Connecting with your target audience is tough, even under the best of circumstances. Connect face-to-face, you can see your listener’s reactions. Connect virtually … it’s a crapshoot. They might be listening … or they might be playing digital Solitaire.  No matter how you’re communicating, the best way to keep your target audience engaged is by telling powerful stories. 

Here are four ways to improve them. 

It seems intuitive; your story should feature your products and services … right? Yes … but not initially. Start with current industry challenges, powerful market forces, and specific client needs. Set the scene … a challenging scene your listeners will find all too familiar. Done correctly, they’ll cast themselves as a character in your story. 

Include emotions … the powerful emotions that drive the characters in your story. Your listeners are most likely experiencing them right now.  They know that if they don’t solve their problems, they’ll lose more than business; they’ll lose market share; they’ll lose valued employees; they’ll lose their jobs; and ultimately, the company could close its doors. By recognizing and validating these emotions, your listeners will remain engaged to see how your story–now their story–turns out.

Now that your listeners are intellectually and emotionally hooked, it’s solution time. But remember, the biggest reason the characters in your story succeeded was not your products or services … they succeeded because they were able to change their minds.  Change is hard, especially when you need to admit that what you were doing before wasn’t working.  Frame your products and services as natural outgrowths of this new mindset. Provide data and real-world results. These relevant details add credibility and weight to your story, and help listeners feel comfortable with changing their minds. 

Last, but certainly not least, look to the future … but be realistic. Don’t describe a happily-ever-after.  Detail potential new challenges they may face along the way, but also include how your products and services are prepared to solve these as well. This gives your listeners hope, which any behavioral psychologist will tell you is the most important human emotion.

Your solutions are not the star of your stories … your customers and prospects are … your products and services are merely the supporting players that help the stars succeed.

You did a great job.  Your team designed an excellent exhibit.  It’s an exciting representation of your brand and you can’t wait to show it off at your next tradeshow.

And then … the trade show is cancelled. What’s a Marketer to do?

Good news!  You can still leverage your hard work by creating a digital version of your exhibit and invite your target audience to experience your brand virtually. 

The question is … what does that experience look like?

Here are two digital formats that combine your beautiful booth design with all of your digitized assets to create an immersive brand experience. 

This framework transforms your 3D architectural booth model into an online walkthrough. It’s like a VR experience … without the headset.  

Your exhibit model is positioned in a 3D World … a world visitors travel through using their mouse, arrow keys, or tab key. “Information” icons float near product stations to let visitors know, “There’s a learning opportunity here!” Clicking an icon opens a pop-up window that delivers brochure copy, close-up images, charts, graphs, etc. Links to video assets open in a separate browser window. 

These 3D walkthroughs are accessed directly through the user’s browser, so they don’t need to download and install any special apps or software. Visitors simply enter the space and move around freely … almost as if they were on the show floor. 

For brands with extensive video assets–like product demos, expert interviews, or mini tutorials–a microsite approach offers a more streamlined viewing experience.

The microsite background is a still frame taken from a fly-through animation of your 3D exhibit render. Using their mouse, visitors embark on a linear journey through your exhibit frame by frame. Pausing the scroll pauses the fly-through; this allows users to control how quickly they move from area to area.  

Pop-up windows appear at strategic points, offering product and equipment videos. These videos are all hard coded into the microsite and play with a simple mouse click – no need to follow a link to open a separate window. 

For visitors who don’t wish to take a linear journey, top-bar or sidebar navigation panels allow them to jump around the exhibit and access videos from drop-down lists. 

Just like any online project, the functionality of your microsite is limited only by your desires, imagination, and budget.  Additional features could include:

Whatever format you choose, a digital version of your trade show exhibit gives you the chance to connect with your target audience before, during, and after your live trade show event … even when it’s cancelled.   

MPI recently published a blog entitled, “Event Planning & Unpeeling the Cultural Onion.” It explores the importance of understanding how your target audience’s cultural experiences drive their actions and reactions.  The “onion” metaphor is apt; we all have multiple layers of attitudes; some are easily detected near the surface, while the ones closest to our core are stronger and harder to detect.   

But while analyzing your target audience’s hidden attitudes is important, it’s equally important–when creating trade show engagement programs–to look inward. When you reveal the unknown and/or unspoken needs and desires of your internal decision-makers (and yourself, for that matter), you’ll create trade show programs that are perceived as successful by your entire organization. 

Here are some questions that may help you “peel” your Senior Managements’ onion:

It’s common to assume you know the answer to this question.  If you unequivocally ask each level of management, “what spells success for you,” their answers may surprise you.  Then you can use their responses to re-engineer your approach to trade show messaging and engagement.

We’re all limited by our peculiar experiences.  It’s important to understand your team’s talents, as well as their limitations.  An outside POV may be necessary to help move the needle on this. 

In today’s multicultural “woke” environment, defining these limitations can reveal valuable correlations, as well as harmful disconnects. Witness South Dakota’s tone-deaf marketing campaign from last year, “Meth: We’re On It.” 

We live in a world consumed by data; but data has a shelf-life.  What was true five or ten years ago … even one year ago … may currently be irrelevant or detrimental to your goals.  

If you don’t know, fixing it will be difficult.  Again, an outside POV may be the answer.

Finally, it’s easy to allow your personal biases to color your perception. Therefore, it’s important that when you quiz various levels of management, you listen with an open mind to their answers.  

Only then can you uncover what they may not be telling you, and how the unspoken attitudes that lie at the core of your management’s personal “onions” will shape the perception of your trade show program’s success.