The engineering industry is a competitive one, especially in an event, trade show, exhibition, etc. When you and your competitor are in the same venue there’s a big possibility that the audience will choose a larger scale and more established company to look at. However, be aware that with the right approach, you can attract your competitor’s prospects, into your very own.
There are many ways to increase the number of visitors and hype up your audience. One way is by using digital marketing tools such as social media, email marketing, and paid advertising. These tools can help you reach a wider audience and promote your event in a more effective way.
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This article will go over the following tactics and strategies:
- Facebook
- Group Broadcasting
- Events
- Messaging Invites
- Instagram:
- Promotional content and tagging.
- LinkedIn
- Event Page
- Promotional Content and Reshares
- Company Tags
- Email Marketing
- Press Release/Event announcement
- Registration Time-Out Strategy
- Press Release
- Media/other publication channels
- Paid Advertising
- Traffic
- Retargeting Ads
- Lead Generation
- Conversion
The following are some tips for inviting people to an engineering trade show:
– Make sure that the event is relevant to the audience.
– Invite people who are interested in the event topic.
– Send invitations through email, social media, and other channels.
– Create a landing page for the event and include all necessary information about it.
Among the top 3 organic strategies on Facebook are event pages, group broadcasting, and messaging invites. This will cover all aspects of brand awareness, traffic, and lead generation
- Create an Event Page on Facebook: Facebook is one of the most used social media sites and has a huge audience base. If your event is not there, you can create a personal event page for it and get more people to like your page in order to share information about it with them.
- Group Broadcasting is a great way to spread the words within the industry. Share the information and/or press release in different groups in the area and send a follow up through texts.
- Messaging Invites – Send invites through private messages politely and decriptively with full information of landing page/registration link, time, location, and event description.
Although Instagram may not be the most favorable platform for industry leaders and professionals in the industry, it’s still a great way to build reputation and increase online presence. Simply focus on promotional content and tag relevant accounts and participants of the event on posts, reels, videos, and stories.
Collaborating with other users and accounts that shares the same event objective or will be present in the venue can also be a great collaborating opportunity.
Stick with a clear brand theme with branding guidelines such as font, colors, and elements to increase prospect recognition.
Use relevant hashtags to increase exposure. A good strategy AR & Associates use include 10 large scope (generic) hashtags, 10 medium audience size, and 10 small/narrow sized audience (downsize to location and area targeting + niche).
Having a clear and optimised biography in your personal LinkedIn profile will allow you to connect with other professionals in the industry and build your network.
The second step is to find out who the influencers are in your industry and connect with them on LinkedIn. You can do this by searching for people who have a lot of mutual connections with you, or by connecting through mutual groups.
Within the broad network and connections, creating an event page on LinkedIn will be the perfect next objective to increase registration number. The event page should include information about the event, date, time, location, and any other relevant details that might be helpful for attendees to know before they RSVP.
Repurpose promotional content from Facebook and Instagram and tag relevant contributors to the event, collaborators, and sponsors.
Before prospecting on LinkedIn, create a list of potential attendees to narrow the audience and filter out leads. This can be done by looking at the company’s website, LinkedIn, and Facebook pages.
The fourth step is to promote the event through paid advertising, which we will go over shortly.
Email Marketing and Press Release
Email marketing and press release could be considered a parallel channel. Once you have a list of you go-to media personnel, send out a solid press release with all the necessary information, going over the essential answers to:
- WHAT
- WHEN
- WHERE
- WHY
- HOW
A clear, attractive, informative, and factual press release excerpt will automatically persuade media channels to publish, issue, and share the event information to an even wider audience. Keep good contact and relationship with journalists, writers, and publication companies within the areas and industry.
Lastly, within email marketing, create email sequences that will give a time-out or urgency. For example, registration deadlines, giveaway registration timeframe, and/or limited capacity to urge prospects to register faster.
Paid Advertising
Lastly, with the ultimate number support, paid advertising can be down at a low budget all the way to a larger amount through different channels and strategies.
When looking to convert without proper technical back-end support, simply run traffic and cross-check manually.
When having a short or minimum budget, focus running on Facebook and LinkedIn with lead generation objective and traffic.
When extensive setup is provided, run conversion ads and integrate through third-party integration by using pixel setup through event managers, and CAPI (Conversion APIs) settings. Simply put, this allows a back-end support where your CRM will tell Facebook when a lead has registered, helping the algorithm look for more similar people in the platform that are more likely to register.
Lastly, when having a larger budget, consider running retargeting ads. When tracking and/or visitor pixels and tags are setup, a retargeting advertisement will re-target social media profiles that has engaged or visited the profile to frequently show the ads to them. This increases retention and recognition, which eventually will convert the audience to leads. Use various dynamic creatives, videos, copies, and headlines.
To make your life easier, simply copy and paste the list HERE to your personal SOP (Standard Operational Procedure), and get these checked out to get the best result for your growing engineering or manufacturing company through paid advertising on Facebook.
AR & Associates have helped IT, Engineering, Automation, Manufacturing, and Energy companies all across Australia to generate leads, increase brand awareness, maintain reputable PR, as well as increase sales.
We focus on helping you spend less time in marketing, and more time serving your customers. Leave the matter to the respective experts. As engineers ourselves, we understand the core values and importance of marketing through trust and reliability.
We provide a full tailor-made solution that helps you build your company to the next level through digital and on-site marketing. With expertise in organic omnichannel marketing and on-site event or workshop planning, we offer a full turn-key marketing solution that gives you time, space, and freedom to focus on what you do best, which is to run your business.
Email us here or call us today at (+61) 02 8416 4442 to get more information or book a complimentary marketing consultation or strategy session below.
