SUCCESS STORY
Activating a Show-Stopping Trade Show Experience for a Startup to Capture More Leads than the 5 Surrounding Booths Combined
POWERFUL TRADE SHOW ACTIVATION INCREASES AWARENESS + QUADRUPLES PIPELINE IN JUST 3 DAYS
Client: Carbot by BDC Pros
Project Timeline: December 2022 - Present
Services Provided: Trade Show Strategy, Materials and Prize Sourcing and Management, Print and Digital Assets, Website Copywriting, Social Posts, Email Series and Automation
The Challenge
Trade shows. Companies spend five, six, or even seven figures to reserve space and hang pretty banners - but what do they get?
Most booths experience a trickle of prospects, a bunch of badge scans, and crickets after the show. In today’s post-pandemic world, the situation is even worse.
There is a fundamental misunderstanding about how to execute on trade shows effectively. And for a first-time client, CarBot, a new approach was exactly what was needed to reach buyers, establish personal connection, and become, in his words, “booked solid…busier than I’ve ever been” following the show.
CarBot founder Chris Sondesky first found us through our video production brand, MNYK Studios. He came to MCO looking to reach the high net-worth owners of car dealerships. Together, we began working to turn an international dealership association trade show into the biggest growth his business has ever experienced.
With the smallest booth space available to vendors (10x10), MCO was tasked not only with creating an irresistible booth experience at the show itself, but providing air cover marketing to promote the CarBot product, increasing awareness about our attendance at the show, and keeping new contacts engaged enough afterwards to schedule a demo, and ultimately become a customer!
Using the CarBot product benefits its users by significantly expediting their response time to leads via an easy-to-use, swipe-to-respond software, therefore increasing showings at their dealership. So we needed an overarching theme that really drove this home…
Dealers, Don’t Get Ghosted by your leads!
“We have over 100 leads generated and 25 meetings on the books - at less than 15 hours of expo time!”
CHRIS SONDESKY, FOUNDER AND CEO
The Process
With this brand new “No Ghosts” booth theme to consider, we kicked off by securing perfect-fit promotional booth models to support the sales reps on the trade show floor, and outfitted them with Ghostbusters-themed costumes!
Next, we fleshed out exactly what we wanted our messaging to be for the show audience, drafting specific talking points for our team to reference and a themed motion graphic presentation to captivate booth visitors.
We developed various corresponding Ghostbusters-branded assets - from standing banners and podium wraps, to take-away brochures and postcards, plus TONS of CarBot swag. We developed corresponding digital assets, including Google display ads, aimed at our targeted list of event attendees, pre- and post-event social posts and a four-part follow-up email drip. We also overhauled the content on both the CarBot and BDC Pros homepages for increased clarity around our service offering, once these new leads landed on our site.
To attract visitors to our booth, we had a huge prize wheel and 70+ giveaways - from gift cards, to Amazon tablets, to verified, signed memorabilia from the cast of Ghostbusters, and Mike Tyson autographed boxing gloves! MCO curated this list of prizes, and coordinated all ordering and shipping. Together, we delivered a much fuller pipeline than when the show had been previously attended without MCO support.
Problem Solved
When each badge was scanned at the booth and the prospect’s information received, CarBot was able to immediately send a custom postcard and personalized video (also designed and storyboarded by MCO) to keep them engaged.
Ultimately, MCO was able to help CarBot garner over 80 sales-qualified leads, with over 150 demos given in person at the show and more than 25 post-show sales meetings already on the books by day three. The testimonial from our client, Chris, in the video here says it all.
Overall, this project was a hefty undertaking with less than eight weeks to pull it all off - but we’re used to the fast and furious work, and we wouldn’t have it any other way! Next steps: crafting an omni-channel go-to-market strategy to help CarBot reach the auto industry in every other channel, build out additional funnels for sales, and - of course - keep crushing lead gen at more trade shows!
“This activation from The Moving Company from Ryan and Julie and Becca and the entire team has been absolutely unbelievable. I don’t know if you guys can really understand how proud we are of what you’ve done and we hope that you are so proud of all of your effort that you put into this.”
CHRIS SONDESKY
