Sylvania: €2.5M of pipeline in two months from a single trade fair
Client: Sylvania, a global manufacturer of professional and architectural lighting
My role: Global lead for the fair, as Senior Marketing Manager
The challenge: Relaunch a newly restructured business at the world's largest trade fair for lighting and building technology
The result: €2.5M of sales pipeline within two months, Sylvania's most successful fair to date
What I launched: Sylvania's new brand and its new fast-moving goods business, on the industry's biggest stage
Sound familiar?
Events take a big share of your marketing budget, and you struggle to say what came back.
The team returns with a stack of business cards, and the follow-up drifts.
Every salesperson on the stand tells a slightly different story.
The starting point
After an acquisition and a restructuring, Sylvania was launching a new brand proposition, a new fast-moving goods business and a refreshed professional portfolio. The industry's biggest fair was the moment to show all of it to customers, partners and press at once.
How we worked
Starting with what the business needed
The brief was clear: the fair had to build awareness of the new Sylvania, create real engagement and open sales opportunities. Working with the product, sales and factory teams, we boiled the story down to five messages, and every member of the international sales and marketing teams was trained on them before the doors opened.
Designing the visitor's week, not just the stand
Email campaigns invited customers and prospects, and we tracked who registered. At the fair, visitors received an RFID card and tapped hotspots across both stands to choose the content they wanted afterwards. Everyone got a follow-up based on their own interests, and everyone who met a salesperson went straight into the CRM.
Going further
The data did not stop at sales. What visitors chose fed product development and the campaigns that followed, and a full post-show review covered pipeline, earned media, and visitor and employee satisfaction.
What changed
€2.5M of sales pipeline within two months of the fair
Sylvania's most successful fair to date
Visitor interest data that shaped product development and later campaigns
What it means for your business
An event is only as good as the follow-up you designed before it started. Decide the messages, decide how you will capture interest, and decide who follows up with what, before you book the space.
Could your marketing show what it returns? Take the free two-minute Growth Check and see where you score.