Spindustry Blog

Build a Better Experiential Marketing Recap

Posted by Jessica Plunkett on July 26, 2017

Your agency spends a lot of time planning and executing activations for clients. Once the event is over, are you tracking the results? Years ago, we saw agencies overthink the post-event recap, requiring ambassadors to fill out dozens and dozens of questions. More recently, we’ve worked with agencies struggling to come up with the right mix of questions that can be quickly, easily and accurately reported by their team. The recap ends up being a quick email of random information from the event professional. Thus, trying to tally data or look for trends across multiple events is challenging. By building a simple but strategic recap form, you'll end up with a gold mine of information to share with your clients.

Read More

Topics: event marketing, experiential marketing

Are You Taking Experiential Marketing Event Requests?

Posted by Jessica Plunkett on February 2, 2017

As an experiential marketing agency, you spend time carefully mapping out an event schedule with your clients. Time, budget and resources are major constraints to finalizing a schedule, along with a myriad of other influences. Do you ever wonder, though, if you miss out on events that could have a huge impact for your client?

Read More

Topics: event marketing, experiential marketing, event management

Important Location Information to Track in Your Event Management Software

Posted by Jessica Plunkett on September 8, 2016

Every year thousands of brand ambassadors show up at locations around the world to give current and potential customers an experience. Brands invest a lot of money into creating these events in hopes of connecting and establishing a deeper relationship with their target audience. Some events are more successful than others for a variety of reasons. One influence on that success is the location of the event – and knowing which locations give the best bang for the buck. Location information matters in event management. You need to ensure your system is designed to handle location information in these three ways.

Read More

Topics: event marketing, experiential marketing, event management

Three Examples of When to Use Print Marketing Materials

Posted by Jessica Plunkett on November 5, 2014

It’s no secret that we’re the biggest advocates of digital – it’s in our DNA. However, successful marketing campaigns still include printed materials, strategically used in the right context and integrated with digital assets. Here are three examples of when a printed piece may be the right component to include.

1. Trade shows – You have a live audience and you want to capture their attention. There are a couple keen opportunities to utilize printed assets.

Read More

Topics: event marketing, marketing strategy, marketing tips

Advanced Tactics to Consider for Your Holiday Marketing Strategy

Posted by Jessica Plunkett on July 30, 2014

As July winds down and the temperatures keep soaring up, we end our Christmas in July series with a few more involved tactics to consider for your holiday marketing strategy. We’ve covered email and social media strategy and how to use web analytics to drive promotion. Now consider how contests, apps and special events can make the holiday more magical.

Read More

Topics: event marketing, social media, app marketing, marketing tips

Spindustry Digital Wows with Trade Show Booths

Posted by Jessica Plunkett on July 1, 2013

The Spindustry Digital team has been diligently helping clients digitally infuse their marketing, and trade shows are no exception.  A folding table with a lopsided banner will no longer suffice in a market where businesses and end consumers alike want personality and attentiveness from brands.  Developing a trade show experience that is welcoming, purposeful and unique is important.

Purposeful is a two-way street.  Make sure you’re providing something of value to attendees but remember that you’re likely there to sell, so create an experience where it’s a win-win for both parties.  Offer to demo a product or schedule a time for an onsite consultation with the customer.  Make sure to collect contact information for follow up.

Welcoming and unique can be mastered with the right set up at the conference.  You can create a space where attendees feel invited to stop in.  What happens next is up to you, your brand and what you’re promoting.  In a sea of tables, banners and polo clad people, you want your booth and the components set up in your space to catch an attendee’s eye.  If you can do that, a conversation is more likely to happen.

Spindustry Digital recently developed a full campaign conference strategy for Hydro-Klean, including the development of a new trade show booth.  It received praise from customers, exhibit show management and even our trade show booth vendor, SkylineThe booth alone didn’t make the show.  The pre-show marketing strategy, including email and video, the at-event calls to action and the post-show follow up campaign resulted in a higher number of leads than previous events. 

If you’ve attended one too many shows where you didn’t get the results expected, give us a call.  It’s not just about a booth, or the actions at the event alone; it’s about planning and executing a campaign starting before the show and continuing all the way through follow up and the close of new business with new partners.

 

Read More

Topics: event marketing

Maximize Your Trade Show Booth Experience

Posted by Spindustry Digital on February 27, 2013

If you come prepared, trade shows can be well worth the price of admission. In fact, trade show spending is predicted to reach over $15 billion by 2014, according to The International Center for Exhibitor and Event Marketing. With a clear goal, a strong call to action and a little practice, you can run a successful booth at your next trade show. Here a few trade show do’s and don’ts. 

Read More

Topics: event marketing

Enhance Your Event With Social Dialogue

Posted by Alex Guzik on February 6, 2012

When discussing social media engagement, I often ask people to rewind to the days when they were still in school. Most students won’t answer questions or participate in discussions until someone else has volunteered to be the first to begin the dialogue. Much like a classroom of students, many adults are still afraid to be the first to “raise their hand” during a presentation or when utilizing social media.

Read More

Topics: twitter, event marketing, social media

A Social Media Lesson from Ancient Egypt

Posted by Alex Guzik on December 5, 2011

Ever since I was a kid I have been a sucker for history; I am pretty sure I was the only kid on my block begging my mother to take me to the Abraham Lincoln exhibit when it opened at a local museum. So, it was no surprise that I was immediately drawn to finding out as much information as I could when I found out about the “Lost Egypt” exhibit at the Science Center of Iowa. Thankfully, we are living in the digital era, and everything I ever wanted to know was at my fingertips and accessible through social media.

This got me thinking, how many companies and organizations that host events and do not use social media properly, or to their full advantage. Maybe your organization does not have the pre-established anticipation and suspense of ancient mummies and cryptic scrolls, but businesses should take a hint from the Science Center of Iowa and its use of social media to attract visitors. So, with the help of Emilee Richardson, Marketing and Communications Coordinator at the Science Center of Iowa, hopefully I can shed some light on how you can maximize your company’s event exposure through social media.

First things first, once you decipher which social media platforms you will be utilizing, build a brand for the event. If you have an in-house graphic designer, have them create a logo, incorporate a creative event hashtag for the event and use all of your promotional platforms in collaboration (i.e. post a video from your YouTube channel on Facebook).

As with any event, you always want to build anticipation; Richardson told me their first step began with creating a contest where they released two hieroglyphics each week along with a ‘hidden’ webpage for decoding. “The key to this strategy was giving people the opportunity to have a unique experience – to give them something they wouldn’t be able to buy – and to engage them with Science Center of Iowa,” says Richardson. While I love this idea, I would recommend being very cautious with contests and Facebook. Facebook has certain stipulations, so to be safe, always run the contest through a blog, separate website page (like the Science Center of Iowa) or create a Facebook landing page.

Another rule I have about using social media to promote events is to make your followers feel included. Besides the obvious inclusion of posts offering engagement, be sure to always include event preparation photos. “Installing an exhibition is no easy task, but because it’s done behind closed doors, most people have no idea what’s involved,” said Richardson. “With Lost Egypt, we took our social media audience behind the scenes through photos of the crates arriving at the

Read More

Topics: event marketing, social media