Trade shows are getting postponed or canceled left and right in 2020. How can you get in front of the business you need? Use your virtual trade show booth.
Danny:
Today, we're going to talk about how your website is very similar to a trade show. Digital marketing: similar to a trade show.
Here's the thing, I think a lot of people have a disconnect, and they feel that this whole digital marketing thing is, new ways of marketing versus the traditional sense. And we go to trade shows and we know that the vast majority of manufacturers are doing that, and they're still doing that– not to knock trade shows. You do need to do those, they are great, but there's a lot left. There's a lot of opportunity on the digital side that could be learned from it. Our insights report that… If you haven't downloaded it, go do it. In our insights, we talked to 150 manufacturers. You guys told us, the vast majority of manufacturers are doing trade shows. And here's the thing. a lot of people are a little afraid of jumping in the digital marketing piece because of the unknowns. And so what I wanted to do in today's episode was just sort of break down some of those barriers, and to realize that it's kind of the same thing.
You know, it's interesting when you kind of break it down. This actually came out and we did an episode actually on this I think a couple months ago. But this is going to be a little bit more detailed. We were at MODEX… No I'm sorry, we were not at MODEX, we were at AHR Expo. So this is… I can't remember the name of the acronym. Basically this was like heating and air… HVAC type contractors, and it was huge in Atlanta. Was probably in January or February of 2019. And so I was there with Joseph, who maybe you've met or seen on previous episodes. He does some of the on-camera interviews. And we were talking to a couple people, and he told me after, he said, “You know, I had a really interesting thought. As we're at a booth,” he said, “Man, the whole trade show experience is exactly like a website.”
So, why? Let's break it down. The first thing is when you go to a trade show, well, why do you go? You've got customers that are existing customers, you have prospective customers there, you have people that could buy your product and service all under one roof for you know, whatever: a day or two or three, whatever that is. And so you set up a booth, right? And the whole point of that booth is you want to get people to your booth so you can talk to them. So your booth, you set it up, it's a platform so people can come check you out. That's your website. So think about that: your website equals the booth. The next thing that you want to do, well you want to get people to your website. Well, we might call that booth traffic in trade show land. In digital marketing we're going to call that web traffic. Same thing: we want to get people to the website. So you're starting to see some of the similarities here.
So all right, let's break it down a little bit further. What are some ways that people use to attract people to your trade show booth? Well, all kinds of things. Let's start off with design and size. You look at a trade show booth with a really nice design, they've got slick lights and a really nice setup. They've got the couches with the upstairs lounge, and just visually, you walk by and you're like, “Wow. That looks impressive.” What does that tell you? That creates like a subconscious message in yo...