Category: Marketing

With the impact of COVID-19, companies have shifted the ways that they address networking and exposure opportunities. Tradeshows and conferences have traditionally served as huge marketing platforms. However, the pandemic has forced every stakeholder in these events to make dramatic adjustments. Here, we cover four best practices for improving your virtual booth experience and improving your marketing budget ROI.

Last year, the tradeshow business was booming, with B2B tradeshows estimated to be a $15.7 billion market in the U.S. alone.

Today, the pandemic has forced the tradeshow market to completely redefine its approach. A business sector built upon the energy of thousands of people personally interacting inside convention halls now has to summon this excitement from a screen.

A cornerstone of the brave new tradeshow world is virtual exhibits. This trend was born of the mother of Covid-necessity and lacks any instruction manual. Companies, sponsors, and event marketers have scrambled to bottle the buzz of their in-person exhibits within a physically distanced package that can be experienced remote at one’s desk, sofa, RV, or beach chair.

It’s not an easy feat.

What should a virtual booth look like, anyway? If you talk to some exhibitors, the answer is: “make it look like our booth.” They expect to force a screen experience to mimic a real-life, physical experience as closely as possible.

The only issue with this is: people experience and absorb information differently on screens than from a physical booth.

Solutions for virtual booths range from 3D renderings of actual exhibits rendered as interactive graphics, to more conventional websites or micro-sites designed specifically for the event. Marketers must weigh usability and engagement against their expectations of a desired virtual exhibit experience. It’s easy to gauge success if you know what to measure and plan for it.

Along with the drawbacks, there are benefits to virtual tradeshows. The key is to develop a virtual exhibit strategy with a clear-eyed approach that capitalizes on those benefits and realizes the new opportunities.

A virtual experience is never going to be the same as one that happens in-person. While that might be a disappointment for traditional networking and sales, it’s not necessarily a bad thing for business. Along with the drawbacks, there are benefits to virtual tradeshows. The key is to develop a virtual exhibit strategy with a clear-eyed approach that capitalizes on those benefits and realizes the new opportunities.

Four opportunities for improving your virtual booth experience:

Opportunity #1: Your booth is now a website (and you need web design professionals.)

Let’s have a reality check here. Your “booth” is now online. If it’s online, it’s a website of some form. As such, your virtual exhibit needs to start with the same strategic approach to web design that we use for other websites.

According to a survey, only 9% of respondents report that having virtual booths as a part of an event actually keeps them engaged. Before you sink heavy resources and time into your virtual booth, you need to get crystal clear on how to create an attractive, interactive experience for your attendees.

Engaging the right specialists at the right time is crucial for optimal success.

When you approach your virtual exhibit experience, consider your desired outcome before you prescribe the form it takes. Are you pursuing user engagement? Lead generation? Let your design team, trained in UX, design an experience that will achieve your stated business goals.

Most people wouldn’t consult experts like doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, architects, or auto mechanics and instruct them on how they should fix their problems. Usually, you allow the specialists to diagnose the issue, establish the desired outcome, and then prescribe the solution based on the best course of action.

The same should apply to your virtual exhibit. The “doctor” is your web design team. This is what they do every day: create digital experiences that help clients achieve their business goals.

What are your goals, anyway? With the potential to measure everything and fully integrate marketing and sales, think beyond “cool booth design” and understand what your visitors and your company actually value. You have unique opportunities to create high engagement at all points of the buyer’s journey online, opportunities which are different than those presented in person.

Your web design team is trained to develop smart user experiences that achieve desired outcomes. They will guide you to embrace both the benefits and constrictions of best practices in current web design rather than try to emulate other channels.

Include your web design team first and empower them to solve your problems. This will ensure far better outcomes than when you dictate a perceived—and potentially technically flawed—solution.

Opportunity #2: Bridge the gap between sales and marketing to capture leads and leverage analytics

Just like real events, virtual events are great opportunities to gather both marketing-qualified and sales-qualified leads (MQLs and SQLs). The good news is that a virtual experience makes it simple to use automation and integrate with your CRM.

The opportunities and constraints of a virtual exhibit make it more important to think about your tradeshow event as a three-part affair: before, during, and after the actual event itself. Without the easy distractions and natural energy of an in-person event to generate attendance and engagement, virtual exhibit organizers must work harder to create a rich experience for audiences.

Attracting and retaining audiences is the essence of lead generation. If you hope to develop a meaningful connection with event participants, you need to capture and measure attendee data throughout the lifecycle of the event. Without this, you won’t understand who your audience is and what they need to feel engaged with your organization during and after the event.

Your web and marketing teams should integrate lead capture and analytics into every aspect of your virtual exhibit. With the right tools, you can generate audience insights that help you guide visitors along the customer journey. Understanding what your audience cares about, and what they’re responding to, will help you develop and adjust the virtual experience so that there is no wasted effort.

Opportunity #3: Get creative!

If you take advantage of opportunity #2, that means that you’re maximizing lead capture and analytics. With that in place, the next area of focus is to spike engagement.

In a report on virtual exhibits, more than 67% of respondents said that in order for them to want to stay, listen, and engage, they want opportunities for live participation; things like Q&As, chat, polling, and quizzes. Forty-eight of respondents want to hear speakers cover topics that aren’t openly discussed, and 40% expressed interest in supplementary content that is available for download in-session. According to the same report, nearly three in four organizations whose attendance rates are greater than 75% utilize a mix of both Q&A and live polls and quizzes to drive audience engagement in-event.

Without the attraction of live human interaction, what can your booth offer to keep people engaged? Consider ideas such as using gamification, premium content, “virtual swag,” and other promotions and CTAs (calls-to-action) that will hold your audience’s attention. Make sure that your exhibit is optimized for mobile use so that attendees have flexibility in where and how they participate.

One of the key benefits of attending tradeshows is the opportunity for valuable networking. As you design your exhibit, consider ways that you can not only interact with your audience but how you might foster their interaction with one another.

Opportunity #4: Uncover added value and leverage your event website beyond the event itself

A majority of B2B professionals have increased the number of virtual events that their organization either hosts or is a part of. The most widely attended type of virtual events are large-scale, multi-vendor virtual tradeshows and user conferences.

But these types of conferences are also the most expensive and difficult to organize, so you should be thinking beyond the uses of your virtual exhibit for one big-ticket event. Recycle your virtual booth for additional virtual events of all shapes and sizes, and leverage this valuable new asset for other marketing purposes, such as PPC and social campaigns.

The beauty of creating a comprehensive, multimedia experience for your virtual exhibit is that different components can be scaled up or down to suit other marketing opportunities. Leveraging the data that you have captured and analyzed, you have everything you need to target other audiences in customized ways, or to continue the conversation that you have initiated with the audience from this one event.

Considering a business website redesign?

Download our comprehensive website redesign guide for everything you need to know about strategizing effectively before you invest.

Download the comprehensive guide for a high-performing website »

There is a new paradigm for tradeshows and conferences

It’s not just COVID-19 that is ushering in change for the trade show world. Advances in technology are introducing new opportunities that demand to be acknowledged.

Many, if not most, industries have been interrupted and forever transformed by technology. The companies that succeed—in sectors like music, travel, real estate, and retail, for example—are the innovators that adapt to disruption rather than the dinosaurs that ignore evolution.

So, too, players in the tradeshow world must recognize that their world has changed. For them, hybrid events – part live, part virtual – are probably here to stay.

Companies and attendees will appreciate the significant cost and time savings of a virtual experience. And best practices will emerge about how to turn virtual exhibits into lead generating machines with long shelf lives.

Take advantage of these four virtual booth best practices and keep these tips in mind as you build out your virtual exhibit:

• Identify and include your web design agency or team early in the planning process
• Leverage the benefits of microsites
• Don’t leave leads on the table – integrate and automate
• Include high engagement content like gamification and incentives
• Establish goals and measure everything
• Recycle, repurpose, and update

Getting your website right is crucial for growing businesses. Whether it’s time for a website redesign or you’re starting a new one from scratch, there are three elements you must consider: how it visually reflects your brand, how it communicates your positioning and encourages engagement, and how it empowers visitors to achieve their tasks.

Before you begin to design your new site, you must first start with a strategy for success and maximum ROI. This strategy will include making a content plan, considering SEO, leveraging a lead generation program, and choosing the right technology.

With the right strategy in place, you’ll be in a great position to start thinking about the actual elements that will make up your website redesign. It isn’t just about picking a template and putting a logo at the top. All the elements we explore below must work together in harmony to create an effective website that will help you meet your business goals.

Visual Design That Compels and Enhances

Design is often based on a subjective opinion, but good design is easy to see. The visual design of a website is literally the visual appeal of how a brand is represented. It is composed of the colors, shapes, pictures, fonts and typography, white space, layout, and overall composition of the website. Whether a website appeals to us affects how we perceive it—and the brand it represents—how we use it, and how we remember it. Be sure your site appeals to your buyer persona, and not just your personal taste. 

If your budget allows, it’s best to opt for custom design rather than settling for templates. Your website is an important touchpoint with your prospects and customers. Using templates often results in compromising content in order to fit into predetermined features, which in turn results in less than optimal user experience. With a custom approach, bespoke for your business, your website will be tailor-made to accomplish your business goals. 

There are myriad benefits of good visual design, but a few of them include:  

• Attracting and directing user attention

Getting your visitors’ attention is the key to getting them to engage with the content you worked so hard on creating. People are naturally attracted to appealing design. The right design elements, coupled with a sound marketing strategy, can also help to direct users towards the pages and content you want them to see.

• Creating an impression

Just as how one dresses affects how one is perceived or how a beautiful product demands a higher price, a website creates an impression of a brand. As mentioned earlier, the visual impact of your site is a significant component of that first impression. In fact, one study found that 94% of user first impressions are related to design.

• Building connections

A strong visual brand that starts with your website allows for users to instantly recognize your products, content, and other collateral no matter where it appears (i.e., social media, print advertisements, live events). Identifying with your brand creates strong, long-term customer relationships, which are ultimately more profitable and sustainable.

• Evoking emotion

What your site looks like, including the quality of the photography, the craftsmanship of the typography, and the balance of the layout, all produce subtle emotional responses in your visitors. How you harness that emotional connection can determine the success or ultimate failure of your website. 

Considering a business website redesign?

Download our comprehensive website redesign guide for everything you need to know about strategizing effectively before you invest.

Download the comprehensive guide for a high-performing website »

Clarity and Brevity Of Language

Websites may be a highly visual medium, but good marketing copywriting is paramount for clarity and consistency. Copy can also affect lead generation and conversion performance. Copywriting and design should be approached as a single effort, fully integrated and influencing each other during the design process. 

Effective website copywriting is equally informed by the brand voice, the marketing and sales goals, and search engine optimization (SEO). Best practices to keep in mind for website copywriting include:

• Identify your audience, know who you’re talking to, and speak their language.
• Write clear, concise headlines that are enticing because first impressions need to be great. 
• Emphasize value and benefits over features. 
• Keep it lean and provide quality over quantity.
• Use verbs and multiple words in your calls-to-actions (CTAs).

Positive and Inspiring User Experience

Putting the user first in web design demonstrates that a business respects their customers and values the power of design for growing a brand. Great user experience (UX) starts in the planning phase and provides direction and guidance throughout the design and development of the company’s website. By integrating user experience with your business’ priorities, you help your customers achieve their goals while ensuring your marketing communications are addressed. Good user experience is good design and good design builds strong brands. The seven factors that form user experience are:

1. Useful – Ensure your website is useful for your customers and provides key information and functionality that helps them achieve their goals when visiting your site.
2. Usable – Your website should be simple to use and easy to interact with. Don’t create roadblocks for your visitors.
3. Findable – A business’ website must provide information that is easy to scan, browse, and search. Organization of content should be clear and concise.
4. Credible – Conveying credibility is paramount for any brand trying to establish trust and authority. Authenticity provides credibility and fakers are easy to identify.
5. Desirable – Desirability is conveyed through branding, image, identity, aesthetics, and design. Desirability builds customer loyalty and evangelism. Your website should be responsive and enjoyable to interact with. 
6. Accessible – Accessibility is about providing an experience that can be accessed by users of a full range of abilities, including those that may use screen readers or other adaptive technology. Accessibility also means presenting content as simply and clearly as possible.
7. Valuable – A company’s website must provide value to the business and to the visitor. Without value, a brand is undermined and an investment turns into an expense. 

Happy Visitors = More Business

It’s true that a website redesign can require a significant investment of time and resources. But when the elements of your new design work together to make your site better and your site visitors happy (e.g., ready to buy), the effort will be well worth it. 

Businesses focused on growth constantly evolve. A business that remains stagnant may grow incrementally, but to see steady, sustainable growth, innovation must be part of your strategy. To remain highly competitive in the current environment your online marketing strategy, and by extension your website, need to keep up with your company’s goals. 

For large companies, a full redesign every two years is considered best practice while mid-size and small businesses should consider a website update or redesign every three years with incremental updates constantly in the pipeline. 

But the decision to redesign your website should not merely be based on what “most businesses” do. Instead, it’s essential to look to your business goals and metrics in order to choose the best course of action and investment of resources. A high-performing business website needs to combine visual design and message clarity with a strategic approach to lead generation through an organic search and content plan. If your website is not performing in terms of traffic (e.g., you’re not getting enough visitors) or conversions (e.g., visitors aren’t contacting or engaging with you), it’s time to make some improvements.

Considering a business website redesign?

Download our comprehensive website redesign guide for everything you need to know about strategizing effectively before you invest.

Download the comprehensive guide for a high-performing website »

A Website Redesign is Opportunity for Business Growth

Being proactive with your marketing budget and approaching your website as a strategic tool will help a business in all economic environments, especially downturns. An effective website can act as a salesperson, a marketing expert, and a customer service agent. Done well, and with the right analytics in place, investing in your website strategically can have an enormous return on investment.

The best websites are equal parts business, design, and technology, meaning you should have a strong foundational strategy in place before embarking on a redesign. When you master the four cornerstones of a high-performing website—content strategy, search engine optimization, lead generation, and technology stack—you’re on your way to building a marketing machine that runs 24/7 and delivers a return on your investment. A good agency can help you with each step of the process and make sure your budget goes as far as possible towards helping you achieve your business goals. 

Use Inbound Marketing Methodology for Improved Results

A business website redesign gives you an opportunity to create a site that is guided by marketing strategy and aligns directly with your company’s overall marketing goals. A website design that keeps marketing top of mind, especially when built around the Inbound Marketing methodology, can generate more leads, more sales, improved customer loyalty and stronger brand awareness. 

Utilizing a design process that operates under an Inbound Marketing mindset can have a huge positive impact on engagement and conversion rates because Inbound Marketing creates a positive user experience that will reflect your brand values, while delivering what your visitors want and need. 

4 Essential Steps for Success

When thinking about designing for marketing success, here are the key steps that should guide your effort:

Identify Your Visitors

• • Who are your visitors? Is your website designed to accommodate the needs of each target persona? 

For instance, does it avoid jargon they may not understand, is it easy to navigate if they are less tech-savvy, and does it clearly direct visitors to the benefits that buying from you would have for them specifically? 

• • How did your visitors get to your website? Knowing where they’re coming from can help you decide what they should see and give you a sense of which marketing channels are working and which need attention.

Tracking your visitor sources can also inform your site design since a visitor coming through a general Google search will have much less information about your company than one coming from an owned social media channel or marketing email. You want to be sure you’re offering enough education and basic information as possible when it’s relevant and getting more into the details of your offerings once some familiarity has been established. 

Get Insight for Your Strategy

• • What is the purpose of each page and is it aligned with marketing goals?

Each page on your site should have a clear goal for the people that visit it. Do you want them to contact you? Fill out a form? Make a purchase? The more clear these goals are, the more effective your website will be in helping you grow your business. 

• • Throughout your website, are your visitors finding what they want and getting what they need? 

The more time it takes someone to find the information they’re looking for — whether it’s pricing or a phone number — the less likely they will be to return to your site or to make a purchase. Easy navigation and clear calls to action are key. 

• • What stage of the customer journey are your visitors in when they reach specific pages of your site? 

Design for each stage of the sales funnel — top, middle, and bottom — and nurture prospects down the funnel with relevant content.

Plan for Positive User Experience

• • Where should your visitor navigate next? 

No matter where your visitors land when they first get to your site, you should have a clear idea of where you want them to go next. If it’s not clear to you, it will not be clear to them and confusion is the last thing you want. 

• • What is the most helpful content you can provide?

During a website redesign, you have an opportunity to drill down into how you can make sure your site is really helping your customers. Figure out what questions they have most often and make sure that you’re providing content that is easy to find and that answers those questions clearly. 

• • What is the best form of content for each page?

You’ll also want to consider the format of the content you’re providing. It might feel redundant to put the same information in both an explainer video and a blog post, but some people would rather watch a video and others would rather scan a blog post. Be sure that everyone can get the answers they’re looking for in a format they like. 

Measure and Improve

• • Measure and optimize towards the content that helps move people down the funnel.

A website redesign is also the perfect opportunity to make sure you are collecting the metrics that will help you continuously improve your site’s performance. Start (or continue) collecting data about how users navigate your site, where they drop off (AKA bounce) and make a plan to improve those sections of the site that are underperforming or scaring people off. 

• • Before testing your design, be certain that you can accurately measure visitor activity using appropriate software.

Free tools like Google Analytics (GA) make it easy to see where visitors to your site are in terms of their customer journey and provide valuable insight into how people are using your site. Other tools, such as HubSpot, also provide integrated analytic data and insights.

Achieve Significant ROI with the Right Strategy

A website redesign is no small undertaking and the investment involved may seem daunting. However, the impact of your website on your business’ growth opportunities cannot be overstated. When done strategically with a clear end goal in mind, a website redesign can have a significant ROI and make a big difference for your business. 

Considering a business website redesign? Download The Complete Guide to Your Next Website Redesign for everything you need to know about strategizing effectively before you invest. 

Considering a business website redesign?

Download our comprehensive website redesign guide for everything you need to know about strategizing effectively before you invest.

Download the comprehensive guide for a high-performing website »