach. If you are ready to develop a detailed marketing strategy for The Event Planner Expo you should follow the outlined steps below to perfect your action plan.
Prioritize Your Objectives So You Can Stay on Track
Everyone has goals and intentions in their head when they exhibit at The Event Planner Expo. They also have reasons for needing to promote their booth more or differently. Whatever it is, you must figure it out. Before you spend any time or money it’s imperative that you understand the motivations behind your strategy.
This is the first step:
- Make a list of what you want to achieve.
- Quantify your list. For example, “generate 50 solid leads”.
- Reorder the list so your most significant aims are at the top of your list.
Take Stock of Your Resources to Be Realistic
Make a list of the resources, time, and the money you have accessible to you. This means you can take advantage of every possible opportunity and classify a plan based on reality instead of a wish list.
You might be richer than you think:
- Look at your marketing budget. How much is available? If you don’t have much in the pot can you transfer funds from other budget areas? Trim off fat from non-essential elements. After all, The Event Planner Expo will bring in new clientele which leads to added revenue.
- Figure out what you can reuse. If you have a booth that you’ve used at other trade shows, use it again! Use props from events if you need to spice up your exhibit area.
- Know your timescales. How much time do you have for your current marketing campaigns? There’s no point in using up all of your resources in SEO when the expo is approaching, and person-to-person interaction will bring you better results than a few likes or shares on social media.
Make it Measurable and Make Informed Decisions
How do you know if the marketing strategy for your booth is working or if it needs a little tweaking? Measure progress based on responses so that you can track and identify what may need changing. Properly tracking results will allow you to make more informed decisions when it comes to distributing your marketing budget.
Knowledge is power:
- Sync analytics. There’s plenty of tools online to track the statistics and progress of the ads you publish, the email blasts you send out, and even your direct mail campaigns so use them.
- Check frequently. Don’t allow your campaign to go stagnant because you didn’t adjust your strategy based on the data results. If you see one of your marketing strategies is gaining traction, then don’t waste time on the ones that are proving to be less effective.
- Reporting. Make sure your team also has access to the stats so that everyone is working towards the same goal.
Know Who You Are Talking To (or turn them off)
Carefully think about your target audience for The Event Planner Expo because this will influence the methods you use to promote your booth and the ideas that will work best for the attendees.
Attract your perfect attendees:
- Become detailed in terms of who your event is for, and who it isn’t for. Develop personas for your key audience and share with your team to help them improve their marketing mindset. Find out which social media platforms they’re on, their job titles, interests outside of work and whether they’ve attended the expo before.
- Evaluate past attendees and piece together all of the data you have to offer a more methodical approach for participants. Date driven by past registration and survey data are the best place to start.
- Everything you craft needs to speak specifically to your key audience. Understand their pain points and offer them solutions to get their attention. Use the right language, otherwise you will lose credibility and they will bounce away.
Unify Your Brand to have Greater Impact
It’s important that you demonstrate a united front to expand recognition of your booth at the expo and to make your promotional strategy more effective. The last thing you want to appear to be is disorganized in your methodology.
Set the right tone:
- Write editorial and promotional guidelines. This is the easiest way to make sure the whole team is on the same page. Make these guidelines thorough and available to all.
- Make sure your social media platforms match. Whether you have a specific branding for the expo or not, make sure your social media platforms are easily identifiable. Use the same profile pictures, colors, backgrounds, and engage in the same tone.
- Use the same tools backend. Whether it’s scheduling, ads or simply a task manager, make sure you’re all working with the same tools, so nothing gets forgotten and to create drafts for checking and sign off before publishing/sending. Provide training to your staff as necessary.
Conclusion
Nothing ever works without a good plan in place. There is plenty of time to create a strategic plan starting now to get the best outcome at the 2018 Event Planner Expo. This year's speakers will share the expertise to help you succeed in the growing events industry , so if you're struggling to rise in the event planning world you should make it a point to attend this and every year.
