In this two-part series, we tackle the idea of reinforcing the “memory” of your brand through “experience”. And that by creating a positive “feeling” around your business, products, and services, for your prospects and customers – you can effectively lead them from being loosely aware of your business to becoming loyal brand evangelists.

In part one of the series, we addressed the first 5 of 10 ways you can enhance the overall experience that surrounds your brand:

• Your Brand is a Perception and an Expectation
• Your Brand is the Total Sum of Your Entire Business
• Experience is the Way a Consumer Identifies With Your Brand
• Experience Creates an Emotional Bond with a Product or Service
• Brand Loyalty Can be Defined by the Relationships You Create

In this article, we’ll discuss the next five ways in which you can enhance the overall perception of your brand and start building a loyal following:

Relationships Are Born From a Need, and the Way That Need is Satisfied

All relationships are born out of need and just as importantly in the way that need is satisfied. And the emotional satisfaction that is derived from the need being fulfilled is what defines the strength of the relationship.

In building a brand, purely satisfying a customer’s need (providing a widget or service) isn’t enough. The provision of that widget or service must be done in a way that creates “emotional satisfaction” or a “feel good” moment to the recipient. Of course, this is done through the “way” that product or service is delivered upon and if done right…begins to solidify the relationship. Brands which don’t build relationships won’t stand the test of time.

Creating a Brand is About Over-Delivering on Expectations

When building a brand, consider that you should look at non-core and emotional attributes that could be attached to your core product features and benefits. Simply providing the least viable product to your customer isn’t going to win their hearts nor create a positive “memory” and “experience” around the brand.

Consider how additional feature sets or services, which go beyond your customers initial expectations and needs may benefit them. And how they may “feel” about your brand when the products and services you provide them go further to simplify their lives, enhance their experience and are enjoyable to engage with.

Focus on How You Would Like Clients to Experience Your Brand

How would you like to be remembered? Truly, give this some thought… What would you like the lasting impression of your brand to be?

Most likely, the majority of you reading this would like your company to be remembered as one that creates outstanding, innovative products. Services which truly enhance the lives of your customers and of course make them more successful. You’d probably like to be thought of as delivering top-rate customer service and support. All while creating a positive, memorable experience for your customers. Think about it.

Work Backwards From Your Intended Experience

By first thinking about and defining the experience and emotions that you’d like to create for your customers and then working backwards – you have the ability to create the brand you envision. In addition, you have the opportunity to make sure that everything you build around your brand marries up to your own passion and expectations.

Consider how you want your customers to relate to you, your products, your services. How you want them to feel when using your products for the very first time. For the thousandth time? Consider how you want your business to be thought of as a whole… And work backwards to create an “experience” that holds everything you do to those standards.

Add Elements to Each Area of Your Business to Reinforce the Brand

When considering your overall brand, having one stand out product or service won’t do it. You should look at every area of your business and build in appropriate services, features or enhancements that stand to elevate the overall “good feeling” you’re creating within your customers.

Those good feelings and positive vibes will go a long way – to solidify longer relationships, encourage referrals, make your business more successful and YES – turn your paying customers into loyal brand evangelists!

At ColorCraft, we know that your trade show marketing program is one of the best places for your brand to shine, to enhance the relationships you’ve already created and begin to forge new ones. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help your customers “experience” your brand, give us a shout.

We can help create experiences for your customers they won’t forget! Contact us today to get the discussion started on your next project.

Marketing your company & products at trade shows requires planning, effort and budget – make it an investment that pays you a return!

Enough cannot be said about the need to market to your customers and prospects in the months and days leading up to your trade show event – but that’s another article. Here we’re going to discuss the elements of your marketing strategy that should kick-in once the show begins and attendees start to flood the show floor.

By giving attention and planning to each of these key areas, your trade show program can be the success of the event!

1. Exhibit Design & Showcasing Your Brand

The design of your trade show exhibit and how you present your brand on the show floor not only says a lot about your company (for better or worse) but is also instrumental in attracting visitors to your booth. In addition, reserve space early to be sure to lock up choice exhibit space, near heavily trafficked areas.

Your exhibit should be professionally designed to relate directly to the target audience that best matches the products and services you’re showcasing at the specific event you’ve chosen. And the design and layout of your exhibit should facilitate interaction between your sales team and prospects. Taking into consideration proper lighting, quiet space for appointments, and the overall functionality of your exhibit will all lead to more success on the show floor.

2. Leverage Social Media on the Show Floor

Social media should have been one of the strategies you employed to spread the word about your exhibit PRIOR to the show. But now that the event has started, kick your social media content strategy into high gear.

Remember, not everyone that wanted to come to the show could make it. And lots of those customers and prospects will turn to social media to get a feel for the important events that went down and stay in touch with all they missed.

This is the perfect opportunity for you to engage these folks by Tweeting, posting to Facebook & Google Plus news from the event. Of course dropping the exciting things your company is up to on the show floor is a must. And don’t just post text, feel free to share photos and video of events to those that couldn’t attend.

In addition, be sure to let those that visit your booth what social channels your company routinely engages in. You’ll be surprised at how many new followers you can gain over the course of the show. Get creative with it!

3. Have Killer Collateral and Giveaways On-Hand, Lots

Brochures, business cards and promotional giveaways go hand-in-hand with exhibiting on the trade show floor. So, you must have professionally designed, well-written materials on-hand to send away with attendees.

From a branding perspective, it’s important that all of your materials have the same look, feel and tone. And of course all of your materials should support the products, services & audience you are targeting at that particular show.

A word about printing. Here is not the time to skimp on paper quality and quantities. The paper you choose for your collateral can say just as much about a printed piece as the design. Work with your designer and printer to achieve a complete collateral package that will make you look as good as possible. On quantity – do not run out of collateral on the show floor – a sales person without a business card is about as useful as an exhibit booth with no graphic panels.

4. Have Your Sales Team Primed & Ready

It goes without saying that your sales team needs to be pumped up, engaged and ready to have a great show. But this doesn’t happen just by chance. Plan, prior to the show, how your sales staff will engage booth visitors, how leads will be captured and what responsibilities are.

Be sure that your staff welcomes attendees passing by. They shouldn’t be sitting, waiting for visitors to engage them. And having an energetic and enthusiastic demeanor will pay dividends.

Have a plan for following up on leads in a timely manner. Just do!

5. Share Your Expertise and Thought Leadership

Every show has discussion panels, learning sessions and/or round tables. Capture more attention for your company by sharing your expertise and participating in show sponsored events. Be a presenter, be a speaker, show attendees that your business has thought leaders and a better way of helping them.

By positioning your company as experts in your field, you’ll find attendees reaching out to you for more information about how you can make their businesses and lives more successful.

6. Socialize with Other Exhibitors and Attendees

The nature of trade show events is for companies to be able to share information, in-person, with each other and their prospects. Simple.

Engage this social nature and engage with other exhibitors, experts from panels and of course customer prospects. You never know where the next conversation will lead and what partnerships may result.

Of course, if you’d like to learn more about becoming successful on the show floor – ColorCraft is your team. Give us a call and we’ll share our years of expertise in making businesses just like yours more successful in your trade show marketing efforts!

So, the big trade show event has come and gone!?! Your exhibit is safely packed up and off to its next destination, your sales team has headed home and you’re left with a pile of business cards and post-it notes. So, what now??

Well, hopefully going into your event you had a pre-show marketing strategy, a plan to execute during the show, AND a post-show strategy. But what exactly does marketing AFTER the show look like?

1. Compile Your Leads into Your CRM of Choice

Assuming your company uses a CRM (customer relationship management) tool, such as Salesforce or SugarCRM, one of your first priorities, once you get back to the office (and sort through the 8,987 emails you missed while at the show), should be to add all of your new contacts to that system and assign each to the appropriate department or salesperson.

Be sure to include notes about what was discussed with each contact, if orders were taken, and what type of follow-up is required. For the majority of leads, you or members of your sales team will simply be sending a personalized, follow-up email. Be sure to thank them for visiting your booth and provide answers to any questions you promised regarding your products or services. Be courteous and not pushy!

2. Nurture Your Connections Through LinkedIn

Along with email follow-ups, be sure to reach out to your new contacts through social media channels, specifically LinkedIn. Not only does this add an additional touch-point, but connecting on LinkedIn opens up the possibility for other connections of your contact to see you as a potential resource.

3. Place Any Orders You Wrote at the Show

It goes without saying, that any orders placed at the show should be entered into your fulfillment system immediately (if they weren’t during the show).

For those that placed orders, a simple email or personalized “thank you” letter should be all that’s necessary.

4. Blog and Post to Social Media Channels About the Event

By now your company should surely have a content strategy (you do have a content strategy right?). And blogging should be a core component of that strategy!

After the event, be sure to post articles to recap the events, speakers and demonstrations that took place at the show. And of course, highlight what your company was up to at the event, and what your key announcements & contributions were.

Remember, for everyone that made it to the show, there were probably just as many folks that had other business to attend to and couldn’t be there. Give these people a sense of what took place at the show, what the key takeaways were, and you’ll find yourself gaining additional exposure for your efforts.

Of course, once you write your blog post(s) – be sure to share each across your social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, Google+ & LinkedIn. If you captured any video (via ShowCAST??), even better! Leverage a service like YouTube or Vimeo to post and share your video content!

5. Utilize the Trade Show Attendee List

As a show exhibitor, you typically have access to both an exhibitors list as well as an attendee list (either free or paid). Take advantage of these lists and either send letters, direct mail or email (depending on list stipulations you may not have permission to bulk email) to the segments of attendees that make sense.

Feel free to make a special “post-show offer” to ONLY those who attended the trade show event.

6. Marketing Automation

If your company uses a marketing automation system, which is tied to your website, be sure to load the contacts you made into that system (if it’s not directly tied to your CRM).

This will help you determine if those you met at the show are visiting your website and specifically what they are doing when they get there. In addition, any marketing automation tool such as Act-On, HubSpot, or SharpSpring will include lead scoring and workflow management features – which will help you not only gauge the quality of the leads that reach your site but also add those leads to automated marketing tasks such as drip campaigns!

Have suggestions for other marketing tasks to perform after your trade show event? We’d love to hear your ideas! And if you’d like our talented team at ColorCraft to help make your trade show marketing efforts a BIGGER success, let us know – we’d love to help!!