The digital marketing team here at Flywheel certainly loves to geek out on lead collection tactics and the most strategic ways to draw in contacts and increase our client’s total sales. Tradeshows are a unique opportunity to build those tactics and test them.
Try these integrated activities we have executed for our B2B clients in the last few months to increase total leads, total sales, and brand recognition.
(Note: On all these platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google, you do not pay for impressions, just clicks! So impressions are free for all eyeballs)
LinkedIn Pre and Post
Plan to run LinkedIn ads prior to the show by about 4 days, the days of the show, and 1 week after to bookend the tradeshow. Use these tactics and activities for this platform:
- Target the key companies you think might be attending, showcasing your key benefit, booth # and demo booking options.
- use LinkedIn’s lead collection option in conjunction with your general ads. It gets 2 times the impressions than your general ads. We seem to have mixed results with contact collection but considering the increase in views it is worth adding.
- drive these contacts to a webpage on your site dedicated to the upcoming trade show where you are taking contact details to book a demo. Making sure to show your booth number, giveaways or contests, show discounts, contact numbers at the show. We have also personalized the landing page to specific companies and specialized our LinkedIn ads. Key here is to use partnership language
Facebook On the Side
We love this tactic because the focus here is just to show your potential clients that you are everywhere. We don’t see Facebook being a part of your everyday advertising but here it helps drive leads, get eyeballs and usually a bunch of clicks. We use these activities and strategies for Facebook:
- when people arrive anywhere, especially by plane, they check their social accounts right when they land and while they take the taxi to the hotel. We geo-target all our Facebook ads surrounding the airport, the downtown core where the majority of hotels are, and the location of the show. For example, for shows in Las Vegas we always serve ads at the airport, all along the strip and at the show location. The goal here is to make sure your brand and presence is following them throughout their time at the show. They end up walking by your booth, they know you, and are more inclined to interact. Also you look like a big player in the space and more connected than your competitor.
- sometimes Facebook users are not going to have interests related to the industry focus of the show, like construction or logistics, so you need to make sure you target your audience with their potential hobbies or likes. Using interests like sports leagues, TV shows, magazines or websites will make sure you hit a large audience.
- Make sure your ad copy is very specific to the show. That way you don’t have wasted clicks resulting in wasted budget. We are counting on the audience to self select and only click if they are in town for the show.
Google Geofenced In
A major goal with these ads is to increase impressions and brand recognition. While we would love each activity to provide clicks, some of these activities are geared at increasing recognition. These activities target those people who are searching the show site, your original keywords, while growing your impression totals. Here are some key activities:
- build ads, both remarketing and search, just like the other platforms telling people your booth #, etc. Make them very specific to your show offer.
- use keywords related to the trade show name for those people looking for the show website. Plus use all your existing keywords. This way you get industry searches as well all show searches.
- fence these ads into a specific area in the city the show is in, using the show location as the center point.
Website Customized
Taking time to customize your site with some unique pages will pay off. Having a show specific page helps show your key show opportunities, making sure to collect contact information for demos or call backs. If you know a large group from one company or buyer or distributor will be in attendance we recommend having a specific data collection page for them, using specific partner like language or showcasing benefits about your product you know they need, like 24hr customer service or product flexibility, etc.
- make sure the click off the ad is direct to these pages without added clicks.
- include blogs or articles on these pages your potential customers might be interested in. This will increase your thought leadership and/or might help convert those leads on the fence.
- add in the logo of the company you are targeting, make it feel more like a partnership and that you are focus specifically on the needs of that particular company.
We would love to help you increase your sales at your next trade show.