Enter the New Era of Marketing with Digital Banners
Marketing your trade Show online with digital banners can significantly increase the outcome of your exhibition. You can use digital banners on various platforms such as Google and social media to create awareness for your exhibition, inform customers about the products you will be exhibiting, and invite them to come and try them out, therefore increasing customer engagement booth.
This article offers you a guide on how to use digital banners for marketing online. The article further explains how to leverage digital marketing with digital banner displays for the best trade show outcomes.
Studies show that 64% of businesses believe that trade shows are only worthwhile if you can get in front of the attendees to inform them about your business and demonstrate your products. However, the challenge for many businesses is getting attendees to their exhibition booth.
Depending on where you have set up your exhibition booth, you may attract some potential customers with your displays. However, you cannot fully rely on that to get visibility. This is where digital marketing before and during the trade show comes in handy.
With sufficient marketing efforts before the trade show, you can begin to build brand awareness, interest customers in your products, promote promotions that you will be running during the trade show, and invite them to your booth on the day of the trade show.
You might also begin to get inquiries about products and your business, which will guide some of the questions attendees will ask. Pre-exhibition marketing might also give you a sense of the most popular products from the inquiries you get, so you can plan adequately on how to display them at your booth for better lead generation and increased sales. On the other hand, you will also plan and present the less popular products to capture the attention of potential customers.
Guide On Using Digital Banners for Marketing Your Exhibition Online
Like with any other form of advertising, both online and offline, you have a few seconds to grab the attention of your target audience. Therefore, your digital banner should be visually attractive to get the attention of your potential customers.
How Digital Banners Work
Digital banners are commonly referred to as display advertising in the online world. Normally, you design a banner with a link to your company’s website or a landing page and set it up on one or more display advertising platforms. A display advertising company such as Google uses artificial intelligence algorithms to determine websites whose audience would be interested in your business and products. Your banner is displayed on those websites.
Once a visitor clicks on the link, they are taken to the advertisers’ website or landing page. Therefore, the primary goal of display advertising or digital advertising is to drive traffic to the advertisers’ websites. Digital banners can either be animated or static.
Benefits of Using Digital Banners to Advertise Your Exhibitions
Here are the benefits of using digital banners to advertise the upcoming exhibition online.
- They are a great tool for building brand awareness before the exhibition day. You can use digital banners to introduce your business to potential customers online. You then leverage this familiarity by inviting them to your exhibition booth to learn more about your brand and products.
- You can target different audiences with differentiated digital banners. It is possible to have different target audiences for different products. Therefore, you can set up different digital banner adverts for four different personas. In fact, digital display advertising platforms such as Google allow you to target customers in a specific location. In the case of an exhibition, you’re likely to get better results by focusing your targeting efforts toward potential customers in the location where the trade show will be held.
- You can leverage the traffic you attract to your website or landing page to understand your customers’ needs. For instance, you can set up a quick survey on your landing page to ask customers what they would be interested in knowing about your business.
- It is effective for promoting new products. If you are launching a new product during the exhibition, you can create a buzz about it through banner advertising. Set up a landing page for the products and use digital banner advertising to drive traffic to that page. Set a Call To Action on the products’ landing page as a sign-up for a product demonstration at the exhibition booth.
- Retargeting your audience. You can also use display banners to reach potential customers who had previously visited your website. Since these audiences had already contacted your company, it is more likely to take action on your newer advertisements.
- Easy to measure ROI. It is easier to measure the effectiveness of banner display advertising for your trade show over other methods of traditional marketing. This is because you can see the impression and the click-through rate of each of your marketing campaigns.
How To Set Up Digital Banner Advertising
The process of setting up digital banner advertising is so simple that you can easily do it on your own. However, if you are keen on optimizing your digital ad campaigns, it is best to work with a banner ads specialist.
Below are the key elements of a display banner advert:
- The audience. Before beginning to set up your campaign, you need to be clear about who your target audience is. Map out their persona, location, and come up with a list of keywords related to your business or niche that they are most interested in. You will use this information to define your audience during the campaign setup.
- Your message. Now that you have figured out who your audience is, the next step is to determine your primary message. Is this a brand awareness campaign where the banner will have your company’s name, logo, and tagline? Or is it an advertising campaign to inform potential customers to attend your upcoming trade show exhibition?
- Content of your display banner ad. Draft the text you will use, and where applicable, choose an image.
- Your Call To Action. Determine the kind of action you would like the target audience to take once they come across your ad. For instance, if you would like them to sign up for your upcoming exhibition, then lead them to a form where they can register.
Where Can You Set Up Your Display Banner Advertisement?
There various advertising networks that support display banners, including Google AdWords, AOL advertising, buysellads, Adify, Commission Junction, Valueclick Media, AdOn Network, Fusion, Project Winderful, The Deck, buyads.com, right Media, and openX, among others.
Each platform has its own standards and regulations that advertisers should comply with when creating ads. They offer a self-serve process where you set up your campaign, provide creative content, set budget, and the campaign timeline. You then submit the campaign to start running.
Leveraging Digital Marketing on the Day of the Exhibition to Improve Outcomes
On the day of the exhibition, it is important to set up your display materials to maximize your marketing efforts. Digital banners offer you a sophisticated and interactive way to market your business and products during the trade show.
For instance, you can have a digital display banner stand set up with your social media pages. Encourage engagement with the attendees in real-time on social media by requesting them to share their experience at your booth on their social media pages.
You might also want to set up a photo booth where you encourage attendees to take photos at the exhibition booth and post them in real-time on social media pages
Using Digital Trade Show Display Banner Stands At Your Exhibition Booth
Digital display banners stands come in handy when displaying products and for product demonstrations. You can also use them to present your company’s key brand attributes such as your logo, company name, range of products, logo, etc.
Since there will be a lot of activity happening within the trade shows site, you may not be able to adequately use sound in your product display and demonstration. Therefore, use high-quality photos for the product displays.
You can also discuss product features and their benefits using bullet points and other text on a slide show that plays on your digital display. Limit the number of words per slide to a maximum of 10. This is because more words may be too overwhelming for the attendees, and the presentation will move to the next slide before the attendees have read all its content.
You could set up a product demonstration video with subtitles explaining how the products work. Keep the videos short and to the point. 5-minute videos on a loop will be more effective than a 30-minute video.
Digital display banners can be used to showcase previous customers’ reviews and testimonials as a way of building trust with the attendees. The social proof content can either be in text form or short videos with subtitles.
Tips for Setting Up Your Digital Display Banner Stand At Your Exhibition Booth
- Ensure the product display banner is well lit for easy visibility both up close and from a distance.
- Ensure your brand elements are adequately incorporated into the content being displayed on the digital display banner. For example, you can have a company logo embedded throughout the video or on top (left, right, or center) of the banner content. Include your company’s name and logo in the opening credits and closing credits of the product demonstration video. Also, provide your company’s contact information in the closing credits.
- Position the digital display banner stand for maximum visibility. If you are using the digital display banner stand to provide general information about for company to attract attendees to your booth and promote brand awareness, it is best to place the stand near the aisle for unobstructed visibility. Otherwise, if you are using digital banners for product displace, place them inside the booth on the floor or counter, depending on their size.
Additional Ways To Use Digital Marketing for a Successful Trade Show Exhibition
Below are additional ways to use digital marketing for a successful trade show exhibition.
Email. Email Marketing is one of the least expensive digital marketing tools, yet it can be one of the leading revenue generators. In the months leading to your exhibition, you can use display banners to run lead generation campaigns. As the dates of the exhibition approach, run an email marketing campaign to invite your warm leads to your booth. Have a value proposition in your email that proposes to the reader how they will benefit from attending the exhibition. You might also highlight new product promotions for giveaways that will only be available at the exhibition booth.
Post exhibition, reach out to all the attendees that left their email addresses at your event table. If some had made requests to be sent certain information via email, send it. Write a thank-you email to all the attendees. Also, write a general email to all the contacts on the email list recapping the exhibition’s highlights.
Social media. Consider running a pre-exhibition giveaway, contest, or promotion that culminates on the exhibition day. This will help to create a buzz about your upcoming exhibition, improving attendance and engagement. On the exhibition day, constantly update your social media pages with snippets of the happenings at your booth.
Make separate posts to invite your followers to the on-going exhibition. Keep an eye on questions and direct messages that may be coming through the social media pages regarding the exhibition.
As an exhibitor, you can leverage the digital era of marketing for the best trade show outcome. Use digital banner advertising campaigns before your exhibition to increase your brand’s visibility among potential exhibition attendees, invite potential customers to your booth, and collect valuable marketing information ahead of the exhibition.
Also, incorporate digital display stands in your exhibition booth set up and improve brand awareness, customer engagements, and product display.