Posted by

Barry Siskind

Community Manager

 

At the recently held Korean Exhibition Forum I heard Dr. Bjoern Kempt, General Manager of Shanghai’s Comexposition address the audience on Innovative Visitor Marketing Tools. The focus of the discussion was on SIAL’s attempts to increase their international visitors which they have identified as their greatest opportunity for growth.

 

SIAL’s two-phased approach can be categorized as off and on-line.

 

The off-line tools include many of the traditional marketing ones such as visitors’ guides, invitation cards, flyers and show dailies.  However though research Dr. Kempt discovered a growing number of international visitors were interested in wine and spirits. With this insight, he created a special section in the show when he integrated Wine & Gourmet World Shanghai by SIAL China into his promotion. The result was an increase of 24% of visitors in this catagory.

 

The on-line tools include social media, the SIAL website www.sialchina.com and a monthly e-newsletter to a database of 150,000 people. The newsletter alone nets an open rate of 3% which is far greater than the traditional industry average of 1-2%.

 

What impressed me most about Dr. Kempt’s presentation was his openness to error. He admitted that not everything worked but every time they attempted something new, they used the initiative as an opportunity to learn.

 

SIAL will be held in five countries in 2012 and their approach to visitor marketing should be watched closely by all of us.