Why You Should Create an Annual Show Plan
Your year is winding down and the new year is about to begin. Your annual show plan is your guidepost to continuous improvement. It is an opportunity to get your event marketing team together to ask the big questions: Were the shows and events worth the investment? What can we do more efficiently and effectively next year?
Your plan starts with four key questions:
Your plan starts with four key questions:
1. Why do we use face-to-face marketing in our marketing mix?
2. Who are the target audiences we are trying to reach and are we reaching them?
3. What messages are we trying to communicate and are they being received?
4. What is our measure of success and did we accomplish our goals? Did we change any buying behavior, help increase name awareness, enter new market segments, generate new business or enhance any relationships through our efforts?
These core questions can lead you to what strategies and tactics can be employed the next year to more efficiently and effectively achieve your marketing objectives.
Done in a vacuum, plans are worth little more than the paper on which they are printed. But when developed by the team of internal customers you serve, it becomes a team-building and iterative process that creates buy-in and commitment. The plan is more than numbers, it is a strategic interpretation of what you are trying to achieve as an organization in face-to-face marketing.
- Marc L. Goldberg, Marketech, Inc.