As industry leaders, should we be planning our businesses on a return of the trade show in Q4 of this year? In the broadcast industry at least we are seeing two of the major ones, IBC for September and NAB for November, making a return. Optimism is high that these events will go ahead, but is reliant especially on how the vaccination program will roll out over the summer. Nothing is guaranteed. But worse, there is a huge amount of uncertainty about whether people will come, even if they are allowed to.
Many companies are currently experiencing a major drop in revenue despite innovation being at a new high. People are touting the “new-normal” but old habits die hard and when normality returns, then so will traditional sales and marketing initiatives. Virtualized events have become part of this new normal, but actually people are craving the social interaction that a face-to-face event offer and there is an apparent fatigue to these online events.
Too many companies see trade shows as their main driver for lead generation, so what can they be doing instead? As a sales person I have had done my fair share of cold calling. It is wearisome and time consuming but was considered a necessary evil, especially by over zealous sales managers who did not know better. It gave some relative success but my biggest success by a long way is potential prospects contacting me – and this is where all companies should be focusing their efforts on – basically using digital marketing to drive inbound sales leads 24×7.
Even with the relative maturity of the internet and what we know about search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, it still amazes me how many companies are not effectively using this relatively low cost medium to drive people to their online company presence. And then once on their website or social media, how they are not driving them to a conversion with a Call-To-Action (CTA) or some other compelling reason for leaving their details. It’s not just about increased web traffic, the real metric is about an increase in web conversion.
As a new business salesperson, I have always believed the two biggest challenges of sales during the whole sales cycle is firstly initially finding the opportunity, and then secondly the final part of closing the deal. Everything in between is a pre-defined process that we follow. The first challenge is where I have found the power of digital marketing has enormously helped me build a qualified sales pipeline for new customers.
And that is why I took it on myself to become an expert in digital marketing. I love the whole creativity of marketing, I really enjoy trade shows but actually the majority of my continued, repeatable success comes from inbound lead generation. And this is why I set-up Rain Dance Digital, taking my experience and knowledge of the broadcast industry and offering Digital Marketing services especially for companies wanting to sell into the broadcast, AV and TV production industry. From acquisition to playout, from post production to archiving, from baseband to IP, from data center to cloud, I can help you find new global customers around your specific proposition . For digital marketing services for broadcast, contact me now for a free keyword analysis and lets discuss with no obligation what I can do for you and your business. Contact me on email: mailto: [email protected]
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