Posted on April 20, 2010 by Karl
A couple of years ago the mobile internet was something many were struggling with, apart from a few Blackberry users. Then Apple launched the iPhone to kick off 2009 and the Smart Phone revolution had started – now trade show attendees are far less likely to be humping their laptop around with them and are more likely to be getting their Twitter updates and email notifications from their cell phone. This means trade show marketing has to rise to the challenge of the mobile internet.
You may think this has nothing to do with you but check this – last year (2009) google reported that more than 50% of new internet connections were initiated by mobile devices, mainly smart phones. Forrester Research forecasts mobile marketing spend will increase by 43% in 2010 – in the middle of a recession! This is far more than any other B2B medium.
Mobile internet means trade show marketers have even greater opportunities to interact with the attendees but you have some issues to address first.
Cell phones do not display web pages the same way as a desktop – your tech team needs to optimize the website for the mobile web and that means making it leaner and bare (because the user only has a cell phone screen to view the page) and feature rich pages just run very slowly, if at all on a smart phone because the connection speeds are not as fast as fixed line or cable systems.
Once that is resolved, you can now focus on how to use social media and email updates, especially those to be used in the campaign which will be initiated at the trade show itself. You will also see many trade shows are themselves getting in on the mobile internet act with applications for scheduling, information on the venue and host city area and a lot more. Particularly interesting are the client information capture apps which allow exhibitor and attendee to swap information without worrying about swapping business cards and the automatic transfer to CMS systems back at base. Watch out for audience participation and polling apps too because these will help trade show marketers on the day with identifying trends and buying fashions at the show and for future use.
This entry was posted in Trade Show Marketing and tagged at show promotions, B2B trade show marketing, mobile internet and trade shows. Bookmark the permalink.