How to Leverage Offline Events for Your Online Presence

In an age of digital marketing, what impact do in-person events have? If done in an intentional manner, “offline” events can greatly impact your online presence. For this article, I’ll focus on offline events like trade shows, conventions, and conferences. In manufacturing and industrial circles, these events can help grow your company’s online network and even improve SEO. Read on to learn how to leverage offline events for your online presence, from before the event to after.

How to Leverage Offline Events for Your Online Presence

Preparation

Getting the word out about an event is key. If you’re seeking new contacts, getting people you don’t know yet to attend is vital. If you have a solid social media following, make sure you use it. Tweets and posts inviting your audience to the event will extend a hand of welcome to your people. Asking your social media audience to invite others and spread the word will help bring some new faces around.

If you’re attending an event that you’re not putting on, the same tactics can apply. Let your followers know you’re going to this event and invite them to come as well. Linking an event to your social media presence helps build the online impact of the event before it begins. You can connect with others who are interested in going before the event even starts. In-person invites to your close business partners are also effective. This is because talking to someone one-on-one shows you value their attention and presence at the event. Strengthening your existing contacts builds your credibility and customer relationships.

The event

During the event, make sure your company’s name and social media is easy to see. In handouts, on slides, and on business cards, your information should be easy to find. Creating an event that people will want to post about facilitates online sharing. If the event isn’t your own, you can still share event recaps and pictures that others might interact with. A daily blog post or LinkedIn update about what you learned each day keeps your followers (old and new) updated about the event. If the event host is a well-known company and they share your post, your audience is widened. Either way, your followers are informed and engaged.

At the event, be sure to collect the data from your conversations. You’ll need their name, contact info, job roles, interests, and the topics of your conversations. With this information, you’re set up to contact them effectively after the event.

Follow-up

Once the event ends, the key section of online growth can begin. Follow-up cannot be ignored if the event is to positively impact your online presence. When following up, focus on personalization and relevancy.

If time and the size of your company allows, personalize messages to send to your new contacts. Addressing them by name and referencing what you talked about with them can really solidify the new relationship. Following them on social media and tagging them in your posts about the event also includes them in your network. Similarly, interact with others’ posts about the event. Retweet and share what your new contacts had to say about the event.

In further contact (mainly on social media), make sure to focus on relevant connections. With your network, share information and content that is relevant to what they’re interested in. If you start sharing or linking information that doesn’t apply to them, the “unfollow” or “unfriend” button usually isn’t too hard to find. Keeping up a connection that is personal and relevant improves both of your companies.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to RedMoxy to talk more about marketing—both in-person and online. If you’d like to talk with us about these (or other) marketing options you’re considering, give us a call at 262-363-4238 or reach out to us at [email protected]. We’d love to talk with you!