Printed Marketing Pieces
The need for detailed 12 or 16 page, four-color, glossy brochures - or for any printed marketing literature at all - seems to be less and less these days. With email, RSS, blogs, podcasts and websites providing all the details, thankfully it is a line item on the tradeshow organizer budget that doesn’t have to get bigger year after year.
But of course it depends on the show. For the Online Trading Expo we never had a printed exhibitor sales kit. All information was emailed as a .pdf attachment because as you can imagine, exhibitors for the ONLINE Trading Expo were very electronic-focused. For the Portable Media Expo, I am going nearly the same route. The only exhibitor printed piece I did was a “Save the Date” postcard. However we are printing a nice looking attendee marketing piece because we are light on the email database and heavy on the physical mailing addresses. Plus a launch event requires a more attention-grabbing impressions than a show that’s been around for years.
I have yet to meet a tradeshow organizer that still doesn’t say direct mail is the best ROI. It will be interesting to see if that is the case with the Portable Media Expo as well. I know it is a web-blog-podcast savvy crowd, but sometimes even those folks like to have something to hold in their hand when making a decision. Tracking my marketing dollars is critical for this launch.
July 15th, 2005 at 9:24 pm |
Tim,
Allow me to be the first show marketer to suggest that print and online advertising (and perhaps PR) can deliver better ROI than direct mail for a suprising larger number of events.
When I first did the historicals for one of my clients last year - a pretty big show in building products - I was a bit confounded by the results I was seeing because, like you, I went into the process with the assumption that DM would carry the day. But it didn’t. And now, after looking at results for the second go-round, this is definitely the case.
The cost per attendee for advertising was, on average, half that of DM tactics. And online is a fourth of printed direct mail.
That said, I typically don’t use lists from publications where I’m not planning to advertise, so there is a synergistic effect that’s all but impossible to measure. But don’t forget to consider the ads when you’re planning your attendee campaign.
July 16th, 2005 at 8:32 am |
Tim,
I agree with Rich in that you cannot ignore concentrated ad campaigns. As for direct mail…you have to use those lists, at least for your first podcast expo. Your direct mail pieces will not only generate registrations but they may help build a feeling legitimacy for your conference with your customers, sponsors, and media partners.
I’m sure your on this already but since this is a podcast expo…what about asking speakers, media, etc. to include quick mentions of the expo in the podcasts they produce leading up to the expo?