In a season of cancelled trade shows, you are likely asking yourself how to most effectively communicate important brand and/or product information to your buying audience. While new product conversations are not top of mind for your buyers right now, nutrition is top of mind for your shoppers. So it’s important to make sure your brand voice is not taking a back seat to all the noise around shelf-stable items and concern for stocking enough paper goods and fresh meat. It is more important than ever to be highlighting your strong value position and brand relevance with today’s shoppers.
So how can we do that?
Here are three simple ways you can invest in alternative communications to your audience until tradeshows and face-to-face business resumes to normal:
1. Create a Short Video
While brands generally put their most glamourous foot forward with video production, this is the optimal time to take a step back, relax the production level, and make use of excellent cell phone video capability. Identify someone on your team who does not freeze under video pressure; find a nicely lit, uncluttered location; relax; and tell your product story (with item in hand). Pretend you are having a conversation on a show floor with someone you’ve chatted with dozens of times. Keep it short and to the point – meaning don’t try to incorporate every relevant company angle in one video – and remember to include in your pitch what your audience would find most valuable. Make use of all your storytelling platforms by posting it to social, sharing it in an email, and/or uploading it to your website.
2. Host Virtual Meetings
It’s likely you have some customers that benefit from face-to-face meetings with you or that you were due for a more serious supply and strategy discussion with. Consider Skype, Zoom, or UberConference for hosting a virtual meeting where you can still have the feeling of sitting across the desk from one another and can share visual references to data and/or products. While we navigate travel limitations and social distancing, virtual meetings can be a simple solution to keep a more personal connection with your audience.
3. Invest in a Showstopper Mailer
Let’s be real – you’re saving a significant amount of money from trade show cancellations, yet your sales and marketing goals have not changed. And while a high-end mailer might not always fit in the budget, it certainly does now. Look at this as an opportunity to flex your creative muscles and pour all of that marketing energy into an eye-catching and informative print piece – no different than you would have approached creating a show-stopping booth experience. This is a real opportunity to elevate your brand in a way that you might not normally, and where your competition is not 50 feet away doing the same thing.
Need help bringing one or more of these ideas to life? Whether a quick phone consultation or full support and execution, we’re here to help! Fill out this form and one of our marketing experts will contact you within 24 hours to schedule time for us to help you – for free.
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