Attending any Localization Conferences this year?
There are hundreds of translation and localization conferences to choose from each year, but how do you know which conferences and events will to help you to achieve your business goals?
Some conference websites are great, others not so much. The great ones, however, will give you a detailed description of exactly what will happen during the event. These make the decision of whether to attend or exhibit an easy one. You should be able to quickly determine whether the programme, the topics, the speakers and the attendees fit in with your needs.
Unfortunately, as you have all probably have experienced, the conferences websites that do not offer a very detailed overview of the conference plan, make it much more difficult to finalise a decision on whether or not to go.
How do you choose?
Are you seeking funding? Looking to secure new customers? Want to increase brand awareness? Hoping for some good press? It may be difficult to get all of these requests from one event so the first thing you need to do is establish your goals.
Establish Goals…
Once you establish your main goals, you then need to ask yourself what types of interactions will help you to accomplish these goals. If you are a start-up software solution, then you are likely to need a lot of interaction and hands on time with potential customers. You should also be investigating whether or not you can give a live demos or presentations of the product.
If, you are an established company, the number of leads most likely outweighs the depth of interaction.For Language Service Providers (LSPs) looking to gain new business customers, networking will be a big part of your conference activities. Make sure to set up plenty of meetings before the event so you can
1. Build stronger relationships with your current customers
2. Engage with prospects and sell your offering.
Should you sponsor?
Sponsoring a conference can sometimes be a great method to gain exposure, connect with potential clients, and grow brand awareness. There are times however, that sponsorship can eat up a whole lot of money and return very little reward.
Things to remember about sponsorship…
Each event is an experience and the key to a successful partnership is to find an event or conference that will provide an experience that people can associate positively with your brand and reinforce your brands core messages.
Once you decide on an event to sponsor, you then need to leverage both the event and the experience. You can do this by integrating all your marketing activities to align with the event. This includes:
- Organising competitions
- Setting up conference landing pages
- Setting up meetings with key customers
- Aligning all your social media
- Carrying out event marketing activities before, during and after the event
Later this year KantanMT will be attending TEKOM, exhibiting at Web Summit, Localization World and are Silver sponsors of ASLIB (Translation and the Computer Conference).
Attending any of these conferences? Get in touch with us to set up a meeting or pop by our booth to say hello. (Niamhl@kantanmt.com)
See a full listing of this year’s translation and localization events and conferences here>>