Why you don't need an exhibition to launch a new product


There is much in the news currently about exhibitions being cancelled. This leaves companies with a conundrum; they have worked for months, or even years, developing new products, with the aim of unveiling it to customers at a major trade show and then it ends up being postponed or cancelled completely. With the pressure on to achieve sales it leaves sales managers wondering what to do next.

Fortunately, there is a solution. Content marketing and content creation, which is the creation and sharing of online material such as blogs, PR articles, white papers, thought leadership, case studies and social media posts, is much more effective than an exhibition to launch new products and here’s why:

  1. Worldwide audience

The first thing to say about digital marketing and content creation is that it opens up your new product launch to a much wider audience. In fact, if you export products, it gives you access to a global market.

That’s because our content marketing strategies, once they are online and keyword optimised, pick up many searches from countries we target. For example, we recently secured a large order for our client from the far East by implementing a content marketing strategy.

  1. Better segmentation and targeting

The great thing about our content marketing campaigns is that we can segment the target audience in greater detail than you could at an exhibition, where there is little control over who attends the show and who chooses to visit your stand.

Being a B2B content marketing agency gives us an excellent understanding of route to market, too, so if you’re looking to launch you new product to architects in the construction sector or design engineers in the manufacturing sector, we can guide you through the best way to communicate directly with these people. Once we’ve done that, we’ll put in place a content marketing plan that works to your business goals.

  1. A more controlled message

The important thing to remember when generating content is to keep in mind what your customers like and what really resonates with them.

Exhibitions are great if you get the right kind of people on to your stand. Although we’ve all been to shows where delegates are thin on the ground or tend to congregate around the coffee bars in between seminars.  When you finally get some of them to visit your stand, they’re usually keen to keep it to an absolute minimum, which means you can struggle to get across messages about your new product.

That’s where a content marketing campaign to launch a new product really helps. Because our content marketing campaigns are ongoing it means that you are constantly feeding information to potential buyers. Research has also shown that a person has to see a sales message at least three times before they act, so again this restricts what you can do at an exhibition, where they are only likely to see you once. Conversely, our content marketing campaigns ensure your message is repeated many times over to potential customers and via different mediums. That the best way to get customers engaged and taking the next steps that you want.

  1. Longer lasting than an exhibition

Once the content we create is placed online it remains there indefinitely, helping your SEO and Google search rankings long after the exhibition you were going to attend has finished. In fact, our content marketing campaigns are some of the best ways in which to make sure your new product launch is seen by the maximum number of potential customers.

  1. Easier to measure the results

We include tracking links in our content marketing campaigns to ensure that our clients can track the results all the way through to enquiry and order placement. This is a really effective way to quantify the number of sales leads that our digital marketing and content creation campaigns generate.

A lot of what we discuss in this blog makes sense to our clients. Exhibitions can be a good thing, although, increasingly, with more effective content marketing campaigns, they become a part of a new product launch rather than the central thrust. Today’s marketeers know that content is king and whilst exhibitions might give you a short lived launch, there really is no substitute for an ongoing, targeted content marketing strategy.

So if you have a new product or service to launch, or are finding there's a gap in your marketing where an exhibition or event would normally be held, feel free to get in touch with our PR team on 0114 349 5345 or email hello@dragonflypr.co.uk and we will advise on what to do next.

Dragonfly PR is a Sheffield-based PR and content marketing agency which specialises in business to business PR, food, construction and the manufacturing sector.  Our specialisms include PR campaigns, content marketing, social media and SEO.

Call us on: 0114 349 5341