Money Saving CPG Industry Event Marketing Hacks
As in-person trade shows come roaring back harder than Mike Tyson hitting you with an uppercut, it’s the perfect time to talk about how you can make an impact at these events without spending 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars exhibiting…
Importance of Trade Shows to CPG Brands
While there’s numerous valuable components to CPG industry trade shows, it really can be dumbed down into two important buckets: networking and product sampling.
Networking
While your “great product” is critical to being successful in the CPG industry, who you know is also an integral part of the process. Networking plays a crucial role in growing your brand and increasing its visibility. There isn’t many better pound-for-pound opportunities than (B2B or B2C) trade shows to meet likeminded individuals at every layer of the value chain.
Product Sampling
Let’s be honest here…people like to receive free samples. It makes your potential, and existing users feel special and makes the bond between your brand and your customers stronger. Receiving a free sample minimizes the risk of buying new things for your customers. Product sampling strategies can also build and alter buying habits by rewarding your customers, thus encouraging them to try out your new line of products or keep buying what they already do without being tempted to switch to other brands.
Trade Shows Post-CV19
Some individuals have been going to in-person events for a few years already, while others are only now getting back into the action. Is there still pent-up demand for professional tradeshows? Probably. Does that mean you should allocate huge budget towards every CPG industry event possible? Probably not.
The value of in-person trade shows will never be what it was because the world fundamentally changed three years ago. Instead of spending several days wandering around a trade show, we now spend a few hours in online researching marketplace dynamics. We’ve become conditioned to prioritize efficiency and that will change how many people will attend such events. In the past, it was imperative to have a strong presence exhibiting at trade shows. Those days are over.
Hacking CPG Industry Trade Shows
Does that mean you should totally abandon trade show exhibiting? No, but maybe there are other impactful ways to meet your networking and/or product sampling goals in a much less expensive way. While I recognize that the following trade show experiential marketing hacks aren’t a one-to-one swap for exhibiting, they will hopefully provide a springboard for you to challenge legacy mechanical thinking within your CPG brand. Finally, as a quick disclaimer, it’s important to always remember that each trade show is unique, and your strategies should be aligned with your brand identity and tailored to fit the makeup of attendees.
Create a “Buzz”
Research which trendy coffee shops are within walking distance to the convention center or event hotel zone. This will be a natural traffic point for attendees in the morning and a perfect place to more cheaply reach the same target audience. Partner with that trendy coffee shop to have a signature LTO drink made with your product or ingredient.
As a version 1a and 1b to this idea, you could do the same thing at trendy juice bars or bakeries.
Be In the Room
This is an old school B2B conference idea, but instead of being an attendee or exhibitor, volunteer to work the registration. Attendees will see you right when they walk into the trade show. It will also give you the opportunity to spend quality time with them as they are getting credentials. I’m sure event organizers hate this idea, but you can be both value-accretive to your business and still handle your duties at the same time.
Lights, Camera, Action
Let the event be your stage to make a viral piece of content. To do this effectively, make sure you have the basics down of understanding the trade show flows of traffic and layout for shot selections. You also need a trained cameraperson and likely actors to make everything entertaining. Finally, storyboard out what you hope to achieve but let the natural energy guide you towards entertainment gold. Maybe it’s an entrepreneurial spoof video or it’s an unlikely comedian that seeks to heckle attendees. This can get out of hand, so make sure you’re being respectful and know when things are going south to cut your losses.
Get Pumped Up
Similar to the first event marketing hack, seek out the “go to” gym or the gym that’s closest to the convention and event hotel zone. Partner with that gym to create a physical experience that’s tailored to your brand. Since you’re outside of the convention center, you don’t have to deal with union rules and all that “fit you in a box kind of garbage” that creatively stunts your experiential marketing. Now you might need to look at permits if you’re going to go wild, but this could be as easy as inviting your most popular influencers to an event and set up a cool immersive photo experience. This idea is really a specific example of a bigger experiential pop up concept that brands could utilize.
Multiply Your Touchpoints
This final event marketing hack is the most complex because it requires multiple storytelling touchpoints that essentially blankets the surrounding area of the convention center and inside the trade show. The goal would be to combine a vague yet intriguing set of analog touchpoints that lead to a digital information capture and content creation. Since this might be a bit confusing to visualize, I’ll run through a creative idea…
Brand = Liquid Death
Event = Natural Products Expo West
Touchpoint 1 = Fliers placed outside hotels, convention, and natural walking flow of traffic, that alerts attendees of a “don’t miss event tomorrow.” Since the event is in LA-metro, maybe it’s alerting them about the filming of a high budget motion picture that has a cheeky name and huge name celebrities. Regardless, the goal is to get people excited and interested in seeing what is going to happen next.
Touchpoint 2 = Stage the movie scene that’s aligned with the brand. Since Liquid Death likes to use caskets as the product sampling cooler at events, maybe it’s a funeral precession held right outside the convention during the opening hour that signifies the death of our world from all the plastic water bottle waste.
Touchpoint 3 = Have a collection of individuals dressed in undertaker outfits walking the floor and engaging with people about Liquid Death brand missions.
Touchpoint 4 = Hand out product as the convention ends on the final day that has instructions to see all the touchpoints come together and learn more about the brand.
Final Thoughts
Event marketing shouldn’t a binary decision of exhibiting or not exhibiting. While creating a comprehensive set of experiential event marketing hacks would’ve been impossible, the goal of sharing some examples was to hopefully inspire you to think outside that beige convention center box.