Recently Exhibitor Magazine put out a Social Media Marketing survey, which surveyed almost 8,000 trade show exhibitors.  This survey was conducted because of the large social media boom in the business world.  In fact, facebook alone grew by 42 million people from January and July of 2009.  With this large growth, the trade show and event world is keeping a close eye on social media marketing and deciding what it means to them.

Although a few companies that have utilized social media in the exhibit and event world, many of them are waiting to see if social media is just a fad or if it will result in a revolutionary change to trade show and event world.  The survey showed that over two-thirds of the respondents have used social media sites as part of their marketing strategies for trade shows and events.  Those who have utilized social media have reported an increase in brand awareness and enriched the relationships with their clients, increased booth traffic and even an increase in sales.  In fact, 58% of respondents of the survey believe that social media has moderate potential for exhibit and event marketing.  90% of the respondents insisted that social media has unlimited potential in the face-to-face marketing events.  Of the different types of social media, the two channels that show the most potential with trade shows and events are
Facebook and Twitter.  Even with exhibit and event professionals admitting that social media could be very beneficial, only 31% of the respondents claimed that they have effectively used social media with exhibit marketing and only 24% of them have used it effectively with event marketing.

What is the biggest hurdle for companies when it comes to using social media with their events and trade show exhibits?  In one word, TIME!  The companies lack the time that is needed to effectively use social media as part of their event and exhibit marketing campaigns.  This is why so many companies are starting to outsource this service to agencies that specialize in how to use social media in the trade show and event world.  This will most likely continue to be the trend until it is determined if social media is here to stay.

Do you think social media is here to stay?  If so, how will it affect the trade show exhibit and event world?

If you want to view the results of the survey visit: www.ExhibitorWebLinks.com.

I just went to an American Marketing Association Boston event yesterday on the importance of inbound marketing for companies.  It was said that the idea behind inbound marketing is to put out rich content that your qualified leads would be interested in.  This content is then put out through different channels of distribution such as your website, blog, facebook page, linkedin page, and short snips of this content on twitter.  The more rich and relevant the content is, the more valuable you appear to be to search engines as well as your potential clients.  In doing so, this helps your search engine optimization, which allows these qualified leads to find you over your competition and for you to stay in contact with these leads.

Hearing some of the comments from the inbound marketing experts got me thinking about how this can be applied to trade shows.

Your exhibit booth should follow many of these same guidelines:

1.  Clearly convey your message to attract people interested in what you do.

All too often I have walked trade show floors, looking at booths with absolutely no idea what they did.  Now I’m not saying you should have a paragraph of information on your booth walls, but you do need to come up with a clear and simple way to convey exactly what you do to the qualified attendees in under three seconds.

2.  Inbound marketing relies on the value of your content specific to your qualified leads.  In this process it filters through all of the people on the web and connects you to those interested in what you do.  At a trade show, exhibitors give away things of value to the attendees, but all too often what the exhibitors give away are not filtering through all of the attendees to find those interested in your services.  Who is interested in getting an ipod?  Everyone!  An ipod giveaway does not qualify any of these leads; however, if you give away something of specific value to your qualified leads, such as an extended trial of your services or helpful tips, it will help attract your qualified leads.

Most people give up on their New Year’s resolution workout plan within the first three weeks of January.  Then everything is back to normal at the gym – it’s not crowded.  People come to the gym with the mindset that in one week of lifting weights or walking on the treadmill or taking a cardio-kickboxing class they will see instant weight loss.  The gym provides you with the tools to get you healthy.  But, you need to know how to use them correctly to achieve success.  If no weight loss occurs, people perceive exercise as a waste of time.

In general, the correlation between exercise and diet that results in successful weight loss is simple.  If calories in is less than calories burned, then you lose weight.  This is a simple concept, but weight loss success requires discipline and attention.

Relative to trade shows, if you had access to systems that increased your trade show qualified leads in the range of 50% – 600%, would you use it?  Of course you would.  Now that you have increased your leads, what did you do with them?

Based on CEIR statistics, 79% of all trade show leads are not even contacted.  If you had a tool that would allow you to follow up with a qualified customer before they even left your booth, would you use it?  How many more sales do you think you can make from that show?  I have clients that have not hired me back to help them work their booths because they could not close sales after the show  If no sales, people perceive trade shows as a waste of time.  A closed loop system is necessary. Trade show exhibitors must go into a trade show with a plan, not just for setting up and being there, but also for what happens afterwards.

The correlation between trade show leads and sales is easy to understand.  Success happens when you take the qualified (warm to hot) lead from the trade show floor and proceed toward closing the sale.  Then, track and record your follow up opportunities and finalize as no potential, marketing potential or closed business.  Now you can truly know your return.  This too is simple but requires discipline and attention.

Like exercise, lead generation is invigorating because there is a lot of activity with the hope of great results.  Did you get results?  Could you achieve more?  I want you to have success.  Maintain your focus or hire an expert.  The best is that if you do, not only will you have done your exercise to generate leads, but you will have become fat with sales.