Clamason
Getting Results from Tradeshow Investment
Exhibiting at a tradeshow requires significant monetary and time commitment, so you need to make sure your investment will result in a measureable return.
When a tradeshow stand is worked well, the benefits can be monumental to your company. It’s fantastic exposure, an opportunity to network and meet people face-to-face on a platform that is designed for you to shout about your company – what you offer and why you’re the best at what you do.
The Surface Engineering Association (SEA) had a pavilion stand at the Advanced Engineering Tradeshow in 2019. This is the UK’s largest annual gathering of OEMs and Supply Chain professionals. The pavilion offered SEA members a platform to promote their services at a reduced rate on the stand.
SEA needed the additional support to ensure the benefits of the pavilion were being maximised, utilising every inch of space effectively. SEA had goals of increasing their members and engaging with existing ones through the stand. Rockfine Associates Michelle Dalton, B.D. Dalton and Chris Kealy attended for the two days the show was running. With Michelle’s experience and knowledge working a trade show stand successfully, a process and plan was developed for the SEA, taking their goals into account.
On the stand, the Rockfine team promoted SEA and their services, engaging with as many of the Advanced Engineering delegates as possible. They attracted prospects and partners, articulating the many benefits of SEA membership to each attendee they met. As well as collecting new contacts, engaging with existing members was also important. Relevant, personal introductions were made to the SEA team and members, encouraging new relationships to be built.
Statistically, trade shows often quieten down by day two, so maintaining the momentum of attracting delegates to the stand is of paramount importance. The Rockfine team still encouraged a regular flow of contact and conversation throughout the day. One way this was achieved was by setting up a golfing activity for delegates to participate in.
The goal was 20 warm membership prospects from the exhibition, which the Rockfine team confidently delivered, and more. As with all good tradeshows, the heavy work is really what happens once you have those leads!
Automotive manufacturer, Clamason Industries, is well-versed in attending exhibitions. The company’s sales team uses industry exhibitions quite strategically as a venue for meeting with current customers and suppliers, for conducting market research on new technologies and processes, and for prospecting for new sales leads.
The company worked with Rockfine Associate Michelle Dalton when targeting the medical device market through her role as Communications Manager for the medical device industry association, Medilink.
Now working as a freelancer, Michelle assisted Clamason with pre-tradeshow work for the Medical Device Manufacturing exhibition, the Med-tech Innovation exhibition and the Advanced Manufacturing exhibition targeting the automotive supply chain.
The goal of the pre-tradeshow work was to build up interest in Clamason’s capabilities utilising social media and exhibition medial channels. Michelle worked with Clamason to identify a handful of capabilities specific to the target market, then through a clever campaign of announcements, tagged posts and high-profile retweets, accomplished the goal of building interest and even garnered some pre-set appointments with new clients.
The ultimate measure of success of each of the pre-tradeshow campaigns was based on traffic to the exhibition stand and to the website.
“Michelle completed a 3-week social media campaign for us prior to an international exhibition resulting in over 800 new visitors to our website, 86% of them from her work on Twitter. This is the second social media campaign I have hired Michelle for, both times she has delivered unprecedented results. She is clever, attuned to social media jargon, and very good value for money. We’d highly recommend Michelle, and will be working with her again.” Tim Jones, Clamason