Marketing at trade shows

SUMMARY: When you are an exhibiting sponsor at someone else's event, your effort can be limited by constraints outside your control. At the same time, you do want to stand out from the crowd to maximize your investment in the effort.

Find out how HubSpot created a strategy for this year's Dreamforce exposition that pushed the boundaries on what defines an event booth, promoted a unique event theme, and led to over 2,300 new leads while providing attendees with takeaway value. read the complete case study

SUMMARY: Change can come quickly in business, and often, the larger the firm, the tougher it is to adapt. An unstable economy coupled with a reduction in business travel over the last several years meant attendance at live corporate events was down. One very large company known for its live events felt the pinch.

Its solution was to create a top-down effort in online interaction that led to the creation of a virtual event center for the entire company. Find out how this very large firm is capable of equally significant change when faced with a serious business challenge. read the complete article

SUMMARY: "In the first half of 2008, b-to-b trade shows showed a minimal decline of 1%, while b-to-b magazines declined 6% during the same period." "While there was an overall decline of 6% in the magazine business during the first half of the year, 5 of the 21 BIN categories showed growth." "These categories include: Agriculture (6.08%), Architecture, Design, Lighting (1.99%), MFG, Processing (0.61%), Miscellaneous (1.53%), and Professional Services (1.82%)." view the complete research record

SUMMARY: Driven by economic circumstances, the buying process for large and complex purchases is changing. Marketers who are aware of changing buyer behaviors, such as the use of information resources, will be better able to align their selling process with the buying process to improve effectiveness. read the complete article

By Anne Holland, Content Director

Admittedly, our B-to-B Marketing Summit Brochure was brochure-from-hell from a proofing standpoint. The marketing department had to get 29 different speakers' names spelled properly (this must be very easy in places, such as Sweden, where you have a limited pool of names to deal with, but in multicultural America you always have to double-check.) And we had to make sure the right headshot went with the right speaker, which can be... read the complete blog post