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As you prepare your upcoming trade show plans, you’re likely allocating marketing funds where it makes the most financial sense. Email and other digital channels are cost-effective. But are they the only option for optimizing your company’s trade show visibility?
There is another option. You can reach a busy and distracted healthcare IT audience with strategic use of printed pre-show mailers.
Digital Isn’t Everything
Technological, cultural, and societal trends have resulted in shift to digital marketing. This shift has at times been at the expense of more traditional print marketing methods.
Digital marketing also provides insight from an analytics perspective. Clicks, opens, time on site—these are all data points that reveal the value of a campaign. They can guide and shape future campaigns. Digital is also efficient, inexpensive, and interactive.
None of these benefits is proof that traditional marketing tactics are dead in the water. Print and digital promotions complement each other. Together they contribute to enhance your trade show visibility.
Printed pre-show mailers are less common in healthcare marketing than they were 10 years ago. Still, they provide value in today’s promotions.
Here are some ways to ensure your pre-show promotional efforts:
- create high trade show visibility
- generate more booth traffic, and
- maximize your return on investment
Target Your Audience
Trade show organizers usually rent a list of pre-registered attendees or a list of those who actually attended (post-show). It would be wasteful to rent a list of every potential attendee in the database.
One key reason is that healthcare is a very segmented market.
You also have to consider who the buyers are; who the influencers are. You want to strike the best balance between maximizing the number of individuals you send to and having the “right” ones so you are investing wisely. This way, you can you can optimize your mailing list.
This can be challenging on a technical or clinical subspecialty level.
Contacts are typically categorized by specialty and interests. For example, the specialty may be “cardiac radiology.” The listed interests are “cardiac,” “chest,” and “CT.” It can be a bit of a puzzle to identify the best combination of targets.
Don’t be hesitant to work with the trade show organizer to understand how they categorize attendees. Understanding which categories are general versus subspecialty is very important.
Engage Attendees with Your Pre-Show Mailer
The goal of the pre-show mailer is to raise awareness and get the recipient into your booth. Your mailer must have important information such as:
- your booth number
- what they can learn by visiting your booth
- your value proposition, and
- a call-to-action
For example, “Stop by to check out our new cardiac imaging software solutions.”
Add Enticement
To drive booth traffic, you should also add an element of enticement. Include messaging that asks attendees to bring the postcard to your booth so they can use it to enter a giveaway or get a product demo. You may not attract the most qualified leads with this tactic, but it acts as analytics feedback. Once attendees are in your booth, you should scan their badges. This is so you can generate a marketing qualified lead and to capture their contact information for follow up.
Don’t Underestimate the Power of Print
Because of the massive shift away from printed mailings, everyone as a collective is receiving less physical mail. Think about the pieces in your mailbox. There may be some junk mail—it’s likely that will persist for some time. Otherwise, it’s likely comprised of important documents or invoices.
Simply having a smaller mail pile to tackle allows for your printed piece to stand out, to grab attention. A beautifully-designed postcard heightens the chance it will at least get a “once-over.” It can even serve as a subliminal reminder, sitting on a desk or counter.
Reiterate Your Messaging
Messaging on a mailer should reiterate the messaging you promoted in your email newsletters, social posts, or digital ads. It’s a solid reinforcement, as long as it is consistent. You can amplify your messaging if emails go to a work email and a postcard goes to a home address. Busy professionals may not see both but are likely to see one.
Proof in Problem-Solving
Successful healthcare marketing requires creative multi-channel approaches. Using targeted outreach in your trade show visibility strategy will get traffic into your booth and will lower your cost-per-lead. And, it will generate better-qualified leads that will make your sales force more efficient and happier.
Photo by Alex Perz on Unsplash
