Landscape & Pool Industry Pros: Make Your Trade Event Go Further With Social Media
Originally written on October 6, 2017; Updated on May 11, 2021
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Content Team,
HALSTEAD.
Industry trade events and home and garden shows require a ton of work to pull off properly. With the onset of digital targeting, professionals—including outdoor living manufacturers, hardscape, pool, and landscape contractors, and landscape suppliers— are more and more rethinking the expenditure all together. But few are leveraging digital marketing to extend the ROI of these events. How do you make your events go further? The answer lies in using social media. Social media is one of the best ways to promote your trade event beforehand and capitalize on it afterward.
Different social media platforms and tools can help you achieve different goals, so we’ve laid out a strategy from beginning to end highlighting which social media resources to incorporate throughout the event process. Whether your a paver and wall manufacturer looking to improve a B2B industry trade show, or a contractor with a B2C home show, these strategies are relevant to the outdoor living industry (because that’s all we do, of course!).
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Before the Event.
Depending on the magnitude of your plans, there’s opportunity in the weeks—and maybe even months—leading up the trade event or home show. Spend this pre-event time targeting a variety of pertinent demographics, on a large scale. Here are a few ideas to get this process started.
-> CREATE A FACEBOOK EVENT
A Facebook event can be made public so that everyone, including people you didn’t personally invite, can see it and attend. Facebook events are easy to share, so once yours is made, you can use both your business profile and personal profile to spread the news of this opportunity.
Even if your business is participating in an event hosted by a different business, you could create your own Facebook event to attract homeowners from your area. For example, if you’re setting up at a home show, use a Facebook event to showcase your exhibit, and post videos and photos of the set-up. Include your booth number and encourage followers to share photos and post questions. Facebook events provide a forum of sorts, where potential attendees communicate with you and other attendees, while also inviting their friends to have a look.
-> DEVELOP A HIGHLIGHT REEL FROM LAST YEAR
If this is a recurring event, like a home show or landscape or hardscape B2B trade event, creating and sharing a highlight reel could be an ideal way to show you are an expert in your field, a respected participant in the industry, and preview what you will be sharing at the upcoming show. It also gives you an opportunity to illustrate how fun and informative your last event was. Include the set-up and breakdown, showcase happy homeowners meeting and interacting with your event crew, and include aspects of the rest of the event like interesting yet unrelated booths and food stalls. As an added bonus, previous attendees love to see their faces on screen and reminisce.
Once you’ve created your highlight reel, tag other vendors involved so that they can share the reel and help advertise the event. That way, you’ll be able to reach a new pool of contractors (or homeowners in the case of the home show) who follow those companies.
-> CREATE A #HASHTAG
Your chosen hashtag for the event should be something that clearly represents your business and the event in a concise manner. Limit it to 15 characters or so, or people won’t take the time to type it out. Once you know what your hashtag is, use it generously. Include it in Instagram posts and Twitter posts.
-> FACEBOOK & Instagram ADS
Chances are, if you are a successful outdoor living contractor, dealer, or product manufacturer, you are already running Facebook and Instagram Ads at scale. After all, it’s one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience, whether B2B or B2C. Tap into your Ads accounts and create a campaign specifically for the event. Start running ads to your warm audiences fueled by email lists, as well as launch some cold traffic ads based on targeting. Next, you will want to develop retargeting campaigns, allowing you to specifically target audiences who have visited your website, social accounts, or previously worked with you. It’s worth a few extra dollars to watch your reach climb and populate your event.
-> POST SNEAK PEEKS
Not all marketing needs to be focused on acquiring the attention of new customers. It’s equally important that you maintain the business and support you already have. Posting exciting sneak peeks of your events is a great way to do both. Customers, old and new, will be intrigued seeing your crew, or products, at work, whether they’re setting up your exhibit at a home show or going on a coffee run for the surrounding booths. Past customers may want to boast about the work you have done for them, earning you priceless word-of-mouth referrals.
-> ORGANIZE CONTESTS
On Instagram, Facebook, and even Twitter, contests are a great way to interact with potential attendees and showcase the fun-loving side of your business. Plus, it provides further incentive for people to come out - for homeowners to come out to your home show for instance. For example, you could announce via social media that the person who shows up wearing the most red clothing (or whichever color represents your brand) from 1-2 pm would win 20% off an outdoor lighting project.
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During the Event.
You’ve prepped and populated your event and things are going smoothly. But your work is nowhere near over. Incorporating social media tactics into the meat of the event is what will ensure your attendees not only have a good time but that they come back next year (with friends!). These are some ideas to use during the course of your event:
SET UP A PHOTO BOOTH
Take advantage of this widely loved tradition by setting up your own photo booth, complete with a prop table offering funny hats and glasses and, most importantly, gear with your logo on it. Snap photos to use for your Instagram and Facebook accounts (with permission, of course), and encourage attendees to post the shots to their accounts, tagging your company and using your chosen hashtag. For all-day and multi-day events, these photos might be enough to convince people who were on the fence about attending that they would have a good time.
INSTAGRAM STORIES
Treat Instagram Stories as a mini-highlight reel that you build throughout the day, showcasing mere seconds of progress at a time. Give the homeowners who couldn’t make it to your event a little taste of everything going on, and create chances for those who could make it to be featured on your company’s Instagram.
MAKE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE KNOWN
Don’t let the momentum built from promoting the event social media wane. Use this opportunity to gain more followers. Hand out craft cards containing all your social media information to prospective clients. Keep a tablet on-site to physically show attendees how active your company is on social media, and connect further by pointing out something specific they should look into on your profile. For example, if a homeowner has expressed interest in a fire pit for their patio, pull out your iPad and show them exactly where they should look (Instagram, Facebook, Houzz) to find examples of your recent fire pit constructions.
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After the Event.
Now that the event is over, it’s time to capitalize on everything you’ve done so far. This is where you can go the extra mile to show you care and want to grow in preparation for your next big event. Use these social media tactics to do just that.
DON’T STOP POSTING
Continue to post photos and videos, showcasing the highlights of your event, for a little while after it has ended. Gradually decrease the amount you post as more time passes. If you have a ton of photos you’d like to post, use the carousel feature on Instagram to post all the photos you love without bombarding your followers. This will help homeowners in your target audience see why they won’t want to miss your event next year.
CREATE (ANOTHER) HIGHLIGHT REEL
Thank all those who supported your event by developing a high-quality video of the great times you spent together. You’ll receive plenty of interactions and shares from those who participated, sponsored, and attended, and perhaps, make homeowners who missed the event regret not being there and pledging to attend the next one.
UTILIZE YOUR FACEBOOK EVENT ONE LAST TIME
It’s important to show appreciation to all the people who supported the event in as many ways as possible. Your event page is a great way to connect with a substantial amount of those people. Post a big heartwarming thank you on the event page (possibly including that highlight reel), encouraging everyone to share their photos and videos and to come back next year.
MAKE USE OF THE DATA YOU’VE COLLECTED
Apply the information you collected during the event to your marketing strategy. If more than one-third of the attendees found out about the event from Facebook ads, start utilizing Facebook ads for some of your other marketing endeavors. Digital marketing experts who understand the ins and outs of Facebook, and your industry, are invaluable for this endeavor. The point is to never stop learning about your customers and trying new tactics to reach them.
