Motorcycle Marketing 2023-01 How to Maximise Your Digital Impact Around Trade Shows

How to Maximise Your Digital Impact Around Trade Shows

If you are planning to exhibit your products at a motorcycle trade show it’s well worthwhile to consider how to maximise your digital impact around the event. Let’s face it, most attendees at events spend half their time on their phones anyway, so creating a strong link between your physical presence at a show and your associated online marketing content is a wise strategy.

The overlap between the digital world and ‘real life’ has become increasingly significant in recent years and the Covid-19 era only enhanced that trend. Customers and industry players will hit the major motorcycle trade shows in big numbers in 2023 and the hunger for face-to-face contact, plus the urge to see new bikes and products up close is still strong. The key point to set your brand apart from your competitors is by linking that footfall at shows to your digital goals.

Let’s Get Digital

Trade shows are important events that can generate leads and provide a boost to your business network and sales. However, they also require a significant investment. Before attending one, it is a good idea to create a strategy, defining the steps you’ll take before, during, and after the event, to maximize your digital impact.

The first step to optimizing your digital results around trade shows is to set the right goals for the event and make a plan accordingly. Your goals might be to increase your customer email database, to recruit more dealers, to promote specific pieces of online content about your product, to announce a new partnership with a big name influencer or directly to sell more motorcycles thanks to your presence at the exhibition.

If you’re still unclear what your goals are, or you need help with figuring out how to make and execute a plan to hit your key objectives, contact the team here at Motorcycle Marketing and we’ll put you on the right track.

Then it’s about creating a tailored plan around your goals before the show and setting up the digital infrastructure to support the physical marketing presence you’ll have at your exhibition stand.

If you have not been to a motorcycle industry trade show before, or if you’ve not attended one for a few years, it’s probably worthwhile going to a few shows just as an attendee if you can, simply to observe trends and examples of best practice. You could even attend trade shows from other industries which are local to you.

There are often good examples of innovators and brands getting it right at any exhibition of repute and attending a well renowned show could give you all the inspiration you need to make a splash when it’s your turn to set up a stand of your own.

What To Do When It’s Showtime

During the show, be sure to share your marketing materials with the attendees. Sounds obvious, but some brands still don’t do this. They simply turn up and display their products. Make it easy for expo attendees to digitally connect with your brand at or immediately after they visit your stand.

You could offer an immersive content experience with VR headsets or headphones to allow those visiting your stand to dive deep into your online content at the show, rather than seeing incoherent content on background screens. For tips on how to efficiently create strong content check out our blog post on just that topic.

There are several other ways to create a digital hook at your stand. Perhaps offer superfast wifi accessible via email registration through a mobile router at your stand. Often at events mobile networks and free wifi networks become swamped, so offering attendees a superfast alternative will quickly make you popular.

You can also create online contests to win your products and potentially consider creating interactive games to increase the buzz around your products and exhibition. You might also make exclusive influencer led content available only via your stand.

You can invite media and content creators to generate video and audio material at the event. Creating a small media studio where journalists and creators can record podcasts, live interviews or features with your CEO, CTO and/or brand ambassadors can lead to robust online media output from the show.

If you want Motorcycle Marketing to take care of inviting the right industry players, media contacts and influencers to your stand at a trade show, just let us know and we’ll use our extensive contacts list to make that happen.

You can also brief those hosting your stand well, to encourage visitors to interact, visit your website, join your email newsletter database and follow your brand’s social media channels.

Providing slickly produced videos about your product and giving that material to media and other attendees on high capacity pen drives (carrying your company logo) will raise brand awareness beyond the event, leaving a lasting and positive impression.

Something More To Take Away

Royal Enfield made a big splash at EICMA 2022 with the Super Meteor 650 but it was their marketing around their annual Rider Mania event in Goa just after EICMA which allowed them to double the hype on the launch of the new bike.

Similarly, Kawasaki caught the eye at EICMA with the display of their hydrogen engine, derived from the supercharged H2 motor, which got plenty of attention from visitors. It is Kawasaki’s extensive, supporting online material around their hydrogen project which makes it more intriguing and exciting though.

Attendees of trade shows have so much to take in, which makes following up around any launch or announcement at a big show so important. Only a fraction of your target audience will actually be in attendance at a show anyhow.

Actually BMW have significantly reduced their trade show participation in recent years. BMW Motorrad and the individual national and regional branches of the company did not attend EICMA 2022 or Intermot 2022. Instead of fighting to stand out from the crowds, they prefer to do their own thing, with events such as BMW Motorrad Days.

When you have a brand presence so well established and respected as the folks from Bayerische Motoren Werke you make your own rules when it comes to marketing. Their impressive launch of the awesome 2023 BMW M 1000 range one month before EICMA 2022 showed they know exactly what they are doing.

What Shows Should I Be At?

Now that we’ve looked into strategies on maximising your presence at trade shows, let’s take a look at the main events taking place in 2023 and 2024.

EICMA - held in November each year in Milan - is one of the most popular motorcycle trade shows in the world and connects professionals, the press and two wheeled enthusiasts. This expo is a platform for all manufacturers of bikes, accessories, parts and aftermarket products.

EICMA includes many elements that make it a must for any motorcycle industry professional. These include the MotoLive area, which features live competitions, trial acrobatics and freestyle motocross. Amongst the most exciting features of EICMA are the Start-Up and Innovation areas. They allow visitors to shop for new products and watch demonstrations from industry leaders.

Another well-known motorcycle trade show is the AIMExpo. As the largest North American motorbike trade show, the event is produced by the Motorcycle Industry Council. Visitors can expect to meet hundreds of exhibitors and distributors and the 2023 event takes place in February in Las Vegas.

Intermot is a biennial international motorcycle trade show that takes place in Cologne, Germany. The event is attended by over 200,000 people and it will next be held from 1st-6th October 2024.

Likewise, taking place every two years in Australia, Moto Expo Melbourne is one of the largest expos in the southern hemisphere. Visitors have the opportunity to see a range of different motorcycle models, accessories, parts and apparel, but like Intermot it is not taking place this year and will be back on the calendar in 2024, so take note if you like to plan well ahead.

Here are a few dates for your diaries for 2023 motorcycle trade shows. Depending on your goal and audience, you might want to secure your spot!

If you’re looking for any help selecting the right events or identifying the best strategy for your brand, make sure to contact us.

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