Solar is a leading European wholesaler of installation materials operating in electrical, heating, plumbing and ventilation technology sectors. They offer a wide range of products and services to professionals in technical installations and industry. As a distribution company Solar aim to put products, marketing and sales support together in complete concepts.
Very often sourcing and service companies have difficulties actively maintaining sincere customer relations. They are mainly focussed on delivering the right products on time, where and when customers need them. To enhance real life dialogues with customers, Solar yearly organise a three-day customer event. But nowadays it is difficult to attract customers to attend or make them truly connect with participating manufacturers. And even if they do, keeping track of the effectiveness and sales improvement is an arduous task. Or is it?
At WADM we decided to turn this around. To bring the already famous and well-attended Solar event into the next century. To do this we visually transformed their distribution prowess into physical box clouds. We digitalized their invitation process and even automated their personal meetings during the event with interactive bracelets. And profoundly teased this new way of meeting people (based on personal interests and expertise) on social media to great effect.
Visitors were able to register online in advance. We made them choose their fields of interest and favorite product groups. When entering the event those variables were uploaded into a personal interactive bracelet. No more paper badges. A visitor’s bracelet simply lit up and buzzed when passing a manufacturer’s booth that matched their field of interest. And so did the bracelets of all sales personnel. Afterward a simple bumping of bracelets replaced the exchange of business cards.
What makes a well-organized live event stand out from most business gatherings? By truly connecting people. We started Solar’s interaction with visitors long before the event itself. Creating a long-lasting impact. Using email campaigns, online registration, event decoration, on-the-spot database support, live social streaming, a dedicated social media portal and guiding the active customer approach after the event.
Somehow social media is still highly underrated and underused in business-to-business communications. For Solar we decided to introduce a brand new social media portal into this world: their own website filled with their own social media content. It had to be easily generated and constantly updated.
We found a way to automatically transfer posts from Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube onto a dedicated web page. This social media portal fitted the look-and-feel of Solar’s event. It showed Solar’s social online presence and added posts from others (containing specific hashtags).
Solars’ live event was about more than making people meet. Our goal was to turn it into an inspiring event that introduced new technologies and a new communications platform. It gave better insights into their customer’s interests and easy access to this information for sales activities. It turned Solar into a mediator and sales expert instead of just another wholesaler. And the event made one single Euro of profit for Solar – which was their one and only demand.
We stick to our BrainSells methodology. Like the case above. We also understand that you might want to know if the same approach will work for your brand or company. Are you still wondering if we can ‘crack your case’ as well? Then simply contact Jeroen:
