Guest Blog: The power of demos – Carina Filek, managing partner, Elevate Staffing UK & US

There’s nothing quite as powerful as getting potential customers to try out a product or service. You can have the best and most sophisticated marketing strategy ever, but ultimately, there’s no substitute for actually putting an item into a consumer’s hands. According to 80% of attendants from Event Marketer 2017, live demonstrations and free samples significantly help define their purchasing decision.

That’s why product sampling generates such amazing results. But getting a consumer to see something for themselves can be just as effective, too.

For tech companies delivering effective product demonstrations is key to showcasing new technology – either on a one-to-one basis in a retail environment or at an event.

Last week, tech innovators gathered at CES 2018, including two of our clients – Facebook and Oculus – to showcase their products. They know that a successful product demo requires a team of amazing promotional staff to drive it, who have been given the right tools from a dedicated training programme.

For a technical product demonstration to really work well, staff must be extremely knowledgeable about the product in question and have a true affinity for tech. The challenge is finding these types of staff whom also possess all the traits that you would typically associate with someone executing any sort of customer-facing initiative: friendly, driven, efficient, quick-thinking, methodical and always on-brand. In addition to all of that, staff should be cool under pressure, because there are plenty of spinning plates at any trade show or trade event. People and technology are some of the hardest things to manage!

In a nutshell, that’s the problem facing tech companies who want to carry out a stellar demo. It’s a pretty well defined list of skills, right? So, how do you find people who fit the bill? More to the point, how do you find lots of suitable people?

Well, the answer is, you need to have a clever, strategic approach to staffing – sourcing the very best promotional staff that are all equipped, able and driven to deliver high quality tech product demos. The investment in people should always be the starting point.

It’s funny: the technical aspect of what’s being demonstrated is clearly important, yet it’s the people running the show who will probably make the biggest impression. After all, it’s them who will set up the demo and engage with consumers.

With product demos, it’s easy to lose sight of the small details. For instance, logistics, branding and marketing materials are all vital aspects, but overlooking something as simple as how you source the promotional team that will actually execute the campaign will normally have disastrous results.

Bespoke branded recruitment and training is essential for tech staff who need to be tech savvy, with a deep understanding of tech trends and equally as comfortable with VR and coding as they are with digital displays and gaming.

We’ve delivered amazing results for Oculus, Facebook, Yahoo and Lenovo – so you’re in good hands. And these results have reinforced our belief that people are truly the most effective way to engage people. If you agree, let’s talk. We’d love to share our thoughts and experience with you.

Find out more about Elevate here