One Big Splash

One Big Splash If your marketing budget will only stretch to one big splash this year, will it be exhibiting or advertising? It is worth looking through the pros of both to see which better meets your marketing and business needs. Exhibitions are great opportunities to meet your customers and prospects face to face. Because exhibitions are settings for promotion and selling, they are better than a staged sales meeting as you don't have to start an interaction 'cold'. You can meet prospects more naturally in the networking environment. As well as being a great place to promote your brand, exhibitions are often mixed with trade updates, best-practice seminars, speakers and workshops, so you are able to boost your knowledge and skills all under the same roof. If you have staff who are new to the business, these can be useful events for them to get to know the industry and your organisation's role within it. A useful outcome from exhibitions is the immediate impact you can glean from prospects or customers as they interact with your brand. Do people stop to admire your stand and read literature or do they wander past it unaware of your presence? Do they stop but have to ask you what you do or provide? Don't overlook these opportunities to assess the impact or your brand and exhibition displays. You need to have materials and messages that work for you when you aren't there to fill in the gaps. Another useful outcome is data, as delegate lists are sometimes available to exhibitors, or you can run competitions from your stand as a way to collect contacts. Advertising, although it can be pricey, is a good way to deliver controlled market messages to much larger audiences if you choose your advertising platforms wisely. Publications or online platforms will have figures for their readership or visitors, so you can gauge the potential numbers of people who will see your ad. However, you take pot luck to a certain extent, unless very targeted, as to whether or not those numbers include potential customers. To identify customer respondents, be clear with your call to action and use tracking codes to accurately monitor effectiveness. With the right creativity you can generate a viral marketing effect as readers share your information by word of mouth or the forwarding of links. Whichever you choose, they are both excellent opportunities to showcase your brand. If you are looking for new talent to boost your marketing delivery, your local marketing recruitment agencies in Shropshire will be happy to help. See if marketing recruitment agencies in Shropshire are exhibiting near you.