Reframing Groceryshop: A New Playbook

A candid look at why the old playbook is done and where you should spend your time and money

Too often we see marketers focus on the wrong approach to industry events. In a desperate search for ROI, the event becomes all about generating as many leads as possible, regardless of quality. However, many marketers rely on tired demand generation tactics to make it happen:

• A drip email campaign, with an invitation to another dinner indistinguishable from all the others
• An SDR outreach sequence that takes a “spray and pray” approach, with little attention to personalization, targeting, or value-add
• Shelling out the big bucks to pay for Groceryshop’s hosted meetings, hoping you get to meet with one person out of twenty with any legitimate interest in your solution
• Relying on foot traffic to your booth in an endless sea of booths, while attendees’ time is already capitalized with a packed agenda

As the retail and ecommerce industry heads into Groceryshop next month, are you confident you’re going to hit your event goals?

Taking a siloed, channel-specific approach to events misses the point of the B2B sales cycle. If you’re a tech company selling into the retail or ecommerce industry, Groceryshop is your community. How often do you get undivided attention with your top prospects all together under the same roof?

A Holistic Approach to Event Marketing

At Medium, we know that industry events, if done correctly, can be among the most impactful pipeline drivers for retail and ecommerce tech companies targeting enterprise brands. However, it takes bold creative, hyper-targeted demand activations, and a community-driven approach to make the most of an event like Groceryshop.

Let’s reframe how Groceryshop fits into a retail tech marketing strategy, and we can break it down into three pillars:

1) Leverage the wider-community

Instead of relying on Groceryshop-sponsored activations alone, the companies reaping the most out of the event create custom activations tailored for their specific audience. This might seem daunting if you do not have a ‘community’ per se, but there are easier-entries to this:

• Create a small close-knit event with a real draw, such as a speaking slot with a warm customer. You could do this at a poolside cabana and have 2-3 scheduled time slots (+ a happy hour) through the show and it would only set you back $1,000-$1,500
• Buddy up - team up with friendly partners in the space, allowing you to tap into their community/client network and vice versa. This can also create a rich pool of insights, while reducing spend and risk. Medium can help facilitate introductions around this.
• Tap into existing communities - companies like Medium have an expansive network within eCommerce and retail tech. We can help you setup activations/chats/dinners with target brands with known entities. Or, tap into one of our existing dinners.

2) Extend the event reach with audience advocacy. 

With so many of your customers, prospects, and partners together in one location, don’t miss the opportunity to let them tell your brand story on your behalf. Some of the best activations combine all three groups together, where customers can talk to prospects about their experience with your solution and partners can help customers solve problems on the spot. You can go even further and use the event as a chance to record customers testimonials, crowd source content, and ask for introductions to target buyers.

3) Build long-term relationships with brand authority.

Naturally, an event focused on education, thought leadership, and expertise is a great opportunity to showcase your brand authority. We find that coming into Groceryshop with a key piece of thought leadership content increases engagement. Similarly, your content extends beyond the event and provides a meaningful reason to reach out to your prospects, including those that you missed at the event.

Keys to Groceryshop Success

Last year at Groceryshop, Medium helped our client Retail Insight generate 46 meetings worth a potential £7.7m (TCV) in pipeline. We did it by creating a custom Retail Rethink programme, which combined community-building activations with a pre-event outreach campaign to book advance meetings against account targets. You can read more about it in this case study.

With that said, here are a few tactical items you can deploy this year to maximize your company’s investment at Groceryshop. At Medium, these are some of the tactics we’re using with clients.

• Publish a key piece of thought leadership content in September. Proprietary data works great, or you can cover your perspective on a current industry trend.
• Stand out with unique and cohesive creative, extending from your email invites to your in-person flyers, from your landing page to your booth collateral.
• Reach out to your target buyers with a value-add call-to-action. Give them a specific way you’ll educate, train, or inform.

The Medium team will be at Groceryshop, and we’re looking forward to another great event. Let us know if we can help you set more meetings heading into the event, and let’s grab time together at the show!