Digest...

Rather than call out the bad examples directly, I tried to condense my takeaways to a short set of “lessons” I took away from what I saw, lessons I will definitely apply to future event marketing efforts for Heinz as well as for our clients.  

 1. Don’t assume people will read it right away
Materials that told people to “stop by the booth” likely didn’t get noticed until it was too late.  And if that was your only call to action, what now?  Which brings us to the next point…

2. Don’t limit your call to action to only “at the show” offers
It doesn’t help if I’m looking through these materials back home and you’re inviting me to your booth.  If you want to promote at-show offers, great, but pair that with something I can respond to afterward.

3. Use a unique tracking code or phone number or something

4. Choose a different format than 8.5 x 11

5. Don’t just use something generic from your “catalog” of content

6. Limit the copy!
It’s bad enough when I come to your booth individually and get a double-sided flyer that has 1,000+ words jammed in.  I’m not very likely to read all of that.  Now multiply that two-pager times over an inch of similar flyers.

7. Use thick stock
Tactical but important. A thick stock costs more but feels better.  It implies confidence and authority.

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There’s a reason we’ve written blog posts about trade shows and published infographics on the subject over the past few months. Marketing automation is a great tool to complement your trade show efforts, and can help you before, during, and after the trade show occurs by giving you the ability to:

* set up landing pages to collect lead information
* segment your email communications based on geography, interests, and more — making it easier to send out targeted and relevant trade show invites
* prepare autoresponders that will send your leads helpful information as soon as they submit one of your trade show forms
* automate follow-up with your leads after the trade show has ended
* assign trade show leads to the appropriate sales reps for follow up.

Excerpt...

Marketing automation is a great tool to complement your trade show efforts, and can help you before, during, and after the trade show occurs by giving you the ability to:

• set up landing pages to collect lead information
• segment your email communications based on geography, interests, and more — making it easier to send out targeted and relevant trade show invites
• prepare autoresponders that will send your leads helpful information as soon as they submit one of your trade show forms
• automate follow-up with your leads after the trade show has ended
• assign trade show leads to the appropriate sales reps for follow up.