If the current pandemic crisis has taught us anything, it’s that change is inevitable and to react positively and smartly to that change is critical to future success. To react smartly is to think creatively and to be adaptable and open to new ways of conducting your business.
At Showplace, we are well known across all sectors for providing exhibition structures, trailers and stands to companies attending events across the UK and Europe. We have been successfully fulfilling our clients’ event requirements for over 30 years. However, we are not just about large scale events. During the past three decades, Showplace has been delivering short and long term roadshow programmes for major brands, enabling our clients to take their products and services out on the road. Here is a selection of brands who have benefitted from our trailer roadshow provision:
Asics | Wiggle | Speedo | Ginsters | Chiquitos | Mobil Oil | Kuka Robotics | Mazda | Terex | Triathlon England | Beyonce (merchandise trailer: World Formation tour) | Finning CAT | Alan Paine clothing
We regularly work in Europe and have active ongoing trailer roadshow programmes with RS components and Milwaukee, where their trailers spend large periods of time engaging with customers across many European countries and beyond.
As the UK and Europe tentatively step out of lockdown, and organisations open for business again, there will be a greater need than ever before to reach your customers. With many corporate events and festivals either postponed or cancelled for 2020, now is the time to think and act creatively. If your customers can’t come to you, you need to go to them. Our trailers are perfect for product roadshows, with new and returning customers already enquiring about using our trailers as mobile showrooms, for both new and long running products and services, in anticipation of lockdown ending. They are seizing the opportunity to get back in front of their audience as quickly and as effectively as possible. Flexible, mobile rental units, Showplace’s trailers will transport your products and services to customers when they find it difficult or impossible to come to you. Our provision will ensure that your trailer campaign strictly adheres to government guidelines on social distancing, whether you opt for a short term roadshow to relaunch your brand with impact to generate some momentum, or whether you commit to a longer running project. It’s not just those working in the events industry who have to diversify and think creatively and smartly, our clients are having to think differently about how they promote themselves once we emerge from this crisis.
Showplace provides a total trailer roadshow solution for our clients. We commence with the design/conceptualisation of the trailer, and we work extremely closely with both our designers and our clients to ensure that a striking, accurately designed and functional solution is created.
This is then followed by the trailer build. Once the build stage is completed, we implement a bespoke, comprehensive operational programme, which caters for all logistical requirements. We also take care of all vehicle checks, adherence to regulations and trailer storage so you can concentrate on selling your products without being distracted by technicalities, paperwork and logistics.
There are a number of important questions that an organisation must consider when implementing a trailer roadshow campaign as part of their sales and marketing strategy:
- What do you need from the internal space of the exhibition trailer? Will you require wall racking to display products? An electricity or water supply? An interactive area for customers? A demo station? These are just some considerations for establishing the most appropriate vehicle to meet space requirements.
- What do you want the trailer to achieve? Is your goal to raise brand awareness, to launch new products, to sell goods, to conduct a public awareness campaign, to raise charitable funds?
- When are you looking for the programme to start? Knowing when your campaign is to commence and allowing plenty of time for the design and build elements, is critical.
- Where are you looking to travel on your roadshow? Are your targeted destinations local to your business or farther afield within the UK or beyond and into Europe?
- How often do you need the trailer to be in any one location? This is important to establish as if you require a static solution for a lengthy period, our structures may be more suitable.
- For how long do you envisage your roadshow campaign running? Will it be a short, sharp impactful campaign to quickly build momentum or will it need to run over a longer period of time?
- Are you interested in hiring, leasing or purchasing a trailer? Options and cost effectiveness are explored in detail with every client.
- Are you looking for assistance with managing the programme and transportation of the trailer? Many of our clients enlist our assistance but some manage the programme themselves.
- What is your available annual budget for a roadshow campaign? This is always useful to know as it helps to formulate the best possible service for the money available to you.
Many of our clients start out by hiring a short-term solution, of only a few weeks’ duration, to establish their programme without signing up to a long term campaign. This is how RS Components entered the world of roadshows. They started with one of the trailers from Showplace’s fleet, which was customised to meet their brand, product and usage requirements. Based on the success of this initial roadshow campaign, RS Components now operates a huge interactive articulated lorry, which travels all over the UK and Europe, promoting products and educating communities. Undertaking a roadshow campaign by initially using one of Showplace’s trailers, enabled RS Components to take time to evaluate its success and ROI, before committing to commissioning a complete bespoke build.
At Showplace, we don’t just sell you a trailer. We offer far more than that; a comprehensive, expertly project managed, mobile sales and marketing solution. With the uncertain future we all face, the concept of company roadshows is one to take extremely seriously, whether they are for product and service launches, product awareness and momentum building, or pure product sales.
