A Digital Marketing Strategy to Power Your Success in the Exhibition Hall
With convention season approaching, your business has a unique chance to engage with a concentrated audience of industry professionals, decision-makers, and potential clients. A well-crafted digital marketing strategy turns opportunities into tangible results.
By implementing targeted digital marketing tactics before, during, and after a conference, you can maximize your brand’s reach and impact. A combination of tactics can enhance your campaign’s effectiveness, particularly if you take an omnichannel approach to your strategy.
Geofencing Your Convention as Part of Your Digital Marketing Strategy
Geofencing is a location-based digital marketing tactic that lets you target individuals in a specific geographic area using beacon technology with location services in smartphones.
During a conference, setting up geofenced ads around the venue, airport, or other key locations lets you deliver real-time, location-specific ads about your company to attendees’ mobile devices.
The goal of geofencing during the convention is to increase your brand visibility and drive foot traffic to your booth in the exhibition hall or your presentation in the auditorium, which can help pave the way for qualified leads that turn into conversions.
Don’t confuse geofencing and geotargeting! Geotargeting focuses on delivering content based on a geographical boundary, such as zip codes. Geofencing is more precise that relies on GPS and programmatic advertising technology to target and retarget.
Pro tip: Offer an exclusive deal or incentives to encourage immediate action, such as “Mention this ad when you stop by our booth and get a coupon code to take 10% off your first order!”
Affinity Audience Targeting
Affinity audience targeting delivers ads to people who have a demonstrated interest in specific topics or activities. Platforms like Google Ads let you define custom affinity audiences based on interests, online behavior, and demographics.
Ads that rely on affinity audiences help your business reach people who are most likely to engage with you. You can use affinity audiences to tap into a wider audience beyond immediate conference attendees who may still be interested in your products or services.
Communicating with Attendees After the Conference
The end of the convention doesn’t mean the end of your marketing campaign. In fact, it’s an opportune time to keep nurturing relationships with the people who showed an interest in your brand.
You may want to implement automated email messages to those who provided their contact information — also known as first-party data — to you during the convention, such as sharing recordings of your sessions or releasing exclusive white papers or case studies.
Comprehensive Marketing Campaigns Include Site Retargeting
If your ads were successful, and your audience engaged with them and visited your website, but didn’t convert, site retargeting ads give you a second chance.
Site retargeting ads show up in various placements around the internet where past site visitors spend their time, to remind them of your brand’s offerings. You can segment your audience based on which product or page they viewed or whether they abandoned a contact form. Keeping your brand top-of-mind after the conference is over extends your opportunity to turn interest into action.
Pro tip: Combine site retargeting display ads with other formats like Google Performance Max or Demand Gen campaigns to expand your reach into as many channels as possible, including YouTube, Gmail, Discover, and Search.
Personalized Content in Digital Marketing Campaigns
Tailoring your ad content — and your website page it links to — to the specific audience you’re trying to reach before, during, or after the convention will outperform more generic ads.
Speak directly to your audience’s pain points so your ads feel highly relevant, leading to increased engagement and improved conversion outcomes.
Omnichannel Messaging for Digital Marketing
For all the marketing you do during convention season, take an omnichannel approach in your campaigns. A consistent, customer-first message creates a seamless experience for your audience.
Employ a unified brand voice, with a consistent tone that reinforces your brand identity across platforms, including social media, email, and display ads. Think of it as a cohesive journey that answers the questions and meets the expectations of your audience.
An Un-convention-al Marketing Campaign
Convention season is your chance to make connections — don’t miss it! By implementing a digital marketing strategy that includes geofencing, affinity audiences, post-conference engagement, and omnichannel messaging, you can maximize the impact of your campaign and get a strong return on your ad spend.
The key to a successful marketing campaign lies in understanding your audience, delivering relevant content, and maintaining consistent communication. By doing this, you can turn conference interactions into lasting relationships.
