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Garver Engineering Trade Show Success!

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Garver is a multi-disciplined engineering, planning and environmental services firm. Garver utilizes exposure through industry trade shows targeting government, municipal, transportation and energy-related entities as a primary marketing channel. They wanted to improve trade show presence, increase awareness of the company’s services, drive traffic to the booth, social media outlets and hone in focus on qualified leads.

CustomXM developed a cross-media campaign utilizing email blasts and postcards personalized to each attendee. The communication encouraged recipients to follow Garver on social media outlets, and enter an iPad giveaway contest via a personalized website. Printed cards with a generic URL and QR Code were distributed at the show allowing attendees to register while visiting the Garver booth. Once in the website, they were asked to give general contact information, as well as potential interest in Garver’s engineering services, to which 28% of survey respondents indicated they did in fact have a need for the services.

“We are so excited to see that we have people who are in need of an engineer and are interested in knowing more about us, and we know that BEFORE the tradeshow. This is so awesome!” says Garver’s Kerrie Diaz

Overall, the campaigns drove a 29% response rate and increased traffic to their booth by 10 to 50% from the previous year. At one show, it was publicly announced that more attendees than ever before had stayed through to the end of the conference, credit was given to Garver’s iPad giveaway winner announcement.

“We’ve had a really positive response to this campaign from both our people here [at Garver] and visitors to our booth!” added representative Alan Watsongarver_tradeshow_2

 

Arkansas Department of Human Services

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The Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) was participating in the  Arkansas Early Childhood Association Conference. Their goal was to introduce “Better Beginnings,” a new Quality Rating Improvement System for childcare providers. They wanted a campaign that would drive conference attendees to the DHS booth, introduce the new childcare rating system and educate attendees about online resources available to assist them in meeting federal standards for childcare providers. They needed to gather valuable data about the attendees’ knowledge and raise awareness of the new regulations through the list of survey questions.

Utilizing CustomXM’s interactive tools, attendees of the conference were given printed cards encouraging them to visit the DHS booth and access a survey via either a unique URL or a QR code. 900 cards were printed and handed out to attendees. 282 people visited the booth and completed the survey, which resulted in a 31.3% response rate from the survey of attendees. DHS learned that there was a great need to educate childcare givers.

Real Integrated marketing with QR Codes

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Integrated marketing is what most forward thinking companies strive to achieve with marketing efforts. However a large gap exists between print and web making integration difficult. The use of QR codes in print advertising and marketing can help bridge this gap.

A few years ago while working for a marketing agency the big buzz word was “integrated marketing”. Essentially this was creating marketing flow between your online and offline marketing. Back then this included things like creating targeted URLs to direct people who receive your print piece, creating cohesion between your web site and your print campaigns, and directing people to online signup forms through traditional media. A gap exists between the printed page and a website. This gap is big enough that many modern marketers have written off print advertising completely. People are just reluctant to get a direct mail piece, go to their computer, and type in a web address.

Real quick, look in your pocket or on your desk. Chances are you have a cell phone within reach. In addition chances are it is a smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry, Pre…). The answer to bridging this gap lies right there, it is your constant connection to the world, but you are still not going to type in a web address.

QR codes are a way to help bridge the gap. Web browsing on cell phones is not at a very usable level. Using QR codes in your marketing allows potential customers to easily pick up their cell phone, scan in the QR code, and instantly be directed to the landing page for your ad. The New York Times recently did an article highlighting this very technique with advertising, looking at how various companies are starting a push toward advertising with QR and other 2d bar codes.

As technology and consumer awareness increases so will the integration of print and online marketing. Integrating technologies like QR codes into advertising takes very little effort, and no additional cost. This also adds a second layer of analytical data to marketing efforts, allowing you to better gauge ROI for a print piece. Take a look how Rob McBryde used this integration to move potential customers from his printed business card to his web site.

-Greg Henderson