Important New Tips For Improving Your Trade Show Content Marketing From The Experts
It’s time to update your content strategies again! The Content Marketing Institute has issued its fifth study of content across all forms of B2B (and B2C) marketing. There are a lot of great tips for making the most of your trade show booth promotions. Key to the trade show industry is the fact that the survey was about online content. Yet, they found that businesses agreed that in-person events were still one of their most effective marketing strategies. It seems more and more companies are finding ways to bridge their content strategies into in-person events. Content marketing, it seems, has leapt off of the Internet and into the real world. So let’s talk about CMI’s findings, and how they can relate to your trade show strategies.
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Get The Most From Your Expo Promotion With Good Content Strategies
First, You NEED A Written Content Strategy This is the key point CMI is hammering home, and we feel it needs repeating: By far, the companies reporting the most success with content marketing of all types were those who had an actual written content strategy that is also followed. Companies that only had a verbal strategy did all right, but not as well as those with documentation. And it’s probably no surprise that those who reported having no strategy also reported the worst results. In our view, this should include at the least:
- A detailed description of the customer(s) being targeted
- A list of types of content and channels being used
- Straightforward descriptions of the tone and general content of the materials
- Style guides to ensure consistency
- Set goals to achieve, preferably based on benchmarks from last year
- Delegated responsibilities and a reporting hierarchy
- And financial processes to track/measure ROI.
By and large, simply making such a plan and sticking to it would probably do more to improve your returns on trade show marketing than anything else. Content marketing really cannot be done ad-hoc while still showing definite returns. You need a plan with a focused vision of what your content is supposed to achieve, and how it’s going to achieve it.
More Is Better (But You Probably Knew That)
It’s obvious enough that in all forms of marketing, there’s going to be a boundary point between spending enough and spending too little to be effective. The new study helps clarify where that line is when it comes to content. When asked what percentage of their marketing budget is spent on content marketing, the overall average of all respondents was 28%. That, by itself, says a lot about just how important content has become to modern marketing.
What’s telling, however, is that the most effective marketers also spent the most. Those who saw the best results, and the highest returns, were those spending an average of 37% of their budget on content marketing. Conversely, those with the worst performance were allocating 16% of their budget or less.
In other words, when you’re planning your budget for your next trade show, be certain to allocate money for any content marketing that will be related to it. Remember this includes effectively ANY media the public might see, from flyers to video productions to games. Good budgeting will also help you show the ROI later on.
More Content Is Better Too
Another trend noted in the study is that businesses are publishing more content, more often. 16% publish new content online daily, and another 26% publish multiple times a week. On top of that, 70% of respondents said they’re creating “more” or “significantly more” content than they were the year before.
So it’s no surprise that more than 50%, across all categories, said they were challenged finding enough content! There’s a sort of arms race going on here, one which is probably not healthy in the long term but may be unavoidable in the short term. Because customers are already being bombarded by thousands of commercial messages a day – really – there’s a rush to create even more content in hopes of being seen. The attention-deficit nature of the Internet contributes to this. Novelty is highly valued, even from day to day.
In terms of your trade show marketing, we suggest a slow ramp-up of material releases in the month or two prior to the show, then pull out all the stops once the show itself is underway. There is probably no such thing as too little content marketing during a show. That’s when the spotlight is on you, and you’ll get the most bang for your buck.
Everyone’s Social… But They’re Not Sure Why
Here’s an interesting one to ponder. The single most common content marketing tactic used was social media – 92% of respondents utilize it. Yet, when asked to rate overall effectiveness of various strategies, social media didn’t even crack the top ten. The study didn’t explore this in depth. Our guess is that most companies simply don’t have a concrete way of tracking social media effectiveness, since it’s a rather abstract form of outreach.
There may also be a genuine “Well, everyone’s doing it” factor at work here as well. The numbers were clear, however, on which services were most popular. Of the 92% using social, 94% of those are on LinkedIn. Twitter came in at 88%, Facebook at 84%, and YouTube at 72%. Google+ rounded off the top five at 64%. The average number of services used by any respondent was six.
So here’s a recommendation for social marketing for your trade shows:
- Social media is terrific for trade show marketing, so even if you can’t find a good way to measure its impact concretely, make the most of it.
- LinkedIn is perfect for pre-show networking and building buzz, and Facebook and G+ are also good in that role.
- During the show, we recommend relying on visual social media outlets: YouTube, Slideshare, Pinterest, and possibly Instagram if you have younger audiences.
- (Instagram is continuing to grow steadily in usage among <35s and may become a lot more relevant to content marketing in the next couple years.)
Paid Placement Is Growing In Usage
One new section in this year’s study involves the use of paid content marketing methods. As it turns out, 80% of companies are using some form of paid content advertising. The number one choice was Search Engine Marketing, with >50% both using it and seeing it as effective.
However, for trade shows, SEO doesn’t help much directly. Promoted posts on social networks and ads on social sites are going to be much better for getting word out about an exposition, and these are generally seen as effective as well.
To Promote Your Trade Show Appearance, Think Content!
That’s what it boils down to. The content marketing game is getting bigger by the day, and it’s coming to be embraced by the vast majority of businesses in nearly every industry. Since content can easily be repurposed and moved from online to offline uses at will, it’s a solid investment in a form of outreach that’s easily portable.
A solid plan and good tracking will serve you well promoting your upcoming trade show appearances. If there’s anything we can do to help with your show planning, exhibit design, or trade show booth asset management, please get in touch. You can reach us at (425) 556-9511 or email [email protected].
