Once brilliant show marketing, gradual decline
At the beginning of reform and opening-up, when China's information is still in a very closed situation, the exhibition helps Chinese enterprises to open the channel of communication with the world. The Canton Fair, which is two times a year, not only allows a large number of foreign merchants to purchase inexpensive Chinese products, but also allows many Chinese enterprises to broaden their horizons, capture the business opportunities, and create a lot of private entrepreneurs.
20 years later, in the non-mass consumer goods enterprises, the exhibition is still a very important marketing tool, especially some foreign trade enterprises, the Canton Fair and a number of trade fairs are the absolute channel of business expansion.
Taking one of my clients as an example, a lighter manufacturing enterprise in the top three in the domestic industry, almost all of the company's business comes from the Canton Fair and other exhibitions, the annual cost of the exhibition at least million, the company all the business people are using the exhibition to expand their business.
However, with the "show marketing" upsurge, the cost of the exhibition is increasing, participation in a show less than tens of thousands of, more than hundreds of thousands of, and the effect of the exhibition has not been promoted. On the contrary, the exhibition is quite rampant, many show thousands of buyers, the actual buyers are only hundreds of, the exhibition on a few buyers to become a large number of exhibitors for the "incense steamed", however, gruel, really can deal with the project is not much.
In other words, the effect of exhibition marketing in today's market environment, has been worse than before. If the enterprise or business expansion is all in the exhibition, do not look for new expansion channels, is bound to face a shrinking customer volume, the business volume of the risk of decline.
Website marketing to the fore, catching up
Crises and opportunities are often in the line. When many of the companies that originally developed from exhibition marketing still relied on the "show" as a lifeline, the new entrants took aim at the more promising "website marketing".
Compared to the "exhibition", the site can not be limited by time, space, for potential customers around the world to recommend and display products, introduction of enterprise Services.
The communication with the customer at the exhibition is short and sketchy. But the website can provide the detailed introduction to the customer, provides the more interactive consultation and the Exchange, the exposition difficult to say the content, on the website may with the customer careful exchange.
After the exhibition, the business staff can only according to the customer's business card, and then contact the customer. If the exhibition is not many customers, the effect of the exhibition will be greatly discounted. But the website can let the customer take the initiative to come to the door, through the website optimization and promotion, lets the customer search the related product time, may find the Enterprise website, the initiative and the customer contact. Not only reduce the cost of customer development, but also avoid the limitations of customer sources.
Exhibition is only the beginning of mutual understanding, to really produce cooperation, business staff and customers also need to communicate many times. With the help of the website, the business person can better promote the product to the customer, enhances the communication efficiency with the customer. Without having to go back and forth through multiple email calls.
The customer information obtained at the exhibition is fragmented and needs to be collated by the business staff. However, customers from the site will have a unified record, even if the business staff turnover, the site's customer information can be retained. The use of web site mail subscriptions and other functions, you can regularly maintain contact with potential customers, improve the efficiency of enterprise and customer maintenance.
The customer in the exhibition is concentrated, but the competitor is also very concentrated, a customer has a number of competitors to compete fiercely. And according to the "Long Tail theory", different customers are based on different keywords, different channels to find the corporate Web site, you can avoid the competition is too concentrated and caused by the tragic casualties.
Exhibition Marketing + Website marketing = Unlimited Business Opportunities
Market competition is brutal, whether the market leader or followers, must be more sensitive to capture new trends, looking for new market opportunities.
With the continuous popularization of the Internet, new network applications are emerging, search engines, instant messaging, blogs, communities, rss......web2.0 era of network applications has changed our lives, changed the relationship between people. Even at home, we can and thousands of miles away from friends to communicate and exchange cooperation, as if at close proximity.
When the site has become a bridge for communication and communication between enterprises, even the customers who have not met, can also understand the enterprise through the website, communicate and cooperate with the enterprise. Enterprises can also through the site for distributors, suppliers management, the site as a platform for enterprise supply chain management.
Once for enterprises to bring huge returns of the exhibition marketing, with the advent of the internet era is quietly changing. Exhibition marketing and website marketing are transforming into each other: many business-to-business websites create "Never Ending exposition", trying to carve out a piece of the exhibition company; visionary exhibition companies are also beginning to try to build business-to-business websites or collaborate with business-to-business platforms to transfer the resources of the show to the Internet.
To sum up, the exhibition marketing to the website marketing transformation is inevitable. Hope that in the future market occupies a place in the enterprise, it is necessary to put the site marketing into the enterprise marketing strategy of an important step!