Marketing Tips for Your Virtual Fairs

Designing a virtual fair experience is like shaping your corporate website. Whether it's about filling out a form as a candidate, applying for a job, or downloading some material, you need an effective combination of content and messages to motivate visitors to take certain actions. Still, if you've created a great site but haven't found a way to attract your target audience, what you created will be a piece of decoration that doesn't have any value.

The same goes for virtual fairs. Choosing the right platform to provide an unforgettable experience is equivalent to winning half the battle. The other half depends on your promotional activities and this part needs an important and relevant audience.

Raising awareness through a marketing strategy with irresistible appeal is key to driving high visitor numbers, conversions, applicants and leads for your business.

Determine Your Target Audience

Clarify who and what you are targeting

To start creating an effective marketing plan, you must first understand your target audience. The better you determine your audience pattern you plan to serve, the better your marketing campaign will perform.

Once you've figured out who you're targeting, you should get the result you want from them. Create a benchmark that helps you measure your success and ensure that your marketing message encourages your target audience.

Start the Campaign at the Right Time

Not too early, not too late

The timing of your marketing is crucial. If you start early, you run the risk of losing the attention of your remote audience. If you make it late, you may not get enough reach with your campaign.

As a rule of thumb, we recommend setting your event's landing page 2-3 weeks before the event to keep your potential visitors in mind.

Email Marketing

Send a series of emails to your current subscribers

Email marketing  is an essential component of any event marketing strategy. In fact, 40% of marketers believe this is the most effective channel for event promotion. If you have a subscription base, lead list in a CRM, or any potential visitor database, you already have an audience to focus on.

In addition, you can remind your fair by retargeting email campaigns to the pool of potential visitors who are already registered and plan to participate during the fair, and you can convert the majority of your registration numbers into real visitors when the fair day comes.

Encourage Sharing

Encourage registered visitors to share the event with others

It will be a great advantage if the visitors can be convinced to announce the event for you after registering for the fair. This approach has two benefits:

People rely much more on the advice offered by their social connections as opposed to business organizations.

The cost of this type of promotion is negligible.

The best time to convince visitors about this is after registering. For example, after signing up for your landing page, view a thank you page with social buttons that they can click to announce their participation in your virtual show.

Get Support From Your Sponsors

Ask your sponsors to announce the fair

If you've managed to get sponsors for your virtual fair, you should discover how you can collaborate with them to accelerate your marketing efforts. After all, it will also be in the interest of sponsors to attract the target audience to the fair.

You can ask your sponsors to promote your virtual fair on their websites, social media channels and other web content they contribute.

You can email the subscriber list or post a guest post on their blog if they give permission.

Again, you have to make sure you work closely with them to get the message right. The better quality the marketing material they are promoting, the greater the results.

Include Your Speakers

You can make your speakers the "face of the fair"

The secret to successful marketing is to ensure that your virtual fair is mentioned at every opportunity, whether online, word of mouth or through any print media channel.

Therefore, it is necessary to integrate your private guest speakers into your marketing plan. Your speakers, who will speak in the  webinars you hold, will be a good way to  interact with visitors, as they are one of the major sources of interest in the virtual fair.

Prepare a Press Release

Reach audiences via PR campaign

For B2B virtual fairs, a timely press release can be an effective way to spread the news quickly.

Don't forget to work on effective messaging while creating your press release. Indicate what the fair has to offer, who the target audience is, the date and time of the event and highlight the sponsors/speakers. Of course, don't forget to link the post directly to your landing page to drive traffic.

Beyond a very wide reach, press releases are also shared on social media channels by readers and journalists, allowing you to utilize the benefits of increased exposure.

Create Your Own Hashtag

Use a custom hashtag on Twitter and Instagram

Businesses have been using Twitter and Instagram for years to highlight their activities, products, campaigns and much more. That's why virtual fair organizers need to be part of the hashtag revolution to be noticed.

Hashtags are basically catchy short phrases created and monitored by the organizer, which serve to create a dialogue around the fair.

When people see a tweet with your hashtag, you start utilizing the benefits of reach and interaction. Don't forget to include your sponsors and speakers in this topic.

Use Paid Ads

Get help from Google Ads to quickly promote your virtual fair

If you are in a real hurry to see rapid increases in virtual fair registration volume, paid ads are a fundamental step you should take to get more traffic.

Creating targeted campaigns on platforms like Google, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and LinkedIn that reach the right audience, desired geographic locations and demographics will help create awareness and event visibility.

Developing a marketing strategy to take the right step creates the most accurate and efficient advertising campaign. Getting support from a digital advertising agency specialized in this field will help you in this regard.

Harness the Power of SMS

Don't ignore the capabilities of text messages

Considering the time we spend with our mobile phones, it is not surprising that SMS marketing emerged as a powerful marketing way. With an open rate of 98%, this messaging platform easily surpasses other competitors in click-through rates with its visibility and easy-to-read structure.

SMS marketing is simple, budget-friendly and directs buyers to focus on the most important keywords thanks to its concise form.

Create Your Own Virtual Fair

Introduce your company to the power of digitization with the numerous advantages that virtual fairs offer to brands. To organize virtual fairs or take part in our fairs where you will be involved in an innovation process with Endless Fairs,  contact us now.