|
Get More From the AHR Expo
As a technologically
advanced Society we need to leverage the tools that are put in front of
us, and what social media does is provides trade show vendors with the
opportunity to maximize every moment that they are at the show to gain
customers, and increase brand awareness.
|
Manny
Mandrusiak,
Executive Director, Q College
and Q Academy
Contributing Editor
|
It
is time again for the AHR Expo, and over 60,000 people are expected to
attend and interact with over 2,000 exhibitors. What that means
for those looking to leverage social media to increase their sales, and
brand awareness, is that it is time to get excited.
According to
Bigthink.com, the average Facebook user has around 338 friends
(estimated). That means if 60,000 people attend the expo then
vendors leveraging social media have the potential to reach 20.28
million viewers of their products and services. If that was not
reason enough to come up with a social media strategy for the AHR Expo,
then perhaps the following tips will:
Before the Expo
I have no doubt
that vendors have already reached out to their clients to see who is
attending, so what I like to do the morning of the event is check the
event hashtags, and social media feeds, for interesting people or
companies.
Sometimes vendors
will get the attendee list, and sometimes it is not until the end of
the show. What I prefer is to do is create my own list of
potential people that I want to interact with, or gain as a
customer. What I do is look at the followers of the event on
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, and look at what company
that they work from and how many followers they have. Then I’ll
look at targeting them to either meet them somewhere on the event
floor, connect with them on social media to talk about the event or
bring them to my booth to get their opinion on one of my products.
What this does is increase traffic to your booth with people who you
have converted to a warm lead (by warm lead I mean someone who I have
already broken the ice with), and get these people looking at your
social media feeds and site.
I used this
technique at a trade show that I attended two years ago, when I was a
new vendor. I hit the social media feeds of the event and created
a 20-person contact list, and I hit their profiles. By doing that
I managed to meet 18 of those people and make connections the next
day. Out of that, I sold services to nine of them, so I increased
my brand awareness and made money. Do not dismiss one minute of
the AHR show as a minute where you can’t be engaging one of those
60,000 people attending.
During the Expo
If I could use two
words to describe what should be done during the show, they are “engage
people.” We live in a society where mobile devices and social
media make us people who want “instant gratification.” We want to
see engagement, and we want answers, now. Facebook Live and
Instagram provide vendors with the ability to stream live presentations
from their booths to their followers on product demos, or customer
reviews. These video feeds are hugely popular, and people love to
attend them. By making your customers the stars of the event,
they will be more than happy to show their brand loyalty by reposting
your posts and raving about your products.
When customer’s
visit your booth and they give you their names, connect with them on
social media and LinkedIn. This action humanizes your company by
showing that as a person working the event, you are a person, and not
part of the corporate machine. By doing this, you let customers
get to see your profile and identify with your posts, and builds trust
because you remembered who they were. The time that they spent
with you talking about your latest product at the booth was memorable
and really leverages a good level of digital customer service.
Back in the day, I
used to love to push out a press release about a new partnership, or
product launch while at a trade show. These days when you are not
leveraging Facebook Live or Instagram, there is Snapchat.
Now Snapchat offers
users the ability to pay for geofiltered campaigns where someone
conducting a campaign draws a geofence around the targeted area.
For example, a trade show arena. A vendor could produce a series
of 10-second videos that are targeted to the specific trade show venue
and then blast your message to everyone in the geofence area who has
Snapchat with your message. This is a very powerful way to
leverage the fact that your target audience in grouped in a specific
area and can receive a message that wants them to move to your booth
for a specific reason. Snapchat is just one of the newest tools
that can be leveraged by vendors to create a larger lead generation
funnel.
After the Show
After
the show is just as important as during the show. Everyone who
went through your booth is a potential connection on social media and
LinkedIn. These people have already expressed interest in your
company’s products and services, and now they need to remain connected
to you as a sales rep / marketer.
LinkedIn connects
people on a business level and provides you with the ability to not
only remain connected to the people that you met at the trade show but
to also gain potential access to passing your messages to their
network. This is a long tail strategy that builds brand awareness
and builds a warm client list.
Connecting on
Facebook is a little more personal as friending people from a trade
show lets them have a look at your profile and personal life. It
works well for long-term clients with whom you have a relationship with
because it humanizes a salesperson and solidifies brand integrity.
Connecting on
Twitter and Instagram after the show continues to expand a corporate
footprint and build a cold customer base that is waiting for more
information to become a warm lead.
In Conclusion
I simply love live
events and trade shows. I’m old school and always embrace the
opportunity to get face-time with a potential client. As a
technologically advanced Society we need to leverage the tools that are
put in front of us, and what social media does is provides trade show
vendors with the opportunity to maximize every moment that they are at
the show to gain customers, and increase brand awareness. By
leveraging these techniques you’ll be totally bagged by the time the
show is over, but the entire point of investing in a trade show is to
be able to perform closed loop marketing and equate a dollar value in
sales to the investment in the show.
Have a great show everyone!
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