Critical Questions to Ask Before Fresh Summit

CoreBanner_QuestionsFreshSummit.pngMost of the time when I ask fresh produce marketing professionals about their plans for Fresh Summit, we discuss the booth, what it will look like and what traffic drivers the company will have available in the booth during the show. This year, I’m asking myself and colleagues a question that requires discussion beyond our typical conversation:

How will you measure success for your marketing dollars spent on Fresh Summit? In other words, how will you prove that your marketing efforts were successful?

 

How to Market Successfully at Fresh Summit

This may be the sort of question that your company leadership and ownership are asking you, and rightfully so. Now that we’re just over seven weeks away from arguably our industry’s largest tradeshow of the year, you likely already have your booth plans ironed out. But there are still a few things you can think about in preparation for the show.

Listed below are five critical questions that we believe fresh produce marketers should be asking themselves and addressing prior to Fresh Summit.

1. Do you know your customer’s pain points?

Your customers come from different sources and points of origin within the supply chain. Do you understand their challenges and what would help them the most? Prior to the show, work to determine your customer’s pain points and be ready to discuss how your products and solutions directly meet the needs of their business.

2. Are your digital assets optimized?

Fresh Summit attendees are web savvy, solutions seeking professionals that have likely prepared an agenda for their two days on the show floor or are armed with an expo plan to help them navigate the show floor with ease. We have seen evidence of this from the websites we manage with tell-tale traffic spikes prior to Fresh Summit each year. Prepare your digital assets prior to the show to address your customer’s pain points so that by the time they arrive at your booth, they are already equipped with your solution portfolio before you have a chance to say hello.

Also, take note of the digital assets and exhibitor resources being offered to exhibiting companies provided by PMA to help drive awareness about and traffic to your booth.

3. Are you asking your customers the right questions?

On the show floor, are you mostly selling and pushing your products to attendees or are you helping them solve a problem through your products or services? By asking your customers the right questions on the show floor, you can have consultative, helpful conversations that will allow you to offer more relevant solutions before, during and after the big day.

4. Is lead management holding you back or moving your marketing forward?

So you’ve collected 1,000 contact names using the lead generation scanner on the trade show floor. Now what? In order to create a qualified list of sales leads to follow up with post-show, it will help to first define what a lead is for you going into the show. Asking the right questions and conducting strategic follow-up after Fresh Summit will help you to further qualify your list of leads for your sales team, equipping them with the knowledge they need to make the sale.

5. Have you identified a variety of measurements to validate your Fresh Summit investment?

If the answer is “yes,” congratulations! If the answer is “kind of” or “maybe” consider all of the things you can measure before, during and after the show in order to prove success of your marketing efforts: web traffic and referrals; sales leads; business development leads; lead conversions; qualified booth traffic; social mentions and interactions; sponsorship results and total event reach and of course, sales!

More than ever, marketers have the access and ability to determine what is working for our companies and what is not during trade shows like Fresh Summit. DMA Solutions will provide more insights and strategies for maximizing your participation in preparation for the big show in Orlando so stay tuned.  In addition, be sure you are staying on top of Fresh Summit related deadlines and best practices by subscribing to the Exhibitor Central Blog.

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