2019 - The Knowledge | Navigating the modern B2B marketing ... · THE EXPERIENTIAL ISSUE Can...

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THEEXPERIENTIAL

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10 / EXPERIENTIAL’S POTENTIAL

Elevating your stand or booth

13 / BEYOND THE EXHIBITION

Roundtables, focus groups and more

05 /IT’S YOUR STORYMake sure it’s heard

LIGHTS,CAMERA...

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Trade shows and exhibitions have been a mainstay in the B2B world for such a long time now, surely there’s no need to question their effectiveness in the buyer’s journey?

Think again: in this increasingly digital age, we need to take another look at their impact on ROI for businesses, who are having to go bigger and bolder with exhibition offerings in order to appeal to younger and more digitally savvy customers.

Beyond products and furniture

Everything is expected to be ‘instagrammable’ nowadays, and exhibitions are no different. Gone are the days of people, furniture and dry statistics; visitors expect to see the latest technology, engaging activities and a brand story they’ll remember.

With 81% of trade show visitors having buying authority and 92% of overall attendees looking for new products, it’s essential your stand gets the most effective exposure, whether it’s to reinvigorate existing customers or grab the attention of prospects.1

How? It’s not just a question of the latest technology – it’s all about cultivating a brand story that sticks. We’re not talking a potted history of your entire brand, but rather a tailored storytelling experience based on the type of exhibition, the people attending and what you want to get out of it for your business.

1. Skyline, 16 Powerful stats on the value of trade shows, http://www.skyline-etips.com/16-powerful-stats-on-the-value-of-trade-shows/.

Marketing is no longer about the

stuff you make, but about the stories

you tell.

Seth Godin

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LET’S START AT THE VERY BEGINNINGSo first off, let’s get one thing straight; you can only do so much with one stand at one trade show, so don’t bite off more than you can chew. This is why pre-show research and development is essential to ensure you’re giving your prospective audience what they’re looking for. Start by weighing up the pros and cons. Are you looking to make a brand statement and generate leads? If so, exhibitions get the big tick. If your focus is to improve your sales pipeline and move existing leads along, then the personal touch goes a long way and smaller in-person events are the best route forward.

Getting tactical

Now you’ve decided on a stage, it’s time to move onto pre-show tactics. Spend a little time thinking about your communications strategy. How are you currently talking to customers and prospects and how could this be improved, so you’re not just recycling the same sales spiel? And what format or channel should you use to deliver your message?

Email marketing is a given, as one of the leading forms of pre-show communication. But what about social media? As prospective buyers get younger it’s becoming more important to use language they’ll resonate with. Creating a social media buzz around your exhibition or event can be a great way to build excitement and intrigue without being too salesy. Benefits of social media also include targeting, tracking and measurable engagement.

You can see where the prospects came from, how they interacted with the content and if they clicked through to find out more. All this data gives you more indication of what your audience might be looking for when it gets to the exhibition or event. Investing time in developing interesting content around the event also enables you to start the knowledge offering early on in the cycle (something we’ll discuss more later).

Or, why not move away from technology; give your prospects something they might not be expecting. Content doesn’t have to be digital – whatever happened to writing a letter? A personal invite. Making the recipient feel special and valued and portraying your brand as people-first. A form of advertising in itself. You get the idea - if you want to grab attention and ensure a high footfall at your next exhibition or event, do something different. Thinking outside the box can set a good impression and gear your prospects up for a great exhibition or event experience.

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WHERE WILL YOUR STORY TAKE YOU? According to cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner, humans are 22 times more likely to remember a fact that’s been wrapped in a story.2 So, if you’re looking for a way to engage, nurture and convert your customers, make them the hero in their own experience. Take them on a journey and reward them along the way.

This concept is nothing new; in fact, it’s been around for generations. As discussed by literature legend Joseph Campbell, the journey of the ‘archetypal hero’ model has been used throughout the ages. It goes a little something like this…

1. Engagement

The engagement stage is all about that crucial call to action. What is it about your stand that’s going to make customers stop in their tracks? Technology could come into this, with interactive touch screens becoming an increasingly popular choice for stand developers.

But language can also have power. Does your brand positioning differ from others? Altering your messaging to suit the attending audience can be an effective way to grab attention.

Create your first touchpoint here by asking attendees to sign in – beginning their buyer journey with your business. As many details as you can get here will be helpful later when transferring the information into your CRM. Inviting them to connect on LinkedIn can be an effective way to gain this information without the need for filling in forms.

2. Mentorship

Cultivating good relationships is key to building brand awareness and generating sales leads. Always have someone on hand to guide visitors through their experience on the stand and transport them from the normal world, to the exciting unknown they are about to discover. A face-to-face approach is both the best way to engage new prospects, while also providing consistency for those already on board.

2. Summitsync, Storytelling success: How to use the Hero’s Journey in your trade show booth design, https://www.summitsync.com/blog/trade-show-sales/heros-journey-in-your-trade-show-booth/.

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3. Revelation This is the nurture phase. Your customer has either entered into a completely new world or is ready to be surprised with something they haven’t seen before. New learning is always the biggest draw so, dependent on the audience, you could be talking a group presentation or even a product demo. This stage is all about showing where you’ve come from and where you’re wanting to go with your business offering. Sales can come into this but don’t push too hard, this is more about highlighting your skillset. Ultimately, human interaction is craved more in this digital age, so utilise it.

4. Transformation

Unlike the classic hero’s journey, there’s no literal death and rebirth here.

But, if the revelation phase works, this is the moment of behaviour change - the moment when a potential new customer considers commitment to recommend or purchase. Through a mixture of precise, information-led and enjoyable or personal experience, you’ll hit the sweet spot.

Business.com, Here’s why you should keep exhibiting at B2B trade shows, https://www.business. com/articles/reasons-to-exhibit-at-b2b-trade-shows/


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5. Space

You’ve done all the hard work now, so take a step back. Give visitors a chance to think over what they’ve just heard, time to absorb, reflect and browse the stand on their own. Maybe they’ll share their experience with another attendee, or a current customer who can reinforce that positive feeling.

6. Conversion

Conversion can happen right there on the stand, but it can also take time, so it’s always nice to give attendees a small takeaway to thank them for their visit.

If you’ve relayed a lot of information during the journey through your stand, why not offer a branded memory stick so they can go over what they’ve learnt in their own time?

Then there’s the aftercare. It’s all well and good getting people to sign into your stand on arrival. But it’s also important to have a way of moving this data into your CRM. There are systems available now that can be tailored for each of your clients; so, if you’re following up on an exhibition or event with targeted advertising, or reaching out over email to try and close the gap to a sale, the CRM can segment the data collected and help you create niche and relevant responses. LinkedIn is a tool to be utilised here; maybe a company or group interacted with one of your pre-show posts, they were marked as attending the exhibition and now you know to retarget them to continue the buying journey.

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10 3. The Events Structure, Experiential marketing industry enjoying even more growth in 2018,

https://www.theeventsstructure.com/news/experiential-marketing-industry-enjoying-even-more-growth-2018.

THE POTENTIAL OF EXPERIENTIAL Does your stand have the wow factor? Especially at exhibitions, a crowded environment can make it difficult to stand out. And, so, stands are getting bigger, taller, wider, but are they more effective?

Well, there’s a new (ish) kid making an appearance in the B2B world, and its popularity is set to increase as an innovative way to engage buyers without just making things bigger.

What is it?

It’s experiential, or engagement marketing. A technique that’s dominated the B2C world for a while now but is starting to creep more and more into the B2B consciousness. Experiential creates experiences between brands and their consumers, using an activation. This can be anything from stunts, to immersive events or product sampling.

It allows brands to directly interact with their customers, shake their hand and recreate the one-to-one approach sales teams used to have before digital took over.

According to the EventTrack survey, 79% of brands expected to increase their spending on experiential marketing.

How can it elevate your stand?

As discussed earlier, the pre-show work is often as important as the show itself. Why not change the way you approach your planning? More and more the marketing industry is moving away from a media first approach and starting to prioritise coming up with the best ideas before deciding on how to implement them. More effective campaigns follow as the brief is left open for multiple different opportunities to be explored.

The biggest draw of experiential marketing? It gets ATTENTION. It’s a one of a kind experience, you have a captive audience ready to absorb your values and key beliefs in a memorable and engaging way. People visiting your stand will want to share their experience, whether it be by word of mouth or via social media. Either way, it offers instant brand authenticity difficult to obtain through other types of interaction.

A great example is GE’s Healthymagination showcase, in which they designed specially made ‘movie sets’, to represent different healthcare environments and show how their technology is helping people in developing countries. An educational and inspirational approach, visitors were taken on a storytelling experience, all to illustrate the brand’s focus on people-first solutions.

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Can experiential exist alone? As social media continues to take over the world, businesses are fighting to stand out and cut through the noise to be their buyer’s first choice. Internet virality is gaining more and more influence, so is it possible that experiential marketing could exist on its own?

Perhaps not when it comes to exhibitions and trade shows, as a certain level of information needs to be communicated beyond grabbing the buyer’s attention. However, for the purpose of standing out and gaining traction, experiential can be one of the best ways to get your brand seen beyond the exhibition. When having a memorable experience, people are more likely to capture those moments on film and share them via social media or other platforms with their friends and colleagues. Thus giving your brand free grassroots advertising that would be hard to get any other way.

It’s all in the balance

Nothing’s perfect, or everyone would be doing it all the time. Yes, experiential is a great tool for engagement, creating memorable experiences and (hopefully) leaving a positive impression in your customers’ minds, however it comes with its difficulties.

For one, it’s expensive and in some cases VERY expensive. If you’re working on a limited budget there might not be hundreds of thousands left in the pot for a Ghostbusters Marshmallow Man emerging from the floor-esque stunt.

Then there are people, those unpredictable creatures. You can never fully ascertain how people are going to react and whether you’re going to leave an impression on their minds at all. How can you judge the behaviour of all your hundreds of visitors?

Which leads nicely on to measurements. With experiential marketing, due to the high level of resources employed, from budget to the talent needed in development or even the show itself, it can be difficult to get an accurate reading of how successful you’ve been. As mentioned before, your content being shared is a good indication of success, but where are the metrics?

A solution for this isn’t black and white, but it could be as simple as having members of your team present to interact with customers after said event or stunt, to gauge their reaction and perhaps even get them to fill in an experience survey. With targeted questioning, it may even be possible to capture enough data to re-target them with a follow up engagement piece. All to continue cultivating that sales funnel and getting prospects closer to completing a purchase and validating your ROI.

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4. Forbes, How to create a brand story that connects with audiences and drives sales, https://www.forbes.com/sites/celinnedacosta/2018/01/31/how-to-create-a-brand-story- that-connects-with-audiences-and-drives-sales/#7bea2bbe3d34.

Get attention

from people

who can help you

share your brand story

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BUT WAIT... THERE’S MORE!Exhibitions and experiential aren’t the only tools at the B2B marketer’s disposal. There are a number of smaller events or industry gatherings that can be utilised to get under the skin of your potential buyers.

Roundtables Roundtables bring together senior execs, industry experts and thought leaders to discuss critical industry issues. Not only can they learn from each other, but, if there is an audience, they’ll be hearing from their peers too. Unlike going to see one or two people speak, roundtables can be upwards of ten experts or industry influencers, sharing their vast knowledge in an engaging and interactive way.

As discussed by Darling magazine, roundtables can allow us to hear from people “we initially see as unrelatable.”5 The hierarchies are broken down, there is no leader and everyone is encouraged to speak up, regardless of their position. The collaborative nature of roundtables allows for freer and more honest discussion.

And they can feed into other avenues of discussion too. The content covered at the event can be utilised across social media as quotes, blogs, soundbites or video clips – reinforcing learnings with those who were in attendance and

sharing knowledge with those interested in the topics covered. As discussed earlier, LinkedIn is an effective tool to continue discussion and cement those new connections with potential buyers.

5. Darling magazine, Why we need more roundtable discussions, https://darlingmagazine.org/why-we-need-more-round-table-discussion/.

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Focus groups

While in-person focus groups have been a popular method of research for B2B marketers in the past, the movement to online is fast becoming the norm. What’s caused this? Well, with face-to-face focus groups come challenges. These include getting everyone in the same place at the same time, the expense of hiring a venue, paying the respondents, moderator and ultimately the need for multiple set ups to get a broad range of solutions to a marketing problem. Otherwise you may run the risk of bias.

Despite all this, many still view it as an effective way to understand and engage directly with your modern buyer, getting their opinion firsthand. But could it go digital? A trend is emerging for online focus groups, as a practical alternative to all the challenges discussed. It allows for the involvement of respondents across multiple locations, there is no need for venue hire and they are more flexible in terms of timings, allowing respondents to log in and out at their leisure and reply over a period of a few days. Additional time also allows for more considered and well-balanced responses.

Online may not replace face-to-face just yet, but its popularity continues to grow as a more flexible and versatile option in the market research and testing sector.

Conferences Knowledge-sharing: one of the key reasons for attending an industry conference. With attendees searching for answers it’s up to businesses to educate and solve problems. User conferences in particular allow businesses to communicate with current and potential customers, for brand awareness, partnership possibilities and to help with any existing queries. Reliant on having an existing customer base and money to invest, a user conference isn’t a suitable option for all. Wider industry conferences however are more accessible and give you the opportunity both to present as a thought leader in your sector and build intrigue around your brand and offering, moving existing customers down the sales funnel and grabbing the attention of new prospects.

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OH, AND ONE LAST THING...Preparation, exposure, follow-up: whatever the goal with your exhibition or event, following these three simple rules will help you remain effective.

Whether it be through the use of the hero’s journey or an experiential stunt, an exhibition or event should be focused on building brand loyalty and upping those conversions.

It’s no longer just about the products, it’s about creating a memorable experience for your visitors, communicating with them in a more creative way and giving them something shareable.

So, think about your business objective, the prep work, your brand story, the experience and, most importantly, consider that 78% of attendees travel more than 400 miles to attend exhibitions, so make it worth their while, and yours.6

6. Expostars, How to perfect your B2B trade show marketing strategy, https://www.expostars.com/tradeshow-tips/b2b-trade-show-marketing-strategy.

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