“THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX”
by Contributor
(Mar. 24, 2016) — Many brands have realized the importance of attending events and industry tradeshows from a marketing perspective. Not only can you increase visibility for your business at these events, but you can also network with others in the industry who may be interested in your company and what it has to offer. However, it’s no longer enough to simply hand business cards out and prepare for speaker sessions. Instead, businesses need to take things a bit further, be a little more creative if you will. Below are some of the ways that the most successful businesses are getting creative with their events marketing strategies.
Up Your Game on Social Media
Social media is huge, and this has never been truer for the events industry. There are a number of ways you can use social media to your advantage.
As early as possible, take the time to look up the social media profiles associated with the event and start interacting with them. Retweet relevant posts they publish, share insight with the event organizers on LinkedIn, and make use of the Hashtag to make other industry leaders aware of the fact that you are interested in the upcoming event. If the event has a Facebook group set up, join this and share information related to your brand, in addition to answering other people’s questions. If you’re smart, you could also use social media to set up meetings with influential people in your industry.
Make Use of Apps
Apps for events are a relatively new thing, but many event organizers are finding them useful for building engagement both before as well as throughout the event itself. Click here for an event app that you can fully customize to make your event interactive and memorable. One of the best things about event apps is that they can be set up in a relatively small amount of time, and can be used to collect opinions, share experiences, and facilitate networking opportunities. If you are organizing an event, a mobile app should be one of the first things you look into obtaining.
Encourage Fun from Your Booth
Most businesses use their booths to simply demonstrate the products or services they have to offer. However, this is quite boring, and if you follow the majority of companies, you won’t attract as many new leads and customers as you could. Instead, think of fun things that you can do from your booth. One idea is to set up a competition with incentives to participate. You could also ask people visiting your booth to take a selfie next to your brand and tweet it to their followers. At the end of the event, you could then host a draw and award the lucky winner with a prize. Yes, you will have to foot the money for the prize, but this should be nominal compared to the amount of exposure you gain from industry leaders and network prospects.
If you want your next event to be a success, you need to think outside the box. These three creative ideas should help you to get started.