Why road shows still matter in the age of digital marketing

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Sure, digital marketing and social media are twin pillars gaining steady strength in creating brand awareness and engaging customers. But it’s important to take a moment to understand that until 2014, only 18 percent Indian population had access to Internet and there were only 15 internet users per 100 people in India. Compare that with 91.6 users in UK and 87.4 users in United States!

Clearly, in a geographically and culturally diverse country like ours, neglecting offline marketing will lead to marketers missing out on a huge market that is not necessarily internet-savvy. So, it’s vital to engage customers in innovative on-ground campaigns such as roadshows and live events that provide an ideal platform for our products & services and give visibility to our brand.

Important for relationship marketing : Road shows such as the Energy and Automation Yatra 2015 bring the company closer to its customers by facilitating a face-face interaction and providing the perfect platform to showcase our products and solutions. Through multi-city truck campaigns such as these, marketers are able to show live demo to customers and help them “experience” the products.

Says Nalinakshi Shetty,  Manager – Field Marketing, Schneider Electric India: “The Energy & Automation Yatra – a nation-wide experience lounge – is helping us connect with our customers across the nation, right at their door step. By directly engaging consumers to operate and view our array of products, we help identify the right products for their needs.  This in turn helps in a deeper connect of customers in the evolution of our brand.”

Catering to Tier II, III, IV cities: With Tier I cities reaching near-saturation point, tier 2 3 and 4 cities in India are being reckoned with as the future growth drivers with growing interest and investment. Offline marketing campaigns are the ideal path to make inroads into these cities to develop brand recognition and customer attention. Road shows and live events will create the right buzz for our products and services here, as digital penetration in tier III, IV cities is lower compared to tier I, II cities.

Offline leads to online leads to offline: In a marketing world where evolution is the name of the game, relying one on one tool can be in-effective. Amplifying your presence on digital channels will get your brand equity to go up and give your brand awareness that’ll help shoot up the numbers for your on-ground marketing activities. Digital marketing is a great tool that provides a significant boost for trade shows, events, conferences and other on-ground campaigns. For seamless brand recognition, we must drive offline audience to our online pages and vice versa.

As we heads towards digitization, adopting creative and experiential offline marketing campaigns still hold great relevance. Indeed, the best marketing tools should cater to both online and offline marketing that will help build an ever-lasting brand and provide great showcase of our solutions to our valued customers.

Marketers should generate an ideal marketing mix and bring together all relevant stakeholders including sales & marketing teams, customers, channel partners and others.

Providing innovative customer experience should be the ultimate goal.