Roadshow marketing explained
Roadshow marketing is a promotional marketing strategy that involves visiting several pre-booked locations to get a large volume of attention on your presentation, products or events. This, like an exhibition, allows you to make contact with potential investors, customers and partners on a personal level.聽
Specifically, the goal of roadshow marketing is to create awareness and leads. The areas that the visit are usually hotspots filled with people who already have a strong likelihood of being interested, also known as areas that have a 鈥渉igh market potential鈥�. This can be anything from industry events to areas where competitors congregate. Here is where you’re most likely to meet potential customers, or make connections with people who can put you in direct contact with the customers you’re seeking.
This blog will focus on the key components of roadshow marketing.
Planning your roadshow
Determine an objective
Before anything else, you must establish what the primary goal of your roadshow is. This is the most important factor to consider because it will drive the rest of the planning process. The most common objectives are:聽
- Increase brand awareness.
- Generate leads.
- Launch a new product.
- Build relationships with partners or clients.聽
- Set up a brand experience that leaves a lasting impression.
The objectives to be met must be profitable. However, they must also be specific, measurable and achievable, with an established timeframe. Within these objectives, you must also determine how much space you’ll need to properly execute your exhibition.
Target audience
With your objective to hand, you need to identify the specific people to whom you’ll be exhibiting. The target audience should be specific, taking into account their age, gender, income level, profession, interests and/or geographical location.聽
For example, if you’re promoting a new computer tablet, you want to put it in front of those within the age range of people who usually purchase that type of product. This will give your sales team the best chance of turning potential customers into actual, and hopefully repeat, paying customers after the exhibition roadshow has ended.
Choosing locations and venues
Knowing your target audience will drastically narrow down your selection of places to exhibit. The places you want to take your roadshow trailer and exhibit are the places in which you’ll find a high number of these people at certain times. This can be found through data analysis and audience profiling, looking for trends and patterns within existing customer data, and competitor information.聽
Some of these locations could be:聽
- Train stations
- High streets
- Festivals
- Shopping centres
- 91亚色传媒
- Supermarkets
- Outside arenas or stadiums
Ensure that when looking at locations, you consider things such as accessibility, space and potential disruptions.聽
Develop your event schedule
When you have a list of locations, there’s quite a lot of thought required with planning the schedule. For one, you must determine the logistics for each event. Some of these include:聽
- Transportation 鈥� How will your staff travel with the equipment they need?
- Accommodation 鈥� Where will your staff be staying overnight? What are the accommodation costs?
- Equipment setup 鈥� Can your equipment be set up at each location? How long will it take? How quickly can it be set up and taken down?聽
On top of this, you need to create a detailed agenda for each event. This will include:聽
- Activities 鈥� What are the activities you’re doing per location?聽
- Presentations 鈥� What will the presentations consist of? Is there a script?聽
- Demonstrations 鈥� What features of your product or service will you demonstrate?聽
- Networking opportunities 鈥� Who will you network with and how?聽
Of course, a big part of developing the event schedule is ensuring it all lines up with the dates and times of your target audience’s availability, as well as the availability of your venue. You must ensure that each event starts and ends with respect and consideration to the amount of time it would take to travel to the next destination.聽
There’s a huge potential for making great connections with consumers and industry partners and competitors alike, but you have to make sure that you have the right amount of time to communicate your brand in an effective way. The logistics may not be the most exciting aspect of your roadshow marketing to think about, but it’s incredibly important and holds the key to success.
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How to promote your roadshow
Getting the word out about your roadshow is the key to success. You can use any single promotion method below, or a combination of them, to ensure your roadshow achieves its goals.
Social media marketing
In this new digital age, social media is used even by the biggest companies to reach the largest amount of people. Creating event pages on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn is a great and efficient way to spread the word about your events.聽
Enhance your marketing tactics by hiring a professional to create eye-catching visuals and engaging copy to push interest and encourage sharing. Hashtags and geo-targeting is also a good way to specify and zone in on your audience.聽
Another effective way to push your event is by considering pushing paid adverts across social media platforms. This is a surefire way to get your ads in front of people.聽
Social media marketing is a cornerstone of roadshow marketing because unless you increase brand awareness and let them know where your brand will be exhibiting via social media, how would your customer base know where to find you? Get to grips with this to set your roadshow off to a great start.
Email marketing
Email campaigns are a marketing method that enables you to target the existing clients that you know are already invested in the field within which you’re marketing. These people will have a high likelihood to attend, or at least share the word. You can increase the chance of them attending by informing them, within the email, of early bird discounts or exclusive content for sign-ups to the event. On top of that, you can keep the event fresh by sending reminder emails.聽
Engage with your audience to remind them of your brand, brag about any new products you may be bringing to the event to entice them, and explain what’s in it for them if they come along. This will all increase the numbers at your roadshow, and casting the widest net possible is the only way to convert potential customers to paying customers through roadshow marketing.
Media outreach
Creating a press release for the roadshow can allow you to connect with media outlets that have a high viewer base, as well as publications and potential influencers.聽
In order to maximise your potential gains from outreach, you must write a compelling and newsworthy press release that highlights the stand-out aspects of your roadshow, and the benefits for the attendees. It also helps to ensure that the person speaking has a charismatic flair to engage the audience.
Increase brand awareness with roadshow marketing…
Roadshow marketing campaigns continue to be a highly effective way of garnering attention to your service, product or brand. There have been quite a few roadshows that have concluded in increased engagement for the company.聽
An example of this would be Ben and Jerry’s Scoop Truck Tour. The popular ice cream company took to the road and visited several cities in the USA. They offered free ice cream samples, which is perhaps one of the best incentives to show up. During the promotion, they promoted new flavours and engaged with fans on the ground. This resulted in a massive push of Ben and Jerry’s on social media.聽
If you’re interested in a roadshow, check out our many mobile stand and solutions for your campaign or exhibition schedule.
