Building Product Manufacturers: Make Trade Shows Go Further with Geotargeted Paid Social Campaigns
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Corey Halstead
Owner, HALSTEAD.
Trade shows offer enormous potential by putting your company’s products in direct contact with prospects—but no guarantee that enough of these critical connections will happen. Few convention attendees have time to visit every booth, and their capacity for remembering your company may be limited if you rely solely on your display presence. BPMs analyzing the high cost, challenging logistics, and staffing demands of constructing a show-stopping exhibit may have a hard time justifying a trade show presence at all in the digital age.
A relatively new marketing innovation can change the doubts you may have about that size-able budget line item dedicated to your next trade show, amplify your trade show presence, and solidify your reach to attentive convention attendees. Geotargeting is a paid social strategy that involves showing location-based ads on devices within a specific radius, allowing you to target the convention center and nearby hotspots or hotels. By making it a part of your digital strategy, you can make a lasting impression and expand your reach at a show, while also dramatically improving your marketing ROI.
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How Geotargeting Works.
Basically, whenever you create a paid ad campaign on a social media platform that allows geotargeting, you’ll be given the option to select a target area that the ad will apply to. You can specify a region, a city or list of cities, or even the radius around a building. Ads from your campaign will only be shown to users who are within the defined target area when they access their social media accounts on mobile devices. In order for location-based ads to work, the ad recipient must be using a GPS-enabled device.
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Geotargeting vs. Geofencing
The terms geotargeting and geofencing are often used interchangeably in the marketing world. Although the principles are similar, there is a key difference between the two.
A geofence is a digital line drawn around an area. The location of a GPS-enabled device in relation to this line can be used to trigger an event. In marketing, this commonly means enabling or disabling geofenced ads deployed on mobile devices. Other industries use geofences to find stolen property, keep racing drones in a set area, or even alert pet owners if their dog runs away.
Basic geofencing is often used for regional ads. If your company only has Authorized Dealers in the Midwest, for instance, you don’t want your ads shown to customers on the East Coast (unless, of course, you’re planning to build a plant or expand distribution there in the future). Depending on the platform you leverage, your ads might be automatically geofenced based on the data in your company’s profile.
A geotargeted ad uses geofencing to enhance other targeting criteria. This includes factors like age, income range, or profession. You might use geotargeting to create a campaign that is only shown to nearby individuals who have either “construction foreman” in their job title or a declared interest in construction. So although geofences are required for geotargeting to work, the presence of a geofence does not always imply targeted ads.
Creating a Geotargeted Ad.
Geotargeting is a standard feature for most modern digital ad services. The available targeting criteria will largely depend on the platform you choose and the nature of your campaign.
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Specifying a Location
City, state, or regional locations are suitable criteria for most targeted ad campaigns. However, in order to create an effective trade show campaign, you’ll want to specify the location down to the building where the conference will be held.
Most ad platforms will let you type in an address or use a map to find the correct location. For BPMs, the platforms with the most relevance for reaching installers and specifiers—Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn—certainly offer this functionality. You may also want to specify GPS coordinates for your geofence; you can find any building’s coordinates by looking on Google Maps. Select a radius that includes the building and a few of the surrounding businesses, including hotels, restaurants, show-sponsored event locations, coffee shops, and other areas of interest to convention attendees. Many of these buildings are within 1 to 5 miles of the convention center and will automatically be included in your geofence.
For a tactical look, a popular event in the landscape industry, Hardscape North America/GIE Expo, took place recently in Louisville. A 1-mile geofence around the Kentucky Exposition Center includes nearly 15 different hotels where attendees might stay. If you extend the geofence radius to 5 miles, you’ll also include the Louisville International Airport. But look to get even more relevant than that...it’s all about the right message at the right time. The show offered free nightly concerts at the 4th Street Live location downtown. How about you launch ads in that area, at the time of the show, with ad copy and creative that lets them know you’re there enjoying it with them? Powerful connections. With the right radius and proper targeting criteria, you can show ads to attendees at all points of their convention experience.
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Identifying Audience Features
Every social media platform has a different set of potential audience criteria. Factors like age, income, interests, and profession are all good places to start. You may also be given the option to select audience members who follow certain brands or use a specific hashtag.
The audience criteria you use should match your ideal customer profile. Think about the people who are likely to attend the trade show and who might be interested in becoming an installer or dealer for your products. If you don’t specify criteria, you might end up paying for ads that don’t benefit your business.
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Choosing a Platform
Every social media platform handles geotargeting a little differently. Before you run your campaign, think about the features that are available and the platforms that your potential customers are most likely to use.
-> Facebook.
Facebook’s ad platform can create a geofence with a radius as small as 1 mile, making it an ideal platform for trade show geotargeting. After you’ve selected a location, you’ll be able to exclude specific zones or zip codes. You’ll also be able to select an audience based on unique behavioral criteria, such as people who live in an area or people who are traveling to that area (the one of most relevance in most cases for trade show marketing).
Facebook ads, for the most part, look like other posts users see in their News Feed. Remember to include content that will be extremely relevant to the event. This is not a time for generic brand ads—the real opportunity is to connect around a common interest or event - the show, the industry, and the products.
-> Instagram.
Instagram uses the Facebook Ad Manager, which means that you can use the same geotargeting strategy on both platforms. Instagram is a visual medium, so pay careful attention to the design elements of your campaign. An increasingly important platform for the remodeling industry, Instagram has become the watercooler for installers and specifiers - squeeze all the ROI you can out of it before, during, and after the show.
LinkedIn’s geotargeting system slightly more limited as of this writing. Locations can be narrowed down to specific cities or metro areas, but they can’t be specified by zip code or coordinates.
The main benefit of a LinkedIn campaign is that you can advertise to professionals in the remodeling industry. Use LinkedIn’s comprehensive search feature to select relevant skill sets and job experience, narrowing in on exactly who you’re after - whether a prospective dealer or new installers.
Applying Geotargeting to Your Trade Show Campaign
Work with your marketing agency to ensure that the messages in your campaign are mirrored by your company representatives at the trade show. For many attendees, your digital presence will be synonymous with your physical one.
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Before the Event
In the weeks leading up to the trade show, run a geotargeted campaign in the areas surrounding your authorized dealers. This reaches both your dealers, as well as the contractors and designers who use your products, or competitor’s products.
Your pre-show ad campaign should be designed to increase convention turnout. Let audience members know that the event is happening and that your company will have a booth. You may want to tease a promotion or deal that will only be available to attendees.
Remember to complement your paid ads with a content-driven organic social media campaign. Talk about your plans for the trade show, and start using the event’s hashtag so that other attendees can find your company. Pay to promote your best posts to make your efforts even more effective.
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During the Event
The ads that you run on the day of the trade show should be specifically targeted toward attendees. Always include your booth’s location, and offer an incentive to any visitors who stop by.
Remember to use tags and language that will identify your company as part of the event. The most effective trade show campaigns are specific to the conference.
A great geofence is essential for an effective campaign. Target the conference building and the area surrounding it. You may also want to target nearby intersections and shopping centers. If an attendee stops for coffee at the closest Starbucks, you want them to see your ad.
Your campaign should start at least a few hours before the event opens and end a few hours after the doors close. If your company is giving a presentation or holding a workshop, consider publishing a special set of ads in the hours leading up to your stage time.
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After the Event
A great follow-up is important for any sales effort. If you really want to impress trade show attendees, run a short campaign for the days after the event. Your geofence should include both the airport and popular hotels around the convention center; try a radius of at least 5 miles.
Because this is a follow-up campaign, wait to finalize the details until after the event. A clever reference to a popular panel or an impactful presentation could help you make a legitimate connection with your prospective customers.
Retargeting is critical.
In the weeks after the event, implement a retargeting strategy for users who successfully engaged with your geotargeted ads. Whether they visited the exhibition or simply clicked through to your website, these industry members have shown a clear interest in your company. Continue to lead them down the sales funnel for a steady return on your initial investment. This entire strategy - as does every digital marketing component - relies heavily on retargeting. In today’s busy, fragmented world, it is simply not realistic to expect a prospect to act because they saw a few ads at a show. It’s all about getting them into your brand’s ecosystem, and creating relationships digitally over time. The budget and effort spent on retargeting after the show should be just as substantial as the original campaigns, if not more.
As with any form of advertising, geotargeted campaigns work best when they are built on a foundation of strong messaging and creative. When great content meets great targeting, on the right platforms, powerful things happen.
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