Increase your tradeshow ROI - Online Marketing To Dos – Before, During, and After a Tradeshow

How can you improve your tradeshow ROI?” There are many ways to market for a tradeshow and many ways to spend your money, but often little if any ROI is realized. The most compelling factor to attend a tradeshow and set up a booth is the prospect of meeting face-to-face with the decision maker. But is your tradeshow marketing investment totally justified when you are just a needle in the haystack?

There are many other techniques to market a tradeshow:

• You can sponsor an event
  
• You can write editorials in the event magazine
• You can advertise on the tradeshow website etc.

Tradeshows are already an expensive endeavor, and they can cost more if you choose to advertise using these other popular channels. If you are not a large company, costs for tradeshows can be significant considering the already limited marketing budget. On top of the advertising costs, there are other associated costs such as designing the booth, time that your sales reps spend to exhibit, flying costs, as well as food and lodging.

So, how much do you get back on the investment you just made on the tradeshow? Not as much as you were expecting, but the use of online marketing techniques can boost your tradeshow investment. In my last post, I wrote how you can combine the use of traditional and online marketing techniques and benefit from them, but here I’m describing how you can use online marketing to better market your tradeshows.

Following some concerns and solution suggestions based on online marketing and online tools – thus making it the most for your tradeshow investment.

BEFORE the show: How do we get more people to visit our booth?
Give prospects a good reason to meet you to make the best use of their time and money.

DURING the show: How do I maximize marketing during the show?
Use marketing automation to convert the visitors into leads.

AFTER the show: Who are my best prospects? Whom should I follow up? What do I do with the big list of names?
Nurture the leads using marketing automation tools.

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Why Work with the Pros?

In our ever expanding global economy, it is not unusual to utilize freelancer or outsourcers from around the globe to take care of things like; web design, search engine optimization and other elements of online marketing. On paper, these individuals or companies have rock bottom prices, and promise quick results and turn-arounds. While it may be very tempting to save time and money going through off-shore outsourcers, or hiring a freelance web-designer, here are some reasons to choose a more established company with a local presence:

Local business certifications;

Sites like BBB.org keep a record of reputable companies listing a letter grade to rate the quality of work done, ethical practices and much more. Freelancers and off-shore companies rarely have a local reputation to worry about, which can result in poor work, unscrupulous practices and broken promises. A good BBB rating is not an insurance policy against poor work, but gives your insight and gives you as a client the avenues necessary to file a complaint if your work is not done to your satisfaction.

Industry accreditation;

Beyond opt in groups like the BBB, companies with partnerships such as Google AdWords certification and the like have proven steadfastness beyond ‘fly by night’ status. Again, these certifications and partnerships will not guarantee against incident, but proves that the company has gone to extra mile to improve its practices and has been around long enough to form partnerships.

Regular business hours;

While a freelancer can build an excellent website for a fraction of the cost compared to some of their brick-and-mortar competitors, customer services can ultimately suffer. When you need a critical update to your website, will the freelancer be available to take your call and work with you on a solution? Overseas freelancers may not be available until the next business day. Students have exams and classes and other freelancers work day jobs or care for children. Working with a company that can fulfill your needs when you need them can impact all the aspects of the website design and implementation from start to finish.

A physical address;

E-mail is not always the best way to communicate, context can be lost, and most of the personal touch is lost when communication is in the form of text. Better yet is the telephone, hearing a voice on the other end, and explaining instructions, concerns and other business matters comes more naturally when speaking. Really need to drive a point home? A smart company may invite you to their offices, take you out for lunch, or invite you to a corporate event.

Accountability;

While a corporate hierarchy cannot guarantee quality results every time, a freelancer is only accountable to themselves. If work is done poorly, it can become an issue if your dissatisfaction and their sense of pride conflict. A good manager or CEO will understand that if a client is not happy, the job is not complete, while someone with only design or technical experience may consider the job done, when the product is delivered. Many freelancers charge an a-la-carte hourly rate for any changes made to the work after they consider it “Complete” which can result in hundreds of dollars in hidden costs.

Resources and expertise;

A larger company can often provide further services and advice that many designers cannot. Conversion consulting, branding advice, advertising strategies and maintenance agreements are just a few of the additional services that can bump the end result from simple website to a powerful online marketing tool. Additional resources also reduce wait times for support, reduce downtime and will hopefully ensure that your website won’t go down, just because the company who built it did. While not every web or marketing agency is perfect, these tips and more are some of the reasons why working with a professional web design agency can save you time, headache and even money.

Author: Jaron Whittingham
Online Marketing Specialist @FoundPages.

Creating Content Which Will Get Your Website Noticed

Being able to close more sales means you must have the ability to reach more clients. The internet has proven to be the new frontier of marketing no matter who it is you are trying to reach with your marketing efforts. Everyone spends at least a little time each day online looking for the things that they are interested in or that they want to purchase. One of the best ways to make sure that your message is getting the results that you want it to is to make sure that people are seeing the website in the first place.

Over and over again, people have found that the best way to get the attention of the masses is through the content that they put on their website. It has been said before that “content is king”. This saying still holds true because well written material has the ability to attract attention from search engines. To create the best content, you can hire a professional to do it for you. You can also do it yourself by learning all of the important information about how to do so. You can also save some money by hiring a freelance worker to develop the content which will earn your company more revenue.

Hiring a Professional to Your Staff

While it is not in every company’s budget to hire a full time online marketing professional, more and more companies are finding that it is an imperative part of doing business. The best part about hiring these kinds of professionals is that they will constantly work on getting the best content on the site to get the best possible results. The great thing about these professionals is that all content will appear fresh and new rather than looking as if it just came from the digital copier.

Learning to Do it on Your Own

It is possible to write your own content. The only thing that you will need to make sure of is that you are using the right concepts to get the results you are looking for. Pay attention to the kinds of keywords you are using as well as the amount of content which is showing up on your site. Make sure that you are only including enough information which can be digested by each of the visitors on their visits. They do not have unlimited time and the more you respect that fact, the better.

Get Professional Help

One of the best ways to get a lot of great content which draws traffic, while saving some money, is to get some professional help. They have the ability to provide you with everything that you are looking for to get a slick looking site. You can also hire professional writers to get the kind of content which will keep your clients coming back for more, and will attract new people to the website on a regular basis.

Author: Resource Nation

Resource Nation provides free tools, tips, and purchasing advice for business owners and entrepreneurs in over 100 business categories ranging from telemarketing to credit card processing. Whether it's connecting businesses with local and national pre-screened vendors, or offering easy service comparisons on a VoIP service, Resource Nation empowers business decision makers by providing the information they need to make smart choices.