How to Promote a Mobile App at a Trade Show

It’s here. After years of strategy, development, creation, beta testing, bug fixing, and more, your mobile app is ready to hit the market. And while the release of a mobile app might seem like an end to the process, it’s actually just the beginning.

Perhaps even more important than developing the app itself is promoting the app to a wide audience. Often overlooked when promoting an app is the opportunity to take your app on the road, and visit one of hundreds of trade shows offered around the globe each year.

Where and how should you begin promoting your app at trade shows?

Which Trade Shows to Visit?

When deciding which trade shows to attend to promote your app, make sure you consider the big picture.

• International CES. With attendance reaching about 150,000 each year, CES in Las Vegas is one of the best places you can go to get your app viewed by the most people. Keep in mind that the sheer amount of people at this show means you need a heavily staffed booth.

• Oracle OpenWorld. This trade show takes place in San Francisco, the tech capital of the world, and is a great place to promote an app. The 60,000 people who attend this event each year are looking for the latest and greatest in the world of tech.

• Modern Apps Live! This event sits on the smaller side of trade show attendance with about 500 attendees, but that might work to your advantage. The intimate atmosphere allows for a lot of one on one interaction between exhibitors and attendees.

Not matter how well executed your trade show exhibit is, promoting your application’s ingenuity and features goes far beyond the square footage of your booth.

So, where should you begin? Think about utilizing the followinge tactics when debuting your application during a trade show event:

Develop a Marketing Strategy

A marketing campaign that promotes your new application should have a beginning, middle and end; in other words, promote your product before, during, and after the trade show concludes. Creating an awareness of your product with your product is the key to your overall success.

Consult with your marketing department, or consider hiring an outside firm, to develop a comprehensive plan before visiting a trade show. Be prepared, and the results will show.

Capture Interest With an Engaging Display

Your biggest obstacle when showcasing your product during a trade show is capturing (and holding) the interest of foot traffic. Fortunately, there are many ways to inspire interest to your product that doesn’t involve face-to-face networking, guerrilla marketing, or live demonstrations.

Today’s tech-focused generation is easily allured by engaging, interchanging imagery versus more traditional, stagnate, and one-dimensional imagery. Incorporating LED display screens into your exhibit could offer an advantage to neighboring booths. Modern day digital signage intuitively personalizes your messaging, allowing consumers to access what they want to know versus what they are required to know.

Digital signage during trade shows can provide you, but is not limited to:

• Public information: Industry news, product features and benefits, pricing information, purchase availability, how the technology was integrated, etc.

• User interaction: Touch screen monitor activation—allowing users to pick and choose what videos they prefer to explore; for example, demonstrating the products features in real-time.

• Storytelling: Explaining how the application’s idea was initiated; the processes and stages of its manufacturing.

• Brand identification: Ingraining the brand’s logo or reoccurring content message via interchanging imagery.

• Customer engagement: Answering questions via virtual Q and A, such as where can I find the product or how does application can help “me.”

Follow Up on Social Media

Social networking platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are essential tools for getting your message to a wide variety of potential customers. However, simple updates and posts about when and where the trade occurs is simply too ambiguous to fully engage the ordinary social media-user. A strategic, diverse, social media marketing campaign is your best opportunity to capture the interest of unknown consumers:

• Excite your audience to the tune of a groundbreaking application introduction to the world.

• Ignite anticipation for when the trade show starts, focusing on engaging visuals of past events while conveying the magnitude of the trade show’s significance to the tech industry.

• Post live media updates from the conference of consumers using your application, and their interactions and reactions.

• Utilize creative hashtags on Twitter so users can easily identify what your content is referring to.

Trade shows can be a great place to help build your social media following, and get valuable real-time brand mentions to amplify your app to the top of the app store lists.

While attending trade shows can potentially add a bump to your marketing budget, the importance of these events should not be overlooked. For small app developers without monstrous marketing budgets, consider only attending a few of these events per year; there’s no need to venture to each one.

Finally, in addition to being a fantastic place to showcase your app, trade shows are a great avenue for networking. So get your show on the road!