In creating the optimal marketing mix, more time, resources and money are going into digital and online. But there’s one form of B2B marketing that’s still going strong, and that’s the Old School Trade Show. Trade shows, next to webinars and whitepapers, continue to be one of the most effective forms of B2B marketing. And while webinars and whitepapers have gone digital, trade shows have not.
There are three big reasons why trade shows are so important for B2B marketing:
#1: Face-to-face interaction
According to Media Post, live events remain the top lead generation source for B2B marketers. There’s something about “live” events that makes them special. For one, you get the type of face-to-face interaction that’s simply not possible anywhere else. Think about all the one-on-one talks you get to have over the course of several days. In contrast, with other forms of marketing, it’s essentially broadcast communications – you talking to a lot of other people at the same time.
All of that face-to-face interaction is good for building better customer relationships. After all, B2B marketing, in contrast to B2C marketing, is much more about these relationships. For one, there’s more money at stake. It’s hard to get rid of, say, a brand new computer system once you’ve installed it, so you want to make sure it’s the very best choice for your organization. That means there has to be a certain degree of trust between buyer and seller.
#2: New customer experiences
You can think of the trade show in very basic terms – buying a booth and then staffing that booth with knowledgeable sales and marketing reps for the duration of the trade show. Or, you can start to think in more nuanced terms – you are really creating a new type of customer experience, where your potential customers can have hands-on access to your products.
Think about the standard product demo – the trade show environment gives you room to create a more theatrical product demo than might be possible using a slick video on your website. You want to be able to attract people who might never have thought about buying your product, as well as entertain, inform and delight those people who are seriously considering your product.
#3: Solutions not products
Trade shows are an opportunity to introduce people to the brand, not just the product. At any trade show booth, you have more than just a single product on display. More than likely, you have an entire suite of products or services. And, to sell all those products, you’ve maybe created a short video, a whitepaper, a brochure and all kinds of other marketing collateral with your brand on it.
The reason this is so important because it starts the customer thinking about “solutions” not products. You are not just selling a one-off product, you are selling a whole suite of services that fit together. B2B software is one obvious area where this “suite of solutions” approach works. But in just about any vertical – IT, communications, transportation or construction – you’re really selling the ability to integrate all those offerings in an effective manner.
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Thus, for these three reasons – the face-to-face interaction, the ability to shape a new customer experience, and the ability to map out comprehensive solutions rather than individual products – the venerable old trade show is here to stay.
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Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.