While Nielsen Expositions’ ASD Las Vegas Trade Show already attracts nearly 50,000 retail-minded attendees each year, show organizers are always looking for ways to reach out to even larger audiences of retailers. Understanding the importance that industry blogs play in thought leadership, they contracted with a leading retail industry blogger to blog live from the show floor during the 2010 show, held August 8-11 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

“We recognize the need for immediate, expert show coverage from a retail expert’s perspective,” says Lori Higgins, Marketing Director at Nielsen Expositions. “So we chose to have a blogger on the show floor.”

The blogger of choice for ASD was Nicole Leinbach Reyhle, an experienced retail and wholesale professional who, since 2007, has blogged about the industry at RetailMinded.com. Organizers chose Reyhle because she has developed a large national following of retailers, especially small businesses, who are ASD’s target audience, and her blog has been recognized as a thought leader in the industry by third parties such as Forbes.com.  

Because so many people in the show’s target audience already feel strongly connected to leading industry bloggers like Reyhle, and those bloggers have their attention on an ongoing basis, Higgins believes it makes sense to form partnerships with bloggers and build on their industry connections. “Bloggers have a huge presence in nearly every industry, including trade shows,” Higgins says. “From my experience in marketing and publicity, you have a better chance of meeting your objectives if you actively involve press and give them access to your event.”

The technical logistics of equipping a live blogger to work from the show floor were quite simple, Higgins says. ASD utilized wireless Internet access, which was already available at the show, and also employed a professional video crew to shoot video to be posted to the blog. “Everything gets uploaded over the Web in real time, with the exception of any video that requires editing,” Higgins says.

To promote Reyhle’s presence at the show, ASD included her and her Retail Minded blog in all of its pre-show marketing, including newsletters and emails. And to accomplish the cross-promotion ASD was hoping for, Reyhle also informed her audience that she would be attending ASD Las Vegas as the on-site blogger. Throughout the show, her posts included her takes on educational sessions, new products and daily goings-on from the show floor. Each of her blog posts received an average of 32,000 views on the day it was posted, and because they are archived on the blog, they continue to receive additional views.

For show organizers, the partnership was a win-win. “Having a blogger at our show exposed so many aspects of our show to a new, wider audience and also demonstrated to our exhibitors the importance we place on maintaining our presence in the retail and wholesaling community, and bringing more potential buyers to this marketplace,” Higgins says. “Our goal is to engage our audience, and to accomplish this we need to have an expert who can speak to them in a way they understand, acknowledge the needs of the current market as well as educate and inform. I believe we accomplished this at our August show and we plan to employ this strategy throughout 2011.” 

Nielsen’s Strategy

Goal: To expose the show to a new, wider audience and demonstrate to exhibitors the show’s focus on maintaining its presence in the retail and wholesaling community.

Strategy: Feature a popular industry blogger live on the show floor.

Results: The blogger’s seven live posts from ASD each attracted more than 32,000 page views during the conference and the blogger received numerous comments and questions about the show from her readers, signaling that the audience was not just present but also engaged.