Background:

Kemppi Australia is a local subsidiary of a leading Finnish Welding Machine manufacturer.  They’ve been in Australia for many years and enjoy an enviable reputation for innovation, quality and reliability.

However, facing greater competition from cheap Asian imports and a dwindling Australian manufacturing sector, Kemppi needed to ramp up its local marketing activities.

Part of this was to exhibit at National Manufacturing Week 2010 (NMW2010) in Sydney.

This was the situation we faced:

• Tight deadline of 5 weeks before the show began.
• There was no marketing strategy to ensure a good return on investment.  i.e. No pre, during or post show marketing activities were in place.
• Didn’t have a draw card as to why people should take the time to visit them at the show
• Didn’t have a strategy on how to communicate with potential visitors before, during and after the show
• Had a good list of prospects and clients that they wanted to invite to the show
• No personalised invitations to the show were considered
• Their Sales Team consisted of experienced welders, each of them a specialist in a given field.  However, they knew very little about how to work a tradeshow.
• The overall cost of attendance at the show would cost the company well over $100,000 – so we had to pull out all stops to get a positive ROI on the show.

There are two main types of people who visit trade shows.

People looking at what’s out there in the way of new products, services, technology etc.

People actively looking for your particular product or service.  They have already done their research and are now looking to make a personal connection – to see if they like you and would like to do business with you. 

Your job is to connect with both – but identify and spend more time with people who are already in the buying cycle. 

With that in mind, your best course of action is to proactively invite prospects to come and visit you at the show.  i.e. make appointments wherever possible. 

What We Implementated:

• Created a “hook” to entice visitors to come to the stand.  We gave away a $790 welding helmet each day.
• Created and sent out personalised invitation letters to specific customers and dealers listing the reasons why they should spend the time attending the exhibition and the Kemppi stand in particular.
  We used a combination of email, physical mail and FAX.  Reminders to attend were sent via SMS the day before and during the show.
• Dress code during the show.
  A decision to dress well, but not in suits, because, in general trades people don’t feel comfortable in suits and ties. Since the visitors would be mainly trades people too, it made more sense to level the dress code with the visitor. It also created a more “inviting” environment.
  We helped them select their “uniform” from RM Williams.
• Designed a sales process that would be used to qualify prospects at the show for further follow up.
• Created a post-show follow up letter announcing all the lucky winners, including a recap of what had been shown during the show. 
  The follow up material reinforced the quality of the Kemppi brand and the experience of the entire Australian team when it came to solving welding and manufacturing issues. 

The Results:

• The Tradeshow Marketing Strategy that yielded the 2^nd highest month’s turnover ever for Kemppi in Australia.
• In 2010, they became the 2^nd best performing subsidiary (behind Germany), worldwide.

Update:

Kemppi recently exhibited at NMW2011 in Melbourne.  The show was a great success for the company and once again, Chris acknowledged our contribution to this result. 

Our work with the organisation is ongoing.