A physical, online or hybrid trade fair

When do you chose which type?

The covid era not only brought restrictions but also more focus on what is possible online: online events and meetings temporarily became the norm. In many cases cheaper, easier to organize, repeatable, and more accessible for potential customers to participate. For some companies it was even more ideal than a physical exhibition.

But now, with the easing of measures gradually making its appearance, it is also clear what we missed when physical exchanges were no longer possible. Like the socializing aspect, where you make new connections, meet potential customers, and strengthen existing relationships in real-life, instead of meeting each other digitally.

Online events and various forms of hybrid fairs have sprung up like mushrooms for companies that see potential in using the best of both worlds.

Now that participating in a trade fair no longer takes place physically, as a company you have to choose which trade fair format best suits your strategy. We are happy to share our insights to help you cut the knot.

Using trade fairs as a resource for your strategy

Clear goals

Before you even opt for a trade fair format, the overall marketing strategy of your company must be clear. Is an exhibition really an indispensable tool in the strategy to achieve your KPIs and company-wide goals, or can you also achieve these with other means? If you don't participate, is there a good chance that your competitor does and wins over your potential customers? So the most important questions are: how important are fairs for the market in which your company operates, and how important is the fair to achieve your objectives?

The second thing to think about are the objectives that you specifically want to achieve by participating in the fair. Why are you participating, what should it yield and how will you ensure that you bring potential leads into the sales funnel? These goals can be different for each company. Usually, the main goal is that it should lead to more sales, but associated goals can also be strengthening the relationship with customers, creating new contacts, or positioning new products.

Once the KPIs have been chosen for the exhibition, think about how you will shape the rest of the marketing strategy around it to ensure that you attract enough visitors to your exhibition stand. Then you have to think through the flow of how the visitors move through the exhibition to ensure that they leave their contact details to get into the sales funnel and that you ultimately ensure that you have set up good marketing automation to collect the leads. follow.

The way you ultimately set up your fair to manage that flow as best as possible and to achieve your objectives naturally depends on the type of fair.

Physical trade fair (offline) versus online trade fair

Relevance and customer journey

“We initially switched to online fairs because we had to because of corona. What remains intact are online events for topics that you can easily deal with in an online environment and that are also location-independent (and therefore international), such as deep dives about the technology behind a certain technical product or service. The discussion about online or physical is easier because we are more used to online. We look differently at trade fairs that are physically less relevant, but can be organized more easily online and are therefore often more budget-friendly," says Ton Kuper, founder and managing director of C4Real.

“But when you enter into a major deal with a company as a customer, you want to know who you will be working with. You want to know who is sitting in front of you, what type of company it is, how seriously certain things are taken and how credible it is. Scholarships are perfect for that, especially if the gun aspect is important. This way you can not only see the faces of those who work at the company, but also the overall appearance and professionalism. Of course, this is best conveyed in physical form, but a large part of the customer journey is also completed digitally. With large B2B deals, the journey is often designed in such a way that, for example, the customer only needs to visit the fair to sign the contract as an important PR moment.”

Hybrid trade fair

How to reach your target audience?

Successful hybrid fairs are physical events that you follow up online. You stream some parts of the fair and do half live, half streamed (such as Q&As) or break-out sessions (an online meeting for a separate group of people within a larger online meeting) for which people can log in digitally. The most important thing about online fairs is that you focus on knowledge sharing and interaction with the target group. And that does not necessarily have to happen in one day. With hybrid exhibitions, it is very important to consider how you can reach your target audience and KPIs to the maximum. There are always people who cannot come, which makes it of enormous added value to facilitate that they can still log in online. However, don't make it too easy to get online alone. Think carefully about what is really better to organize physically and what best suits the target group or the visitor. It may also be the case that you have multiple types of customers and it is better to organize something online specifically for one group, such as international customers. However, pay attention to time zones: you can possibly organize these at a later moment, such as doing a Q&A session or break-out session that physically took place earlier that day. That way you can spread hybrid events across your campaign.

Strategically coordinate the online and physical side

Content creation and visual experiences

C4Real helps you organize and devise online and physical events. In addition, we also support customers in creating visual content and distinctive exhibition stands through visual experiences, such as holograms, interactive touchscreens or a virtual showroom to get the most out of the visitor flow at the exhibition. We help your company to coordinate online and physical events in order to organize the most successful trade fair possible as part of your marketing strategy.