Childcare Expo Expands Using InGo Advocate Marketing
Childcare Expo, organized by Broadway Events, is a portfolio of inspiring and informative free events for all those working in the early years, childcare and nursery sector. Emma Barrett, Managing Director, was looking for a way to use social media to increase engagement for the events and drive attendance. Having tried using social the traditional way, but not seeing the kinds of results she was looking for, she turned to InGo. Kristina from InGo caught up with Emma after the results of her campaigns for the first two events in the series were in.
Kristina: Hi, Emma. Congratulations on another successful addition of Childcare Expo!
Emma: Thanks! We are so excited about these results but are most excited about being able to give our community the tools they need to make the most of their Childcare Expo experience.
Kristina: What attracted you to the InGo Solution?
Emma: We are always looking for new innovative ways to market our events, and with social media being as important and integrated as it is today, Ingo seemed like the perfect option.
Emma partnered with InGo to integrate the InGo Software Suite into their registration system. This enabled the Childcare Expo community to become Advocates for the event, spreading their excitement about the show across their social media networks, and inviting their contacts to join them at the events. This word-of-mouth marketing to intelligently targeted friends and colleagues resulted in social media buzz before the event, amazing growth into new audience members, and a highly social, engaged group of attendees at the event.
First, let’s check out her results. Then, scroll down to read the rest of the interview with Emma about her show and her experience using InGo.
Childcare Expo London 2016
Childcare Expo Manchester 2016
Kristina: What do you think makes your events so popular in the industry?
Emma: We pride ourselves in reaching the right target audience and providing them with the latest products and services they are looking for. Unlike many trade exhibitions, we only target those with buying power within early years settings to ensure that not only the visitors, but the exhibitors get the most out of their experience at Childcare Expo.
Kristina: What is your biggest event marketing challenge?
Emma: Just like everything else, we face competition and challenges. For those who don’t know, we are only a small business and what we achieve within our team is quite remarkable. The drive and determination from my employees proves our passion for the industry. We constantly drive forward, creating new ideas to encompass within our events to ensure that visitors and exhibitors benefit from them.
Kristina: Why did you like using InGo?
Emma: InGo is another extension to our already active social media platforms. We receive great interaction from our social media posts from our audience and by integrating InGo into the mix, allowed our audience to have an online invitation system via social that was personalised and tailored to them.
Kristina: How did you measure your success?
Emma: We measure our success using a variety of tools and bench marks. For InGo, the number of acquisitions that were created from our advocates was our key measure for the events. This shows the success of the advocates and the number of people who have registered via an invitation using the InGo platform.
Kristina: What single piece of advice would you give other event marketers?
Emma: Always experiment. You don’t know what works until you have tried it. If you are struggling to get results from your current marketing strategy, then mix it up and try something new. You may be pleasantly surprised.
Childcare Expo Midlands 2016 is scheduled for 30 September – 1 October. Stay tuned for more results!
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