Roadshows What are they and why are they so important? The word Roadshow generates many visions for many people but in the world of Roadshow Promotions a Roadshow is a vehicle-based field event, which, in our opinion, is the ultimate method of taking whatever you are pitching to others directly to where they work, live or play, I have heard it described as “a field event on steroids,” not sure how correct that is but they certainly give me a buzz.
Roadshow vehicles allow you to take your message, brand or service on the road whether that is locally, regionally, nationally or even internationally, reaching people you may never have reached by standard methods allowing you to spread the word in a person to person format, not by the hit or miss email or phone call approach. In addition, a well branded Roadshow vehicle can and will be seen by many thousands of road users and pedestrians daily making the vehicle an extremely low-cost marketing tool.
There are a number of methods of undertaking a roadshow, matching many budgets both large or small, from small van or trailer to 13m triple deck Trailers and everything in between. Roadshow Promotions sits in the in-between, with a fleet of Promotional buses consisting of various classes of vehicles from our static and standard class buses which are pre-built and configured for a wide variety of event types and market sectors. To our Corporate Class buses which are designed to accommodate free standing furniture or standard or bespoke fixtures and fittings.
Why Vehicle Based Roadshows
Many organisations do roadshows, for a variety of reasons, depending upon the sector they are in, for example the NHS or Local Public health departments will undertake health or health service related tours, which could, and often do, involve health checks covering such things as Blood pressure, HIV, asthma, diabetes, obesity, general wellbeing or they could be promoting the local doctor’s surgery, a new service, even gaining insights on their service provision or even a mix of everything.
I doubt there is a sector that haven’t worked with a roadshow vehicle, for example Roadshow Promotions have worked on some of the more major Educational Roadshow Tours, such as the AQA series of Roadshow bus tours, the recent Liverpool Hope University Roadshow Bus tours, the 3 year NCOP funded Hepp South Yorkshire tours or GM Higher tours to the current Runway Training promotional bus tour.
In the business world we have worked with the Business Gateway Service helping start-up businesses to USDAW, the Shop Workers Trade Union promoting the Union and workers rights. We have helped promote anything and everything from Beer to Fracking, heart monitors and pacemakers to petrol, books to flights. We have assisted with the training of staff on products and services to clients on software and finance. We have even helped giveaway over 500,000 cheese sandwiches.
For the past few years we have been working with some of the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca, travelling around hospitals promoting their products and services. In addition we work with medical equipment companies and have developed 4 bespoke class buses for Edwards LiveScience’s which have, for the past 3 years, travelled around the UK and EU training surgeons, on the bus, how to undertake a heart valve replacement/repair with their equipment.
We are currently touring with Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon Brand and 3M Healthcare who are marketing their products and equipment to hospital staff and surgeons around the UK
For the charity sector we campaigned with Guide Dogs for the Blind to the Civil Service Charity. Promoted charity runs, Christmas Appeals for Children in Need and helped families of children with cancer.
When it comes to children, we excel, with hardly a, pre covid, school week going by without one or more of our Roadshow Buses visiting a school playground, college or University campus promoting choices open to the adults of tomorrow from Apprenticeships, to Higher Education and beyond, or for younger children the opportunity to literally get their hands dirty by planting seeds and taking them back to school and watch them grow.
So, Roadshows what are they and what makes them so successful?
Well a roadshow should be both professional and fun. You want all of your visitors to leave the vehicle with a smile. Good well-thought-out content, a lively environment and great company will leave nothing but positive thoughts in your visitors minds hopefully leaving that lasting memorable impression we all want and hope for.
Should we run a Roadshow and how much will it cost?
Obviously, this is a personal choice and much of the that decision will revolve around the cost, however the ROI is definitely a major consideration and with the wide variety of clients and sectors we work with, each having their own way of calculating the ROI, makes it difficult for us to give a definitive answer, however we can give examples.
For example, the client who spent over £30,000 on a one-day event, who found that the ROI was so high they rapidly re-booked and utilised the vehicle for another one-day event a few weeks later, at a much lower cost or the client who spent £70,000 on a 3-month tour, who, before the tour ended extended the tour twice and eventually spent a year and £250,000 promoting their products across Europe, a saving of over £1.5 million on their normal format. The NHS PCT who undertook more medical checks in Two weeks than they had done in the previous 6 months with their traditional outreach methods.
Roadshow Bus tours can take a lot of time, effort and money to organise and run, however if the market research is in place, correct locations are selected and booked and the right staff appointed to man the vehicle on tour, then the one thing we expect is that the tour will be a roaring success and will likely far outreach your expectations.
We now provide a tour cost estimator tool to help you assess the budget you require for a promotional bus tour.
The tool allows users to estimate the cost of hiring a promotional bus for a tour. The tool asks users to input some information about their tour, such as the hire period, the total expected mileage, the operational days and the bus type. Based on these inputs, the tour cost calculator, calculates an estimated cost for the tour and displays it on the screen.
The tool is useful for anyone who wants to undertake a promotional bus tour and needs a ballpark cost. The cost calculator helps users to match their expectations to their budget and to compare different options for their tour. The tool also provides some information about the different types of promotional buses available, such as screen class, corporate class, mobile clinic class and standard class. The tool also has a request a quote button for users who want a breakdown of the costs involved in the tour.
For more information on undertaking a roadshow vehicle event why not review the website, give us a call or ping over an enquiry the staff at Roadshow Promotions are only too happy to discuss and assist the provision of a successful Roadshow Bus tour.
