How Industrial Companies Can Leverage Trade Shows With Their Digital Marketing

Laurel Mintz founder and CEO of Elevate My Brand, works with manufacturers with both their digital and experiential marketing campaigns. We dive into how they help leverage the in-person campaigns in their digital marketing.

About Elevate My Brand
Elevate My Brand (EMB), exercises a unique offline and online marketing methodology that provides innovative, creative solutions for new, emerging brands and well-established companies. They specialize in helping both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) clients gain the attention and exposure they deserve within their niche markets, regardless of their size or stage of operational growth.  Free Marketing Guide from Elevate My Brand

(818) 452-9880 | https://www.elevatemybrand.com/
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The Agency Success Podcast by IndustrialSage
Sharing sales & marketing success stories from agencies working with industrial and manufacturing companies.

About IndustrialSage
IndustrialSage is an open platform where companies can showcase their expertise and solutions to a captive audience of industrial professionals.

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Laurel Mintz:

Well, I’m a Gemini vegetarian, no, I’m just kidding. Well, I am a Gemini, but I’ve been running the agency for 11 years, born and raised here in Los Angeles. I’m literally Laurel from Laurel Canyon, so I get that question a lot. Started the agency after being a corporate MNA attorney, which I know is a strange shift. We’ll get into that over cocktails on another day, but the agency is, digital and experiential, we found that our clients really needed that full scope of service, so we kind of just started adding on as we built the agency and it’s been almost 11 years now. I can’t even believe it.

David Caron:

Wow, that is amazing. So I see all of those awards and plaques and all of that behind there on your desk. Tell us a little bit about those.

Laurel Mintz:

We do a lot in the community. So I think one of the most important things for brands and agencies and founders, really anyone is to understand your why, right? Simon Sinek, I don’t know if you listen to him at all, but he’s pretty fantastic and he really talks about your core values and the reason that you do what you do. And obviously we love bringing new products and services to the world, but the reason I do what I do is so I can support, build employees, and build jobs in the community. And then we do a ton of philanthropic work. That’s really what’s important to me. Our message and our positioning is really about female entrepreneurs, youth entrepreneurs. I sit on a lot of boards and committees. Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship is one of my favorite. They’re a big national organization that teaches underprivileged youth that they can do it too. So a lot of these awards are just, gratitudes and thank you’s for that. And probably the volume is because I’ve been doing it way too long.

David Caron:

No, I couldn’t agree more. I mean this is, it’s such an important piece, building community, not just, people a lot of times think, Oh, it’s all just about the dollars and cents, but at the end of the day, people buy from other people. And you’ll probably hear me harp on that episode after episode. But I like to work with good people and doing those philanthropic works, and doing those different outreaches and different benefits for the community I think is really important. Shows character, beyond just yeah, we’re great people to work with.

Laurel Mintz:

Yeah, I say the same thing, people buy from people and you have to really stand for something and really understand what your core values are, whether you’re on the service side or on the brand side. So I totally agree with that ethos.

David Caron:

Awesome. So we’re here today to talk about agency success. And what that means is client success. And so when clients are successful, when they’re driving revenue, generating leads, closing sales, that means, well, more work for an agency. So let’s talk about maybe a campaign or two or a particular client of yours that has executed successfully with your help, with your assistance in a digital marketing campaign.

Laurel Mintz:

Totally. Well, first I’d like to mention the brands that everyone probably listening and will know that we’ve worked with, because we do work with some really big impressive brands like Facebook, Black Angus, Verizon, Zendesk and Sprinklr, so those are on the more enterprise side. But our favorite clients to work with are of course those more growth minded kind of middle market, lower middle market companies because there’s so much more room and more opportunity there for kind of that hockey stick growth. So to your point, one of our clients that, we have two clients particularly that I think are great for this conversation. One, we talked about a little bit before the company that was called, O2 Concepts, really, really unsexy category in med tech, health tech. They create those portable oxygen concentrators. So you know when people have breathing issues and health issues, they have to carry these machines around with them.

Laurel Mintz:

And this was the first IOT connected device of its kind. So we created this partnership with them and Verizon for the data part and they came to us, I think they were doing maybe between five and 10 million in revenue. So really on that lower middle market side. And we executed… First we had a full rebrand, because brand has to start first, right? You have to start with strong messaging, strong positioning, a strong visual identity for a brand before you start launching that wide. So we started there with the branding kind of remodel. Then we went to the website. So how do you take the brand, rebuild the website so that it really does work for what the client needs. And then we launched ad campaigns from there. So we started on Facebook, really focused on AB testing creative so that we could, when we went larger and spent a lot more money, we were really clear on what worked and what didn’t work for that client.

Laurel Mintz:

I would say, we also did a ton in experiential world, so we did all the big medical tech conferences, and did booth build outs that were really engaging and integrated, because that’s how we built a successful agency. Again, we realized that clients thought that they had three problems, they really had 83 problems. And so the agency that we built really allowed us to service that full scope of need for the client. And I’m really proud to say that, I believe it was four years later after working with us, they sold at a 10 times multiple to private equity and exited successfully. So you should take an equity on that one.

David Caron:

Yep, yep. Got to get the equity while you can. I mean that to me sounds like almost a perfect scenario because, in the industry, traditional marketing, whether it’s your trade magazines, trade shows, those more traditional elements are actually still utilized quite a bit. I’d say it’s 70 plus percent are leveraging those mediums.

Laurel Mintz:

It’s a resurgence. And we talk about that to our clients all the time, like people inboxes are so inundated, their mailboxes are not. So I think to your point, people are kind of regressing back, but it’s actually the future of marketing as well.

David Caron:

Yeah, I think the strength where we’ve seen those campaigns be really successful is, when you’re able to marry the two of them together. So having your digital marketing, working in tandem with the trade shows. So, can you maybe share a little bit more detail about that experience? You’ve built out the experiential element at the different trade shows, trade events, how do you then leverage that in digital?

Laurel Mintz:

It’s a great question and I think you hit the nail on the head, which is you have to have a holistic approach, right? And I think that’s why people started being scared of experiential because they were like, Oh, we’re spending all this money. We’re not seeing a return. It was because there was not a holistic approach to marketing that tied the digital and the experiential live events component. And so for this client in particular, we did what we would call lead up digital marketing, right? So we did geo-fenced targeting around the location of the conference so that we could target the buyers that were going to be at those conferences, right? So that was a B2B play, which again, not a sexy world, but you’ve got to be super intentional about how you’re spending your money and you got to be intentional from a timeline perspective.

Laurel Mintz:

So building out a marketing calendar and backing into the dates to have creative shot, to have it approved, to integrate it into the social campaigns, to do the geo-fence advertising testing, all of those pieces have to happen in a very linear process and can congruently with the experiential. So for this client in particular, we did all of that lead up. Then we also knew that because we had a booth and we were spending a lot of money on it, they were going to be developing press lists. So we targeted the PR piece, about the media piece of that as well, and then used the onsite experience by taking tons of video content, tons of photographic content, that then had life after the event as well. So you have to think about it as, what’s happening before, what are you doing on site to close the business or to close the leads and the buyers, and then what’s the follow on look like from both a digital experiential standpoint. So it’s a process that is more thoughtful than just, hey, let’s show up at an event with some flyers and some products and hope this steps.

David Caron:

Yeah, that is an amazing explanation of how to run these campaigns correctly. And I think, geo-targeting, geo-fencing, it’s probably some lingo that is very familiar to us, but for someone that doesn’t really understand geo-fencing and how they’re able to leverage that, could you maybe explain that a little bit more please?

Laurel Mintz:

Absolutely. I always forget when I throw jargon out, I’m like, not everybody knows this stuff. You’re totally right. So geo-fencing, geo-targeting, basically anywhere that you’re spending ad dollars, most places are spending ad dollars. You have the ability to drill down specifically to, for example, on LinkedIn you can specifically target titles, on Facebook you can specifically target geographic locations, and that’s what we’re talking about in terms of fencing. I think people that think about digital as this kind of a theorial concept, but something that’s nice to have, but not a need to have, don’t understand how granular you can actually get and how valuable that is, especially when you’re tying it into a brick and mortar location or an experiential moment. So it’s really important for anyone that’s looking in digital to understand that your money should be spent wisely.

Laurel Mintz:

And that’s not the spray and pray model, which is typically what people who are unsuccessful with digital have been doing. They’re like, well, we spent a bunch of money, we found our clients, we’re in this place and we didn’t get any return. Well, there was not a linear thought process behind that and they weren’t targeting. For example, my family business was furniture, and so we had a couple of these locations and we would geo-fence within that five mile radius, any advertising, whether it’d be print or digital, because we knew that nobody was coming, it wasn’t a destination location outside that five mile radius. And it’s the same for pretty much any client in this space. Where is your audience? How far are they coming to see you? A lot of restaurants do this really effectively because they know they have this little microcosm and they’ve got a target really efficiently within it, but if there’s nothing else these listeners take away, it’s that, that social, that digital as a whole is so much more infinitely measurable than traditional advertising most. So if they’re not doing it, they’re really missing out on something.

David Caron:

Yeah, I think that’s a great explanation. Thanks so much for going into those details. I think when we’re looking at all the different digital marketing tactics, all the different tools that are out there, being able to leverage the different systems to our advantage, we’re trying to not just sell to someone, but really lead the horse to water so to speak, and not burning money because well, Facebook, it worked great that one time for maybe that company over there, but not for us. Our industry isn’t on there or something like that. And I think it’s a great excuse, it’s a great cop-out because in the end, like we said at the beginning, people buy from people and so where is the attention for your buyers? Well, people, they’re doing something, they’re spending their time somewhere, so what better way than to leverage it there?

Laurel Mintz:

Yeah. And 80% of the time is in front of a screen. So if you’re not there… I mean don’t tell me your people aren’t there, they’re there, you’re just not targeting them properly. Or maybe your creative is crappy, right? I think that’s another really important point that I’d like to make if I may, is that people think, well, I’m spending all this money, why isn’t it working? And so what I always respond to is, well, what does the creative look like?

Laurel Mintz:

How many assets have you developed? How often are those assets being pushed out on the different channels? I think another piece that people don’t understand is the volume of assets or creative that needs to be developed to really beautifully execute across each of those channels consistently. So we always lead with that creative conversation, not just from a volume of asset, meaning, for those of you that don’t understand the jargon, like how many actual, pictures, images and graphics are you developing for these campaigns? But what is that campaign itself actually saying and how do you know that that’s the right message targeting, positioning and imagery for your audience, that’s the way to do that is by AB testing on social.

David Caron:

Yeah, AB testing, having that… Now, you mentioned before that at trade shows you recommend, gathering that video and the photography. When you’re working with a client at a trade show, how many different assets like that are you generating, say from a two or three day show?

Laurel Mintz:

That’s a really good question. I don’t think there’s any perfect number to that. And of course it’s budget dependent, right? So like if we have an in house videographer, we can get far more assets and we can really push the boundaries on that. Whether we have someone in house or whether we’re bringing someone on for a few hours. But one of the things that we often do at trade shows is, we’ll create what we call media corner.

Laurel Mintz:

So we have a really cute backdrop with the logo of the company and the CEO or the CMO of that company sits in a little chair and there’s another chair there, and the buyers or the brands that they’re trying to partner with will come in and we’ll shoot like little 10 to 20 minute kind of vignettes. So it creates that bonding moment between the CEO or the CMO or the sales team and whoever that target is. And then that becomes content that can be dripped out for months depending on what your cadence is there. And then you’re also tapping into cross marketing partnerships because that person that provided that valuable content and that conversation is then going to share that with their audience as well. So I don’t know if it’s a matter of the actual number of assets, as it is building smart assets. Does that make sense?

David Caron:

Yeah, exactly. It’s how much can you leverage a single piece of content. For instance, when we’re producing a typical episode on Industrial Sage, it’s generating at least 25 different pieces of content for us. And so, that single investment, you’re like, wow, we have all these different assets. And in some cases, the amount of content could be in the hundreds if you look at it from individual social posts from a tweet or something like that. Because those little snippets contain great value, but at the same time they only live on Twitter for moments, whereas, on LinkedIn it could last a couple of days. So very, very powerful stuff.

Laurel Mintz:

We do the same thing. It’s like what’s that long form content? So for you guys it’d be like a really long form video and then how do you edit that down into more digestible pieces, into graphic moments that you can use across the different marketing channels. But I think it’s such an important part of this conversation because all clients see sometimes is, Oh, I’m spending $50,000 on a video, how does that make sense? And you’re like, no, it’s this great hero video, and then it’s, 300 other assets. So it’s really actually building out your entire asset database for the entire year or for an entire quarter. You don’t have our money assets you’re building out for that particular client. So I think it needs to be more of a medic conversation, like you said, how can we leverage one big piece of content and really make it into moments that will last far longer than that.

David Caron:

Yep. Wonderful. So I want to circle back real quick, we’re kind of running out of time here in a little bit, about doing the AB testing with social. Okay. You can spend millions, literally millions of dollars on paid social campaigns, see results for it, or not see any results for it. Just in my personal experience, I know they can work really well when run effectively, but from the AB perspective, what’s your process when you’re running an AB test on the different creative, obviously you guys are very focused and talented against the branding side of things, how does that play your AB test?

Laurel Mintz:

That’s a great question. So we present the client with the creative first, right? Here are three or four kind of iterations of what we believe is going to play well with your audience. Then we take those same concepts once they’ve been approved… Actually the backup, we deliver the creative, and then we also deliver a hypothesis in terms of who we believe the audiences psychographically and demographically. And you have to start with a hypothesis because otherwise what are you testing against? Right? So our hypothesis has to be, this is the physical location we believe your clients are. This is their demographic breakdowns, this is what their buying habits are so that we can drill down to target them. And then we test each ad on different Facebook tests and then we iterate through them. So we’ll copy out for a week, and then we’ll change the image out for a week and then we’ll change the targeting out for a week or two depending on how big the campaigns are.

Laurel Mintz:

And you know pretty quickly what works and what doesn’t. And we test it like, I mean it’s like 10 bucks a day, it’s not really a lot of money. And we share with our clients like, here’s the big picture budget and they’re like [inaudible 00:19:02] and then we’re like, no, no, we’re going to peel this back in the first few months, you’re really only spending a few hundred dollars to test so that we can come back to you and say, our hypothesis was dead on. Now we know we can go spend money and have real impact. Or you know what? We just didn’t hit the mark, we need to go back to creative and come up with some new iteration that tufts those until the delta between them is really small. But you can do it really effectively. I mean, anyone listening to this podcast, can literally go to facebook.com/advertising and just start to play with it and you can see how granular you can get. But you also can see the time it takes to execute and oversee this on a monthly basis.

David Caron:

Yeah, exactly. I think it’s one thing for someone to dive in, educate themself enough to, what we’ll say be dangerous, but at the same time I think as you go through it and you see, okay, what’s involved with actually running a campaign successfully, it’s a good time to bring in a partner to be able to execute longer term strategies. I think that’s important.

Laurel Mintz:

I always tell people that want to get so deep in the weeds of it, I’m like, is this really the best and highest use of your time? You’ve hired us because we’re the experts in this area. So let us be the experts, or you can take back all of this in social media and have fun with it. But you need to be really clear on what the best use of your time within that company is and the reasons why you hired an expert to execute on this. But you’re right, I mean that’s exactly the path we go down.

David Caron:

Awesome. So final question here, when you guys are creating content, how do you go about sourcing that foundation, where do you guys get your content from? How does that work when you’re working with your clients?

Laurel Mintz:

We use a couple of different ways, right? One is, you create your own photo shoot, which can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. And we just did a shoot for really high end tech mattress out of Silicon Valley, VC-backed tech company, and we did a shoot. We got I’d say a hundred assets including some video content and it was like a 10K shoot, it wasn’t really that expensive, right? But those assets are now going to last for probably two to three months. So that’s one approach is creating your own completely unique assets. And then of course, stock photography has gotten bigger and better than it ever has before. So you can always use that as well. And then depending on the brand, some people receive content that is costing more organic, right? So whether it’s stock photography or a photo shoot, people might not respond to that.

Laurel Mintz:

So maybe it’s just you in front of the camera talking about your experience, talking about the miracle product that you’ve developed or your service or whatever that is. So it either has to be stock photography, if you can’t afford to do a photo shoot, a photo shoot would be preferable because then it’s all very unique content. And then the third option really is, well, the third is the organic. The fourth is, user generated content through influencer, right? So we do a lot of these big campaigns where we bring in influencers to create unique organic content, which means our clients don’t have to worry about the photo shoot, they just collect all these amazing images. And then because these influencers also have a big audience, they share it with their audience. So it’s kind of like a twofer, which has been really great. And it also doesn’t have to be that expensive. I think we can run influencer campaign for like 5K.

David Caron:

Yep. There you go. Alrighty Laurel. Thanks so much for sharing with us these different insider secrets on, how to drive results. At the end of the day, it’s coming down to results. You can do all the talking, and all that, but unless you’re actually generating the leads, generating those SQLs and those customers, nobody really cares. So it’s great to see you guys having a successful agency. What is it now? 11 years you said?

Laurel Mintz:

11 years but thank God [inaudible 00:23:13] hopefully, right?

David Caron:

No, no, not a day over 25, so we’re good.

Laurel Mintz:

If I may share with the audience how they can get a hold of us, that would be helpful.

David Caron:

Yes. I want to make sure that everyone can find you. So we’ll put all of your information in the show notes. You’ll be tagged, lots of links, all that. But go ahead, fire away.

Laurel Mintz:

Perfect. So if people want to get in touch with us, elevatemybrand.com. I always give my personal email out, Laurel, [email protected]. And if you go to our homepage in the upper left hand corner, there’s a free marketing guide. So if you’re not ready to jump in just yet, this is a 10 step program that basically takes you through, so you’re thoughtful and educated about how to market before you’re ready to work with an agency.

David Caron:

That is awesome. All right, we’ll make sure to include a link to that offer in the show notes, make sure everyone can find you. Thank you so much Laurel, and we’ll be in touch.

Laurel Mintz:

Thank you so much for having me.