By Till Boegelsack Posted on

Trade fair appearances vs. online marketing for energy and waste businesses

CONNECTING DIFFERENT PEOPLE, NETWORKING, DRIVING SALES: BEST WAY TO REACH YOUR CUSTOMERS
Based on my professional experiences, I know trade fairs for the energy and waste industry very well. It is particularly noticeable that in good times companies like to spend a lot of money to put themselves in the spotlight, and to attract attention. At the center of it all is self-presentation and self-marketing, as a successful company wants to present itself to its customers. However, one must always see how trade fairs stand up in relation to other advertising opportunities available in the modern world, in particular the possibilities that exist on the Internet.
Which channel enables companies to reach the masses, especially the customer segments most willing to pay money to buy their products? Is it the online marketing or the measure?

THE CUSTOMER

A good way to assess this is to look at who attends trade fairs, visits the stand of a company at a trade fair actually. There are those invididuals that have a goal in mind, they want to visit the booth of a company. These people are already very knowledgeable, they know exactly who they want to see in the booth, who they want to talk to. To meet the demands of this specific customer, it is important to have a straight-forward approach to bring the two parties together, the customer and the person they want to talk to. But it also important to set deadlines ahead of time so that there is still time for other potential customers who for now only want to get to know the company’s products.
It is equally important in this case to determine why the customer wants to talk to the employees of the company. does this have anything to do with the fact that the customer just wants to exchange information and wants to build a network with the employees of the company, wants to find out about new products and wants to gain an overview of the industry? or rather, it has to do with more far-reaching reasons that the customer wants to buy in a targeted manner, in which case it makes much more sense to bring in with his sales people who can instantly turn to the sales process.

POTENTIAL CUSTOMER

Of course, then you have a very large segment consisting of visitors who only visit once, and are not customers. Of course, it is much harder to make contact here and to gain his or her interest. It is particularly important for the company to have employees who are good at acquiring customers. these skills deviate strongly from the line functions of a company. It is important not to “occupy” the booth with too many employees, and ideally to have many visitors on the stand. This allows the visitors to feel comfortable and to give themselves an impression of the company and the products. If there is a possibility, you can also come up to the visitor and often a conversation will develop from that.

ONLINE MARKETING

ONLINE MARKETING is very different. The initial cost of an internet appearance is much lower. However, it is not the case that there are no risks. While industry gathers in one place at the trade fair, and many interested visitors to the fair have already become attentive and specifically look for certain products, this is definately not the case with online marketing. Among other things, here one has an algorithm that makes the web content available to the interested parties, i.e. an intermediary. The goal was to get into contact with customers and potential customers,  an intermediary puts a barrier between the customer and your business. Of course you can attract attention with interesting content and excellent products, but that only works in part. In that case the visitor depends on the provision of the information, the potential customer will not immediately find your business on the internet, especially if he does not know anything about it.
Online marketing is good above all for one thing, that’s the customer range. If the company targets a broad range of potential customers and prospects. It can be very beneficial to provide a digital presence to the customer, but then it has to be constantly updated and provided with new information. For energy and waste companies, it is recommended to choose both options due to the specifics of the offer they provide. It is particularly recommended because not many energy and waste companies are currently using the internet to effect. Another potential advantage inherent to online marketing is that it provides access to the company’s services and products day and night, whereas trade fairs are obviously time-dependant.

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