Last Updated: November, 2023
No more B2B or B2C, it’s all about H2H: human-to-human connection. This idea goes back to the simple reality of buying from people that we trust. And how do we do that?
Online and virtual solutions are becoming ever so popular – and with good reason – but should (and can) never replace real human contact. They should work as complementary tactics in your marketing strategy, as they both offer great value.
It’s about the smile. The eye contact. The handshake. The body language. The ability to see, feel, touch and interact with a product or service that truly empowers companies to build a deep connection with their customers.
That’s why face-to-face marketing will still matters in 2024 and may be more important than ever.
Face-to-face marketing:
The act of interacting with and marketing directly to customers through exhibitions, events, meetings and other in-person activities.
Today people are overloaded with ads, e-mails and information, and may even overlook or ignore them. That’s why it’s so important to represent your brand in person, to put a face behind the brand, and create personal interactions. It will help humanize your brand and grow your business.
Face-to-face marketing allows businesses to interact with customers in a direct and personal way as well as create strong emotional connections.
Building strong connections can lead to increased brand loyalty.
In-person interactions provide immediate feedback. This is why trade shows, exhibitions and other events can be a great opportunity to test out new products and services. The feedback can be used to improve products or services and make them more useful for the target group.
Face-to-face marketing and interactions provide an opportunity for businesses to build trust with both new and existing customers. The use of body language, eye contact and tone of voice are all useful elements to establish trust. The trained staff can also answer questions and transform customer objections into conversions, offering credible information straight from the source
Face-to-face marketing enables businesses to engage with customers on a deeper level than for example online marketing. This can help create more memorable and unique experience for customers, which will most likely shorten the road to a “yes” and open the door to new collaborations.
In-person events can be a great way to generate leads. By interacting with guests directly, businesses can quickly identify prospects and follow-up by booking a meeting or call to further discuss business opportunities.
When you attend an exhibition, trade show, event or conference there will often be a series of new trends and technology that you can draw inspiration from and implement into your own product and marketing strategy.
Overall, face-to-face marketing can be an effective way for businesses to connect with customers on deeper emotional level, build trust and generate new leads.
However, you shouldn’t just attend any event, conference or trade show. You have to be smart about what makes sense for your business, your goals and your strategy. Which is why, you should always ask yourself: Why are we attending this in-person event? And what do we hope to achieve?
If you want to learn more about how to find your why and define clear objectives, try our online course.
We also offer lessons within trade show staff training, lead generation, building ROI and ROO, how to solve business pains and more.
With explicit goals and a well-defined target group, motivated staff, and systematic (and digital) collection of leads, the follow-up will be piece of cake. The only thing it requires is that you have complete control over these 5 areas:
Which leads do you need to take home to achieve your goals – what characterizes a good, hot lead for you?
What information do you need to collect about your guests/leads, in order to be able to follow up purposefully – what do you need to remember to get answers to and permission for?
What will you follow up with and how will you send out the material? Have brochures, prices, pdfs, etc. ready before you leave.
How do you collect leads to streamlining the following-up process – do you have the right (digital) tools available?
Who does what, when? How do you easily and quickly get your leads into your CRM so that they are part of the existing sales process?
Easy and targeted follow-up starts before the fair. Mindset, ownership, internship, and time in the calendar must be aligned and fine-tuned so that your promises do not become unmanageable to keep when you return from the fair.
And just to return to my friend from the Euro Shop – my path to becoming a customer with him, could have been much smoother if he had been completely focused on the above 5 areas – and had he kept what he promised …
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