How to prepare online show
10 things to preapre for the online show
The Covid-19 that has swept the world is changing our daily lives. From school classes to leisure and corporate marketing methods, all the knowledge we knew is in a situation where we might have to rewrite it. In particular, exhibitions, a key tool for offline marketing by companies, have also been canceled or postponed by more than 90 percent. As exhibitions where transactions take place only after meeting are not available, some exhibitions have already abandoned their existing methods and are presenting online exhibition platforms. The CES 2021, which was scheduled to be held in Las Vegas next January, canceled offline events and switched to an online convention. SXSW, the world's top complex business platform, also canceled offline events and released movie content through Amazon Web Services, while Art Basel, a global art show, also opened an "online viewing room" and displayed more than 2,000 works at 231 galleries for a quarter of the cost of participation, resulting in 250,000 visitors over seven days.It is not easy to predict whether such online exhibitions will become a trend or be used as a temporary alternative, but one thing is clear: The shows combined with digital will surely require companies to market a different kind of exhibition strategy. Online exhibitions are certainly spaces for meeting customers, so we can market efficiently if we know a few things, just like when you prepare an offline exhibition.
10 things we should know for preparing online exhibition.
1. Establish a purpose for participation.
Why do we participate in online exhibitions? As with regular exhibitions, online exhibitions should be made clear to the purpose of participating. This is because the nine preparations to be discussed will vary depending on the purpose of participation. Usually, the purpose of participating in an exhibition can be divided into four main categories:
(1) Revealing new products and investigating customer feedback
(2) Promoting the company and discovering potential customers
(3) Signing a contract, such as selling products
(4) Managing current customers
If the purpose of a company's participation is not clear, it will be a passive participation again. Show organizer shall never be responsible for the performance of the participating enterprises. Exhibitors must establish a clear plan for the purpose of participation so that it can produce the right results. The amount of consultation or contract asked by the organizer is an evaluation of the exhibition, not a measure of our performance. Set clear goals for evaluating our own sales leads.
2. Prepare a video presentation.
The recent trend of digital content has been led by video. With content consumption being mobile, videos can appeal to consumers much more easily than other types of content. The importance of video has been increasing, even considering that online video ads account for nearly half of the total in the advertising market recently. Online exhibitions are also important to attract visitors to our companies as much as possible. Video materials for corporate introduction or product promotion must be prepared. In particular, a Virtual Market Outlook Research (VMOR) survey showed that marketers need the most content in virtual reality. Online video materials are like booths offline. It is more important than anything else to increase the duration of visitors with video content.
3. Develop a message for key customers.
Just as the key slogan that reveals us in the booth is important, we should also expose key messages that attract customers' attention online. One of the limitations of online exhibitions is that we cannot create accidental encounters. People visit offline bookstores or exhibition halls because they expect to meet unexpected books or products. However, it is hard to expect coincidence because online is based on classification and retrieval of data. Develop and expose a key message that expresses our company in a single word among the numerous corporate contents.
4. Secure a promotional marketing budget for outboarding.
The online platform operates under the same logic whether it is an exhibition or a shopping mall. The most notable content is placed at the top. In the end, the list of main sponsors and sponsoring companies will be placed at the top of the online exhibition. So we need to understand the entire platform of online exhibitions. Prepare marketing plans and budgets that can raise the attention of our companies and content. Taking advantage of the entire platform out of the booth at offline exhibitions is called outboarding technique. Online as well, the entire platform must be able to take advantage of the entire platform. Consult with the organizer before participating in the online exhibition - Forums, Awards, Sponsored Programs, provided by the online exhibition. This is the outboarding marketing of online exhibitions.
5. Prepare the document materials available for download.
In offline exhibitions, the number of visitors is important for participating companies, but marketing that increases the number of visitors' stay is important in online exhibition. If the length of stay increases, the possibility of securing sales leads increases. However, online exhibitions are easily volatile. This means that it is difficult to provide in-depth content due to the nature of online channels. Therefore, to overcome online shortcomings, it is recommended that you prepare document materials that can be linked to and downloaded with content. If you provide downloadable documents such as product information or corporate introductory materials and provide materials that customers can read over time, the effect of increasing their stay offline can be achieved online as well.
6. Invite customers to the online exhibition.
Online space should also be able to invite customers as well as offline. The role of show organizer is simply to attract customers only to the entrance of the online exhibition. The organizer does not increase our company's visiting traffic. The final purpose of the exhibition is to have customers visit our booth, not to have many customers in the exhibition hall. Online, too, should be marketed to customers even before participation in order to increase content. It is more important to let people know our participation than to participate in the exhibition.
7. Prepare events to increase customer traffic.
It is linked to what we talked about in No. 6 above. We need to market events to increase traffic for our corporate content. Usually, various forms of methods such as Facebook ads and gift certificates are used for SNS marketing, all of which are techniques for inducing to landing pages of our content. Online exhibitions should also use these methods to guide them to the final landing page (where our company and products information are located). All this must be prepared in advance of the exhibition and carried out effectively.
8. Prepare for customer marketing after the exhibition.
While the exhibition content shown in the online exhibition will not disappear, most online exhibitions will be intensively held or exposed only during certain periods. Therefore, marketing arrangements should be made to appeal to the customers who have visited since the end of the exhibition. We need to secure data from customers who have visited our content so that sales leads can be connected to sales. Let us not forget that the role of the exhibition is to get the lead for the contract, not the contract itself.
9. Identify the Customer Data Acquisition System.
So how do you get your customers' data online? Online exhibitions have the disadvantages of not being able to receive business cards or get immediate feedback from customers like offline. Therefore, it is necessary to check in advance with the exhibition organizer whether a system is in place to secure contact and data with customers online. If you can secure all the data of the customer, such as the time they stayed on the profile or page of the visiting customer, and the contents they asked in the chatting window, you can even use marketing after the exhibition.
10. Measure the ROI.
The ROI of online exhibitions is similar to offline exhibitions. The key to ROI measurement will be to assess how much performance has been achieved against the participation objectives. Measure and analyze the performance associated with the purpose of participation, such as online traffic, customer conversations, and follow-up.
The above 10 things are a summary of the basic things to participate in the online exhibition. We cannot predict the future exactly, but we can prepare. I do not know how the marketing environment will change after Covid-19, but I believe that companies that can predict and prepare for the change will be able to overcome this adversity. In an era of unpredictable chaos, I hope that our companies will once again gain momentum to compete in the global market through online exhibitions.
* 한국어 버전은 아래 글에서 볼 수 있습니다. You can read Korean version of this article here.
