5 Tips for a Successful Marketing Tour
Imagine your masterpiece of a trade show booth with all of its the bells & whistles….. on wheels. Magical right? Welcome to the world of Mobile Marketing Tours! Whether you are a start up trying to promote your service or a seasoned pro releasing a new product, you can design a mobile tour to fit your needs and brand messaging. Of course there are always a few things to keep in mind. Here’s are some tips to help you through the process.
This custom box truck for Fort Lauderdale Travel really makes you wish you were on the beach!
The Goals
First and foremost, think about what your goals are for the tour.What are you promoting? Keep the answer to this question as simple as possible such as, “I am promoting a new line of flavored lip gloss”or “I am re-branding a long forgotten potato chip brand.” All of these statements immediately generate different ideas on how to communicate to the target consumer. Know whether you want to increased sales, brand awareness, social following or some other form of measurable action from your consumer. This will also help you design a plan. Once you know what it is you want to achieve, you are ready for…
The Master Plan
How do you want to communicate this message? What are your selling points? Maybe your new lip gloss is made out of pure magical coconut stuff and that is your selling point. Perhaps your target consumers are beach goers, vacationers or concert goers. Use these points to design an experience for the target consumer. Integrating brand messaging and your target audience decisions, you can begin to brainstorm what kinds of visuals you are shooting for. The more targeted your audience and message is, the easier it will be to hone your idea and bring the product to life. Going back to our lip gloss, here’s an example:
Message: Made of all natural, pure, magical coconut stuff. (Don’t you wish this really existed? Awesome)
Target consumers: beach goers.
Concept: Luau style mobile event complete with hammocks, coconut drinks (Partnered with a beverage company) and free samples of the lip gloss. Staff an onsite tour stylist for beach ready makeovers as well as Brand ambassadors. Hula contests and photo makeover contests to share on social.
Goal: Brand awareness and Increase Social following.
The executions are endless here. You tour bus can be designed to be a lip gloss style bar and beach retreat. What consumer wouldn’t wanna check that out? Once you have all of your ideas down, it’s time to think logistics, How are you going to make your ideas happen?
Sephora’s pop up beauty bus. Awesome!
Design your Vehicle
If you are planning a large scale and long term event, it’s advisable to hire a professional mobile touring company to help you with your plan. Especially if you are looking to have anything larger than a cargo van for your event. If your needs are smaller, such as a simple regional sampling or pop up event that can easily be erected by a few BA’s, you might want to consider a wrapped vehicle instead. Check out our last article on how to wrap your company car.
Based on your master plan, decide what interactive elements and experiential factors you will need in your vehicle. Things to consider are the ability to play loud music, ports for electronics. video/ computer equipment, modular vehicle options, beverage coolers, theatrical lighting etc. In the example of our lip gloss event, Perhaps a box truck converted into a salon on the inside and a beverage bar with seating on the outside. This requires expertise and lots of design planning.
5 Hour Energy Mobile Tour Bus.
Staffing
A tour manager, driver, an experienced logistics team and brand ambassadors. These are just some of the people you will need to man your mobile tour. Sometimes we get so wound up in planning the event itself, we forget that there are limitless things that can go wrong. Hiring the right people who know how to handle and troubleshoot these issues is essential. Skimping in this area is a huge mistake. The last thing you want is to have to cancel an appearance due to a simple issue your staff didn’t know how to handle, but any pro tour manager easily could have. Here are some things you can anticipate
- Vehicle maintenance.
- Weather issues.
- Safety regulations and laws.
- Driver training, back up drivers and back up plans.
- Oversized vehicle licensing, permits and emergency assistance.
- Product inventory, general logistics, Staff training, set up & break down training.
Promotion Promotion Promotion
Never leave your event to chance. Make sure to properly market your event so that people know you are coming to town. Setting up a tour website is a great idea to keep visitors in the loop about upcoming events and tour stops. Make sure to also integrate social media into your plan. Having a hash tag for your event makes your marketing trackable and easier to quantify. Sending out PR releases in the areas you plan to visit is also helpful to local news stations and newspapers, so they know about your event.
Olay’s new product launch trailer in Times Square.
