2020 has been the year of virtual trade shows, and as more and more shows are moved from an in-person format to a virtual one, new features and adjustments to the set-ups and strategies will continue to improve the platforms, interactions, and overall experience. For Proseal, PMA Fresh Summit 2020 will be their second virtual trade show – the first being United Fresh Live!
Kaitlin Wyatt, brand supervisor for Proseal, shares: “The immediate difference we noticed between PMA and our previous show was platform design. During our previous show, the designers looked to mimic the trade show feel by creating the digital version of a show floor and booth, where PMA is more of an AI based webpage and profile. Because of this, we are looking forward to the challenge of creating a ‘booth’ with exciting and enticing content to try and attach as many visitors as possible.”
Expectations and strategies
As Proseal was an active participant and exhibitor in United Fresh Live!, Wyatt is able to look at the coming Fresh Summit with a unique perspective and expectations. “There are two elements to the show that we are hoping might be done differently to bring us even more success as exhibitors at PMA. The first being the lead capture: it was great that we were provided the information for each visitor to our booth at the end of our previous show, but we found it challenging to gather high quality leads without any qualification process. Our sales team struggles in determining which visitors were leads of potential customers versus people that were just browsing the platform,” Wyatt explains.
The second element that Wyatt hopes will be improved for Fresh Summit is the communication opportunities within the booths. “We are excited about the chat element of the booth. It was very hard to communicate with visitors during the previous virtual show as visitors had the ability to deny chat requests. We pride ourselves on being extremely engaging during in-person shows, so the option to deny a chat request proved to be a challenging and frustrating process to navigate during the previous digital show,” Wyatt shares.
While Wyatt hopes for some changes in the set-up of this virtual show, she and the Proseal team will also make some changes to the strategy for their booth. “We are hoping to make this booth even more interactive for our visitors rather than just showing live demos or static collateral. We thrive off of showing our machines in action, so we are looking to replicate the interaction in our booth that would normally be there during a live in-person event. After past experiences, we have learned that people want to see the personalities and atmosphere of a normal Proseal booth rather than presentations and marketing collateral, and we are making it our mission to ensure this happens,” says Wyatt.
Highlighting new technologies and maintaining customer relationships
Trade shows are always great platforms for introducing new product and technological developments. For Proseal, Fresh Summit 2020 will be where they share their ProPosition™ technology. “Proseal has launched a revolutionary tray positioning system – the first of its kind – that calculates the required tray-spacing set-up parameters for individual tray sealing tool-sets, eliminating the trial and error usually associated with this process. The new patent-pending ProPosition™ feature automatically identifies the best position for trays, to ensure the perfect alignment every time,” says Wyatt.
This new technology helps to simplify and speed up the overall process as well as reducing waste, Wyatt explains. “The advanced technology provides food manufacturers and processors with a simple one-step tool-set-up and removes the time consuming and potentially wasteful process of running test trays through the tray sealer to ascertain the best position. Instead, operators are guided through the set-up via easy to follow animated instructions on the machine’s touch screen. The system then permanently saves the relevant parameters for each tool, which greatly speeds up product changeovers and avoids operator errors during set-up. ProPosition™ is fitted as standard to all new Proseal GT platform machines. Additionally, as part of Proseal’s ongoing strategy of future-proofing its equipment, the software can be retrofitted to any pre-existing machines which have the suffix GTe and GTs.”
Besides introducing new technology, the building and maintaining relationships and connections with potential and existing clients is of course one of the most important reasons for attending trade shows. “We make it our mission to maintain those relationships for a lifetime, long after the original sale is made. Additionally, Proseal is hoping to engage with new potential customers and suppliers to show all the technologies, innovations and capabilities that our equipment has to offer in hopes to provide them with a solution that suits all of their needs and beyond,” Wyatt concludes.
For more information:
Kaitlin Wyatt
Proseal
Tel: +1 (804) 447-9038
Email: info@prosealamerica.com
www.proseal.com