6 Steps To Make Events SuccessFul

Do exhibitions still have a place in a world obsessed with digital, social media and inbound marketing?

In my misspent youth, I attended exhibitions nearly every other month and to be honest, they usually turned into a competition to see who could get the most freebies!

So in a world adopting content marketing strategies, is there still room in the marketing mix for exhibitions?

I have to admit whenever I was approached by Sales to exhibit at ‘The Greatest Sales Expo On Earth’ the answer was a most resound ‘No!’, I was all about webinars, ebooks, whitepapers, guides, blogs – content, content, content! That was until recently…

Working for Maximizer CRM, I spend my working life telling people about the importance of building and managing customer relationships by listening to customers’ wants and needs, and via our online Customer Suggestion Box, we achieve this. However, when I was reviewing the suggestions we received, I started thinking – we listen to our customers, but how do we hear from prospects?

Social Media CRM is usually the route taken, but if your brand awareness does not mirror the likes of Tesco’s or Ford, seeking input from a cold audience can be difficult. So, in a bid to try anything, I attended a couple of local Networking events – and they were so useful I asked myself ‘why isn’t every business doing the same?'

  How exhibitions can work as a part of the marketing mix

At both events, I concentrated my time on listening to other Senior Managers talk about their pressure points, what’s stopping them doing business, what are their ‘bug-bears’ etc. and avoided the usual ‘business-card collection obsession’. Don’t get me wrong, I came away with several business cards, but more importantly a wealth of information – and this is how exhibitions and events have a place in the world of inbound marketing!

After the two events, I sat down with the Maximizer Management Team and I reported the findings from my listening exercise, conveying that SME businesses in particular were struggling with declining productivity. In short, companies were retaining staff and facing increasing costs, but generating the same or reduced revenue income.

This discovery led to the commission of our latest research report ‘The Productivity Puzzle’, an in-depth review into the productivity crisis UK & EMEA businesses are facing. Using the report and the proposed solution, we created an ebook ‘Increasing your Business Productivity’ which has also proven very popular.

So, now I am keen to attend and exhibit at local networking events, not to generate leads, but to generate ideas that help deliver a content marketing strategy and more importantly, provide SME’s with a CRM solution that helps them overcome problems and achieve their business goals.

In relation to our report on productivity, if this is an issue you are facing, please feel free to download the research report and the mentioned ebook to help identify which internal processes could benefit more from a productivity overhaul.