How Fitbit Took Its Trade Show Booth Experience Virtual

If your team is like most marketing teams, there are probably a handful of trade shows that you plan to sponsor each year. Events you rely on to contribute to your demand generation goals and pipeline significantly. 

Amidst the recent coronavirus pandemic, Fitbit Health Solutions, a leader in developing health and wellness solutions, learned one of its major pipeline-fueling trade shows canceled the event with just one week’s notice. The Fitbit Health Solutions team needed a Plan B to make up for the lost pipeline opportunity.

How did they do it? Well, here’s what they shared with us:

How Fitbit Replaced Its Canceled In-Person Trade Show Pipeline

Fitbit knew it had an option to make up for its lost pipeline opportunity: webinars. If it could step up and flex its webinar channel, it could reach a remote audience and drive the pipeline it needed. 

“We run webinars all the time so it was important that in this unique situation that we try something different to stand out. In this instance we wanted to bring as much of the in-person, physical event experience and components to the digital experience as possible,” says Tara Shirakh, Field Marketing Manager, Fitbit Health Solutions. 

Using the ON24 platform, the Fitbit team crafted a Virtual Booth Experience to meet and exceed the marketing team’s goals and objectives. The booth was designed for HR professionals to enter within a two-hour window on their own time to learn about Fitbit Health Solutions, ask questions to Fitbit experts and ultimately schedule meetings with the Fitbit sales team.

So, what did Fitbit do to make its rapid deployment of the Virtual Booth Experience happen? Here’s what the team had to share:

Rethinking promotional strategy on a tight timeline

Since the Fitbit team didn’t have a list of the trade show attendees, they had to rethink its promotional strategy. Eventually, the team decided to cast a wide net and focus on the target persona and audience they already have in their database. Since they only had two weeks to execute, Fitbit relied on two email drops and social posts to drive registrations.

Setting clear expectations

Most people who attend webinars are accustomed to a presentation or demo of some sorts. Since this experience was intended for folks to drop in and ask questions and engage on their own time, it was important that Fitbit set clear expectations for their registrants before they showed up to the virtual booth. They even included descriptions and images of the different engagement tools that the audience would experience at the booth.

Nailing the audience experience

Fitbit needed to translate its in-person booth components into its digital experience to ensure its audience got the most from the experience. To achieve this, the organization made expert use of imagery.

• Booth Imagery. Fitbit repurposed the creative mockups planned for the actual trade show booth to create a virtual booth experience.

• Swag Giveaway. Like they would do at their physical booth, Fitbit offered an easy way for audience members to request swag in exchange for a quick 15-minute call with a Fitbit expert.
• Descriptive Speaker Bios. Each expert available to answer questions had a detailed description of the types of questions they could help answer. This aided in audience members getting answers to their specific questions fast.

Results: Fitbit was pleased to see more than 150 prospects register for the Virtual Booth Experience and saw more than 40 requests for a meeting with a Fitbit sales representative.

“With the help of the ON24 platform, by creating an engaging Virtual Booth Experience, we were able to salvage what would have been lost pipeline from the last-minute trade show cancellation.” – Tara Shirakh, Field Marketing Manager, Fitbit Health Solutions. 

Fitbit’s rapid deployment of its virtual booth experience is a great example of what marketers can accomplish in a short amount of time with the ON24 platform. Keep an eye on this space as we highlight more examples of customers who’ve successfully transitioned in-person to virtual experiences.