How to Turn the Maritime Industry Exhibitions' Rescheduling Into an Opportunity to Increase Visibility

During any meeting or presentation, a commonly asked question is: What’s the ROI of marketing? Unfortunately, there is no straightforward answer. Marketing is made up of various moving parts, and its results are related to a number of interconnected elements.

I’ve come up with a simple test that will show you just a small part of the power of marketing, social media, and digital assets for a business in the maritime industry.

As everyone is aware, all exhibitions have been canceled or postponed due to COVID-19. So, what to do in the meantime?

Marketing to build your name, your brand is my most obvious answer and it is exactly what I’m doing with my partners.

Companies in the maritime industry might not know the exact ROI of marketing, but they have a clear idea of the ROI of trade shows, especially those businesses which have participated directly (and indirectly) at those types of exhibitions.

With this test, I want to show a comparison of numbers between the visibility and engagement of a maritime exhibition and basic, proper use of social media advertisements.

I have considered last year’s visitor numbers of major trade shows in the maritime industry: SMM Hamburg (about 50.000), Monaco Yacht Show (about 30.000), Posidonia in Athens (23.527), Salone Nautico in Genoa (about 170.000), Norshipping in Oslo (about 47.600), Medstrade in Amsterdam (26.984), Cannes Yachting Festival (about 51.000), Marintec in Shanghai (71.736), Kormarine in Busan (36.450), Sea Japan in Tokyo (about 20.000).

The following are the numbers resulted from a basic advertising strategy with LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook, using the video accompanying this post.

For the time frame, I used the 8th to the 11th of September, the normal time frame of the SMM Hamburg, and I have assumed the same type of audience that usually attends that kind of exhibition.

During this period the total number of impressions was 107.000 with reach above 50%, meaning that 107.000 people had my video in front of their eyes.

The total amount we spent was about 450 US$.

Using these numbers, you can make some calculations to understand the power of marketing and draw your own conclusions.

Just for reference, if you spend just 10.000US$ for an exhibition, you can be optimistic considering that 100% of visitors will notice your booth. You can have a cost per impressions of 0,2 US$; in the case of this test, the cost per impression is 0,004 US$, 50 times cheaper.

For this test, we choose the specific type of visitors who can see our post. That is, I know exactly where they came from, what part of the video they viewed most, the specific time they viewed the video, and many other useful details that I can use to optimize my future marketing.

I don’t want to demonize the trade shows; I miss traveling, flying, meeting old friends and making new ones, speaking with people face to face, I have participated in most of them and I want to do again, but what I want to point out is that in this specific moment in history, you can do something for your business, something practical and effective—and you are not yet doing it.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to marketing possibilities.

You are missing your opportunity to take advantage of this period in time and to be stronger than ever now and when the exhibitions restart.

You are missing your opportunity which may mean the difference between closing your business for good or moving to the next level.

I’ve designed the test in this article just to give you a glimpse of the great steps forward you could be making.

Make the right decision and take this opportunity now!

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Davide Scalia is the CEO & Founder of Namaka Consulting, with over 15 years of experience in the Marine Industry and over 10 years’ experience in Strategic Business Development, helping businesses in the maritime industry to clarify what to do next to build the Brand, how to increase sales, providing innovative strategies to obtain exponential Business Growth.

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