I tagged along with my daughter to the annual Move It Show, she’ s always looking for ways to move her own dance business forward and this offers one of those opportunities. There are some things you can do online, but there is still nothing like the human element, to meet and talk directly to people. The human world that we all still belong to sometimes we need reminding of this in the digital world.
What struck me was that there is still a huge divide amongst exhibitors. Some using old-fashioned methods and others starting to become more forward-thinking using new methods to promote and market their businesses at events such as this.
The majority of the stalls were universities or colleges, trying to sign up students for the forthcoming year. They had piles of leaflets on hand and were trying to shove them into your face as you walked past.
Some stalls were only too happy to give out piles of leaflets of their services or product in the hope that you would remember their colourful stall at the end of the day.
Others gave out sweets with the name on it — really it was gone before I returned home.
Others gave out drinking bottles, key rings, pens, with their logo on and these work to some extent as you have the item lying around your home, it triggers your memory of the place and maybe you will make contact if this was what you were looking for.
However, by the end of the day, one stall appeared to have been all but abandoned with a load of leaflets left on the stall. This was probably in the hope that people passing by the stall would stop and pick up the leaflets.
I stopped and watched.
No one did.
They paused, looked and saw piles of leaflets with no one around and continued to walk past.
Another tree had died in vain.
I wondered where all those unused leaflets went at the end of the day?
I wondered how that college/university could justify the cost of printing those abandoned leaflets.
Should we be distributing leaflets in this digital era?
Another stall we came to told us they work on a green system they do not print any leaflets.
Instead, they advised if we left them with an email address — they would send us information.
How innovative in this digital era.
They had an iPad so you didn’ t even have to write your name on a bit of paper it went straight into their database forever, well unless you confine them to junk mail, they had you as their captive audience forever.
Which marketing method worked best?
Here’ s what we did when we came home. We looked through some of the leaflets, threw out a pile of them which we had taken because we didn’ t want to offend.
And then the rest stayed in the bag probably lost forever until they are thrown out one day.
The person who took our email was able to contact us and remind us of what they do and can continue to do so in the future.
Digital marketing surely has to be the most effective way to market your business in the current world we live?
The problem is that people still think in the old-fashioned way, they like the look of glossy leaflets because people are visual, they like to see things.
They cannot see what they are getting when they hand over an email address, so using this method you need to be really creative at your stall and show people what they will get.
What method do you use to share your message and how far have you come in entering the digital world?
The Digital Mum spreading the word about the Digital World
Because there is another way!
images: pixabay.com
