Export Growth in a Virtual World: Event Readiness Preparations

EXPORT GROWTH IN A VIRTUAL WORLD: A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE COMPANIES – SECTION 2
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EXPORT GROWTH IN A VIRTUAL WORLD:
A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE
COMPANIES - SECTION 2
Event Readiness
Preparations
2021 EDITION

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Virtual Trade Market Readiness Assessment
Once your company has decided to participate in a Virtual Trade
Activity, carefully consider each phase of the process to help
you identify work that needs to be done to optimize success.
Many of the activities will be the same or similar to traditional
sales but will be turbo-charged with digital media.
While you will save on travel budgets, you might need a
technology upgrade, more support staff with relevant skills, or
more digital sales collateral. There are government programs
that are beginning to fund some of these needs, and marketing
firms are expanding their product offerings to help transition
clients to virtual selling.
It will be very important to prioritize needs based on a
comprehensive assessment of your business, your customers,
Event Readiness
Preparations

EVENT READINESS PREPARATIONS COMPANIES – SECTION 2
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and your timeline for making this transition from in-person
trade activities to virtual events. It may take longer and be more
expensive to attend virtual trade shows where the market is de
facto global, versus trade missions where your delegation has
zeroed in on a particular market.
Trade Show organizers will determine the tech platform that
attendees and exhibitors will use, so companies will have to
adapt to new platforms and be thoughtful and creative in
supplementing such platforms with compatible tools they
might want to use. It may well be that virtual events require
more preparation time than face-to-face events, making
detailed planning all the more imperative.
Integrated Marketing, Sales,
and Customer Service
Write a strong company profile tailored to each mission or
trade show. If you don’t have one as part of an existing Brand
Platform, create a one-line positioning statement that is
easily understood, and that projects an image of a company
with whom people want to do business. This will be your
digital elevator pitch, enticing prospective customers to click
It may well be that
virtual events require
more preparation time
than face-to-face
events, making detailed
planning all the more
imperative.

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for more information about your company. Identify specific
digital collateral pieces you want to have on hand in the virtual
booth, or that you would like the matchmaker to provide to the
companies in-market in advance of your call.
Be ready and available in case a company requests a meeting
with you right away. In a trade show situation, this means having
adequate support staff working in the virtual booth or helping
you outside the platform. In a trade mission situation, know that
virtual meetings are not all confined to the official dates of the
mission. Let your matchmaker know your schedule of availability
for meetings.
Review all of your sales materials and ensure they are available
in digital format, and easily accessible. Everything you include
should be reflected on your website as well. A recent report
from EDC indicates that digital media is no longer considered
a competitive advantage. It is now the cost of entry to just be
in the game. Your only contact for the foreseeable future may
be virtual, which means potential customers get to study up
on your company before agreeing to a one-on-one meeting.
If you provide everything they need to answer their questions
and resolve their concerns about your products and your
company, they will be eager to talk. But you must manage the

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process of getting them prepared to talk. At each step, when a
potential customer requests additional information, you have
an opportunity to obtain a bit more information from them,
building their prospect/customer profile within your sales
system.
THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE COMMITTING TO
VIRTUAL TRADE ACTIVITIES: ARE WE READY?
• Our Marketing and Sales teams use virtual tools alongside traditional sales activities and materials.
•
We follow customers and target prospects online with LinkedIn,Twitter, Facebook Groups, and
through intermediary sites such as industry associations, directories, and government sites.
• We regularly use targeted email campaigns to generate new prospects, and we track them.
•
We have a Customer Relations Management (CRM) system to ensure our sales and marketing
and customer service team know where we are with clients and prospects. We are constantly
gathering leads.
• We train support staff to help implement sales, marketing, customer service initiatives.
•
We have a communications scheduling process that gets our message out across all social media to
clients, prospects, and allies in industry and government.

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Digital Assets
2021 EDITION

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Assessing your digital toolkit is critical, including checking all
of your technology well in advance. To fully use some features
of the VTA’s tech platform, you may need to update your
operating system or work from a newer computer. Ask yourself
the following questions to determine your readiness for virtual
engagement.
•
What digital assets do we have? Check all that apply. Photos,
video, infographics, presentations, white papers, testimonials
from customers, arms-length product evaluations,
certifications, research, newsletters, surveys, quality assurance
programs, security audits, industry events page, others.
•
High Quality: Are our digital assets well-designed and
consistently branded with high quality photography?
Digital Assets

DIGITAL ASSETS COMPANIES – SECTION 3
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•
Informative: Does our company profile clearly state our value
proposition and reference our credentials, certifications and
Industry memberships?
•
Networked: Do our digital materials present a consistent
face to the audience whether they are accessed through the
company website, industry directories, agents, distributors
websites, LinkedIn pages, newsletters or any other source?
Consistency is important.
•
Accessible: Can our digital assets be easily accessed
through the company website? Are they easily and securely
downloadable by others whose bandwidth might not be
robust? Images used in print are much higher resolution
than web formats so it is a good idea to ensure digital media
images are appropriately compressed so they require less
bandwidth and load quickly. You never know what the state
of a potential customer’s technology is, or what bandwidth is
available in their community.
•
Call to Action: Do all of our marketing materials contain a
clear call to action? Each digital asset should encourage
prospects to seek more information and contact the company
with a clear call to action. The process of accessing this
digital collateral requires prospects to provide information
Each digital asset
should encourage
prospects to seek
more information and
contact the company
with a clear call
to action.

DIGITAL ASSETS COMPANIES – SECTION 3
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about their company and its needs so we can respond more
effectively based on their profile.
•
SEO Optimized: Do all of our materials support the organic
search process? Is there a linking strategy in place with
industry partners, customers, and social media featuring our
product?
•
Analytics: Is tracking in place? Custom landing pages help
track how prospects first engage with your company and
what their journey has been like since that first contact. From
these metrics you will be able to test the effectiveness of
individual assets and combinations of digital assets accessed
to understand more about the prospect’s buying process.
You can review this information regularly and plan your sales
engagement strategy as a follow-up to customer interaction
with your company.
•
Protection of Privacy and Intellectual Property: Are we careful
to guard our IP, and think about what we share online? It is
essential that software, OS and security programs are kept up
to date.

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Prospect Research
2021 EDITION

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Whether working with a matchmaker or doing your own
research, your objectives in-market must be crystal clear. Ideally
you can find clones of your existing customers in that market
and will be able to follow the same sales strategy. Seek leads
in all of your discussions and use online sources to study those
prospects.
When working with a matchmaker, ensure they completely
understand your objectives. Check in with them regularly. Get
a long list of potential leads and help them prioritize. Identify
the title or role that your preferred customer goes by. Give them
a second option in case they can’t get the first. Suggest a few
companies that you have identified and use it as an illustration
of how you zero in on prospects. Continue identifying and
profiling companies and see if you can make a couple of choice
meetings on your own, with agents/distributors, VARS, industry
associations, and corporate executives of new or existing
customers.
Prospect Research

PROSPECT RESEARCH COMPANIES – SECTION 4
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Virtual trade events start long before the actual event dates
and may run long after, both of which add value to your
participation. Trade shows usually release profile information
on exhibitors much earlier, sometimes they provide info on
attendees; but, if they don’t, you will have to gather that
info yourself.
Attendees will be on social media to network their participation.
Follow the hashtags (#) for the show and for subjects of interest
to your company. Use social media groups like LinkedIn and
Facebook Groups. Mine industry associations, delegate lists
from previous events in that market, Google searches, and
Google Markets to identify and more fully profile your prospects.
Consult with Trade Commissioners and EDC regarding potential
prospects.
Identify as many attendees as you can in advance of the show
and engage with them. And, while exhibitors are generally
viewed as sellers, and attendees as buyers, you may well have
an opportunity to sell to other exhibitors. Research them as well
and develop a target list for communication in advance of the
show. Also, don’t neglect speakers or sponsors as they may be
able to help advance your objectives, or provide you valuable
information on other vendors or sponsors.
Mine industry
associations, delegate
lists from previous
events in that market,
Google searches, and
Google Markets to
identify and more fully
profile your prospects.

PROSPECT RESEARCH COMPANIES – SECTION 4
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When attending Virtual Trade Shows or Conferences, learn the
technology platform and seek prospect information within the
system. If participant lists are not provided by event organizers
in advance, they may be accessible as the event starts so
companies should learn how to take screen shots so interesting
information can be captured from chat rooms, booth visits and
networking sessions. Be ready to build profiles on these leads.
Create a pre-event initiative to gather people around topics of
mutual interest to build a community with your company as a
prime mover. Discussion sessions on speakers and topics, the
exchange of tips on using the technology, surveys on promising
new products, welcoming first time attendees – these are all
ways to piggyback on the show with sales initiatives that you
can manage. Position your company as a thought leader, make
new contacts, network, seek customer intelligence, and build
profiles on leads by building a community that can endure
during and after the show. Build your social media presence,
across key social platforms and grow your follower base with
the information you create and share.

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Promotional
Communication
2021 EDITION

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Effectively carry targeted messages to your company’s
prospects and in-market partners using dynamic and
measurable media that are compatible with Virtual Trade
activity.
•
Sign up early for events and communicate confidently and
frequently on social media.
•
Build a presence in the market by joining social media
groups such as LinkedIn and Facebook. When you engage
with companies via these channels, you can gain market
intelligence on potential customers and channel partners.
•
Ensure your digital media presence (logos, colour, images, tone
and messaging) supports your brand. Establish credibility and
organizational legitimacy through testimonials, references
and certifications
Promotional
Communication

PROMOTIONAL COMMUNICATION COMPANIES – SECTION 5
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•
Review the support materials on your website: research
documents, white papers, news articles, and testimonials from
customers who are similar to the attendees you are targeting
at this conference. Ensure links are working from the published
papers that used your technology or product, so when a user
reads these documents they are led to a custom landing page
on your site that is a friendly environment for this customer,
and that can be tracked using your web analytics. Promote
these digital documents to the attendees you have identified.
•
Study the event’s program carefully to identify speakers
and topics that are likely to attract your targets. Prepare
questions in advance of each session and have them ready
so that you can get them into the chat box for the speaker’s
question period. Asking a thoughtful question helps raise your
company’s profile. It will have to be a well-crafted question
even to get recognized and, more so, to establish a connection
to your product. This is why it should be written in advance
and based on a deft understanding of the session theme,
the speaker(s), and of course, your brand. Also, monitor other
questions, as this is an opportunity to reach out to people of
interest.
Prepare questions
in advance of each
session and have them
ready so that you can
get them into the chat
box for the speaker’s
question period.

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•
Have something to announce during the event timeline – pre,
during, or post – that will be new and of interest to your target
customer. This could be a new piece of research that your
team has conducted about product usage among their peers,
a new customer who has signed on and why, an innovation to
your product line – all of which is supported with social media
posts (yours, and those belonging to the event) within the
event platform and other business platforms.
•
Be engaging, network, host post-event discussion session.
Create your own pre-or post-event.
Social Media Effectiveness:
Questions to ask yourself:
•
What platforms do we already use? What do we need to learn
to use the technology?
•
Who are the best team members to run my team’s social
media? Do I need more personnel for this?
•
Do we have the right digital assets for all social media
channels I want to use?
Have something to
announce during the
event timeline – pre,
during, or post – that will
be new and of interest to
your target customer.

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•
You should ensure that information on all of your social media
platforms is up to date. Some VTA platforms allow you to link
to social media in your profiles so that, for example, a LinkedIn
profile would be available to attendees in place of any contact
information.
As a sales and marketing strategy gets mapped out for a
specific virtual trade event, creating a schedule or calendar for
publishing to social media will be essential. This will support
your participation, and help you identify and engage with
other attendees while learning more about them as potential
prospects or sources of competitive intelligence. It will help
build your community, which will live on long after the event has
ended. A social media calendar helps clarify in advance what
you will communicate, and when. It is like interactive advertising
with messages specific to each social media platform. Specify
who will be responsible for it and how you plan to measure
effectiveness.

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Participating in
the Event
2021 EDITION

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Make the most of your Speaking
and Pitching Opportunities
•
Prepare for video calls: clean up your desktop and have
documents open and ready for screen sharing, tidy up your
background, framing yourself to ensure you aren’t too close or
at an odd angle to your computer’s camera, check your audio
levels, and adjust your lighting. These are all small adjustments
you can make to ensure you come across as professional and
at ease when the camera is on you.
•
Test technology ahead of time and practice presentations.
Many virtual technologies have diagnostic tools that can
assess your device ahead of the event to ensure it is fully
enabled.
Participating in
the Event

PARTICIPATING IN THE EVENT COMPANIES – SECTION 6
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•
Practice using the same technology you will use in your
meeting or event, whether it is MS Teams, Skype, Zoom, or any
other web conferencing technology. Make sure all of your tech
tools are charged. Plan for technology failures, and double
check everything to ensure they don’t occur. Always have a
backup plan.
•
Your profile for the event should link to custom landing pages
on your website. Potential customers (attendees) will be taken
directly to your targeted marketing for each event. You can
maintain control of information delivered to each prospect,
who responds to which message. Use web analytics to profile
and track responses from each event. Your web pages and
other digital materials should all have the same branding;
you want a prospective customer to recognize the web page
they’ve landed on from other materials they’ve seen from your
company.
•
Ensure high production value for all video and digital materials,
but also have lower resolution versions of your image files for
email and web communications where needed. Check page
load time. Even a few seconds too long can cause potential
customers to quit.
Practice using the
same technology you
will use in your meeting
or event, whether it
is MS Teams, Skype,
Zoom, or any other
web conferencing
technology.

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•
Create questions in advance to cut and paste into the discussion
in the chat room. This way, coherent questions can be quickly
asked at an opportune moment without missing out on either
timing or the ability to concentrate on the speaker because you
are busy working out the words you want to use.
•
Speaker/moderator may respond to questions more frequently to
bring attention to your firm.
Best Practices for the Virtual Trade Event
•
Be prepared and online in time (or slightly early) for any
virtual activity.
•
Have staff ready for busy periods. Identify the roles they will play.
•
Have someone, who is not also occupied with other significant
roles in the event available to field technology-related questions
during the event.
•
Have the right technology tools for the type of virtual trade
activity. You may need a second computer or smart phone
to efficiently participate in a webinar and be able to submit
comments, questions, and chat. Download any required apps
in advance.

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•
Have a backup plan for all technology being hosted, including your
Internet connection.
•
Have profiles of your best prospects readily accessible in your
virtual booth so your team know who is participating and can
recognize them. When the booth gets busy, you might not notice
that your best prospects are there unless your entire team is
aware, on the lookout, and has been coached on their role in
making contacts. Choose the best prospects. Don’t lose people
while they are waiting to speak to you.
•
Be ready to respond quickly to enquires at trade shows. Have
template emails and pre-packaged samples with letters, prepared
and ready to send to companies after the call. The virtual trade
expectation is a continuation of the discussion within the same
day, or even immediately following the virtual encounter.
•
Chat messages should be saved or copied into another document
in real time.
•
Create and be ready to share a 2-3-minute pitch video in advance
of full meetings.
•
Don’t forget to recreate the kind of chance encounters that
happen onsite by seeking opportunities for social interaction,
or even host your own virtual event before or after the show.
Be ready to respond
quickly to enquires
at trade shows. Have
template emails and
pre-packaged samples
with letters, prepared
and ready to send to
companies after the call.

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Tips for One-On-One Meetings
•
Study every scrap of information on each company who will
attend. You may have 20 minutes online with a customer and
might not soon get a second chance at that opportunity.
Learn what you can about the person with whom you will
be meeting.
•
Arrange one-on-one meetings with leads before, during and
after a trade show. Prepare for these meetings as you would
for your normal sales calls or trade mission meetings. Plan on
having a shorter meeting, unless it turns into a big opportunity,
in which case you can extend or schedule a second meeting
on the spot. Consider having a sales support person pre-
screen companies who request to meet with you so routine
questions are answered, materials exchanged, and the buyer’s
interest qualified. This will let you get right to business when
you are on the call.
•
Consider having a colleague participate (in the background) so
they can seek out information or digital assets for emailing in
real time, or to share on screen during the call. Set the call on
your web conferencing subscription so you can record it for
reference and critique afterwards.

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•
Have a clear objective for each call. You likely won’t complete
a sale but what milestone would you like to achieve? Have a
post-call plan in place and get the company to agree that you
will follow up with something to review, even if the call does
not go the way you had hoped. Keep the door open.
•
Start on time, plan to finish in the allotted time and only go
longer if they agree to extra time. Be polite. Remember, you
may be dealing with cultural issues so do not assume the
worst, stay positive, stay enthusiastic, but real. Remembering
that this is a human person on the line, even if everything is
technology driven. Incorporate some personal interaction at
the close of the call. Have some fun, this is what you do in
your life!
•
Have a follow up plan in place and do as much as you can
before the event to enable a rapid follow through with leads
identified. Engage your team in follow up, don’t be left trying
to compose individual emails in the evening after you have
worked the whole day. Get your marketing and sales team
in gear, adding extra resources if need be with the budget
savings on travelling expenses.
Incorporate some
personal interaction
at the close of the call.
Have some fun, this is
what you do in your life!

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Post Event Evaluation
An important element of creating a clear focus for a Virtual
Trade activity is articulating the outcomes you would like to
achieve. Not many companies have had enough experience with
virtual trade activities to be able to identify them as the source
for subsequent sales. This will evolve as more activity takes
place. Outcomes are a progress report en route to sales. Some
typical outcomes are:
•
Data provided by event organizer: registrations, profiles,
surveys, participant feedback
• Introduction to qualified prospects
•
Significant information exchange that confirms the target is a
qualified prospect
•
Number of companies who participate in a virtual
product demo
•
Number of prospects who agree to engage in your
sales process
• Number of companies with whom you will be following up,
for future sales

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•
Analytics obtained from any technology provider whose
platform was used in organized virtual events will add
dimension to the data gathered from your own sources.
This includes activity on your digital channels by conference
attendees, email response rates, engagement on your LinkedIn
or other social media pages, or other online data accessible
through web analytics during the sales period as compared to
other periods

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Technology
Platform and
Applications
2021 EDITION

2
Virtual Trade Show and Conference organizers will have an on-
boarding process that should demonstrate how to effectively
use their technology. You should fully engage with this process
as soon as you are registered. Learn the technology platform
as well as you possibly can, as soon as you hear what platform
is being used. Involve your tech support people or get a tech
coach or consultant.
There are significant differences among event tech platforms
and new developments are happening rapidly as tech
companies compete to win event planners. In addition to
functionalities within platforms, there are plug-ins that
accommodate additional platforms like CRM and simultaneous
translation. By visiting the website of the developer of the trade
show technology platform, you can determine which popular
applications are compatible.
Technology Platform
and Applications

TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM AND APPLICATIONS COMPANIES – SECTION 7
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Other applications may not work within the platform, but can be
used in parallel with the designated trade show tech. For example,
a trade show platform may use a proprietary video-conferencing
application that limits the number of one-on-one calls, and only
permits those arranged in advance. An exhibitor could use the
chat room to line up a Zoom call that bypasses the trade show
tech limitations. For this reason, it is always good to have a second
device readily available.
There are event industry publications that evaluate more than
one hundred tech platforms for trade shows and these may help
you understand the tech landscape, especially if you are an event
manager. Whether you intend to participate as an exhibitor or an
attendee, there are basic questions you can ask as you prepare:
•
Does the tech platform have event technicians who can solve
problems onsite as they occur?
• Can we get timely assistance in setting up our virtual booth?
•
How many registered delegates can exhibitors have? Is there an
incremental cost?
•
Will the platform supply contact information to exhibitors as
attendees enter the booth? What info will we get? Profile, special
interests, full contacts?
There are event
industry publications
that evaluate more
than one hundred tech
platforms for trade
shows and these may
help you understand
the tech landscape.

4
•
When setting up a virtual exhibit booth, can we make the
following available for download by attendees: videos, photos,
digital brochures? What are the limitations on number and file
size?
•
Can multiple people download material at the same time? Is
there an incremental charge for downloads?
•
Does the platform have a feature that confirms compatibility
with my browser and operating system, as part of a pre-event
tech audit?
•
What video-conferencing system does the platform use? Are
we limited to a fixed number or duration of calls?
•
Will the platform arrange or suggest companies with whom
we should have one-on-one meetings? What are my options
for keywords for matching interests?
•
Can attendees request one-on-one meetings with exhibitors
before the event? Are we able to book times within the
platform? Can we arrange these meetings onsite or do they
have to be scheduled in advance?
•
Are we able to save comments and contacts made in the chat
rooms? How is this done?

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•
Is the platform multilingual? Or, does it facilitate plug-ins for
other languages?
How can I structure my team to effectively use
the virtual trade event technology?
•
Maximize your opportunity to do business: Think of your staff
as a team that assigns the right person with the right skillset
to each session, webinar, and meeting within the event.
•
A tech-knowledgeable person from your organization should
be available for each event. They should do a run-through of
the technology to be used and ensure that your connection
and devices are functioning optimally. This should be done
well in advance, and again just before the event.
•
Using split screen or another device to log in twice can make it
easier to fully participate.
•
It’s helpful to have multiple devices available if possible: one
to use the event platform stream; and another available to go
to the URLs of speakers during the presentations, take notes
or download documents suggested during the presentations,
if they are of interest.
A tech-knowledgeable
person from your
organization should be
available for each event.

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•
In advance of the event, consider which features (chat,
answering questions during presentations, booth, panel
discussion, breakout room for B2B, etc.) will yield contacts
of interest. If possible, devote a separate team member to
monitor each feature.
•
Be prepared for multiple visits to your booth at once. Beef up
your team with people who can manage a chat function, make
digital assets available, and engage with attendees who stop
at your booth.
•
Chat conversation should be able to be saved or at least
should allow for individuals to cut and paste out of the
document or, as a last resort, take a screenshot or photo.
•
Chats can be hard to follow while you’re paying attention to
a presentation, particularly if you are hoping to gain insight
into potential clients/partners from the chat. Remember that
comments in the chat can be a way for other participants to
get interested in networking with you during the event.

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Zoom Fatigue
How to Help Alleviate Zoom Fatigue in your Audience:
Proper Online Etiquette
•
Content in virtual events is better when it is delivered in
smaller chunks. That means, for example, changing speakers
or topics after no more than 20 minutes. Be concise and
straightforward or you may lose your audience.
•
Learn how to use the technology properly so that you do not
distract from your message by trying to figure out how to use
the platform’s features.
•
Vary the program.
How to Help Alleviate your own Fatigue
• Have comfortable seating at the proper height for viewing
your screen and position the camera so you are at eye level
or looking slightly up at the camera. Nobody looks their best
when looking down at a camera.
•
Adjust the lighting to avoid eye strain as well as for a more
flattering appearance.
•
Don’t look at your own video image. Look at the other
participant(s) or the camera.
Content in virtual
events is better
when it is delivered
in smaller chunks.

8
•
Occasionally turn off video and have audio only, or phone
meetings when possible.
How to Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the New Norm
While it may be difficult not to dwell on these industry changes,
there is no benefit to worrying your way through this. Virtual
events are the new reality and will continue to play a part in
trade activity for years to come. But there is a bright side. This
can be good for companies and Atlantic Canada’s economy in
the longer term.
• Everyone is updating digital assets and technological capacity
to function in a virtual trade environment. It is a step that
needed to be taken to keep pace with the increasingly digital
world. - Now we are better prepared for the future.
• Involving more staff than just the sales executives will
maximize the opportunities of a virtual trade event. The
benefit of cross department knowledge sharing and training
junior staff is a bonus. The fast-typing support staffer who
manned the chat is now a valuable sales team member.
Everybody will learn and grow from participating.
•
Virtual trade activities can be a leveler when it comes to
diversity of participants, accessibility, and overcoming
inhibitions around networking.

9
•
For many industries, virtual sales activities are easier. Virtual
meetings and follow up can take place over a shorter period
of time than in-person meetings involving travel. In many
high-touch markets, this can speed up the normally slow
relationship-building process required to convert prospects
into customers.

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Digital Assets
Checklist
2021 EDITION

2
Digital Assets Checklist
Digital assets should be high quality, well designed, and branded consistently with your corporate
identity, your website and your physical collateral such as brochures, sample letters, and packaging.
Web formats should be used to reduce file size (and load times) while preserving quality.
See sources (overleaf) for more information.
Company Product Logos: have versions that work for social media sites, VT platforms -
png format, often 200 x 200 pixels square.
Photos: high quality product shots in format most suitable for web: png. Also have head shot
(.png or .jpg) of each delegate for registration profile. 150 x150 pixels; 100 x 150 px
Videos: 30-second–2-minute promo, longer video brochure, video tour. On your site/YouTube
or Vimeo channel
Digital Brochure: Designed for web interface, readable. pdf
Infographics: Complex issues explained by creative illustrations
Presentations: PowerPoint style Slide Shows; Webinars; Ted Talks from industry leaders
Social Media Posts: LinkedIn Articles; well received Tweets; Podcasts

DIGITAL ASSETS CHECKLIST
3
COMPANIES – SECTION 12
E-books Guides: Detailed information setting context for your product
FAQ and Answers: Set all the details on small and big issues
White papers: Discussions on technology exploration or solution finding that relates to your
product
Testimonials from customers: Short quotes with person’s name title, company name,
photograph. Link to extended assessment where available
Arms’ length product evaluations: Journalists, industry magazines, Capterra Rating
Certifications: Industry; Standards Boards like CSA, UL, or market specific like EU Marking
Research: Ideally research that shows how customers have used the product successfully
Newsletters, news releases, company newsletters or industry publications that feature
your product
Surveys: Prospects Contribute their views and measure versus industry response
Quality assurance programs: How are you systematically/proactively addressing
product performance?
Diagrams, schematics, technical specifications: Details on the production performance

4
Security audits, relating to in-house systems, product technology, traceability of
product/inputs
Industry events page: How your company supports the industry
Pricing Sheets: Could be actual pricing or value indicators with contact for details on pricing
Digital assets should be exchanged for additional information about the prospective customers
who are downloading them. Once captured, a name and email address should be automatically
filled in, so that the focus can be on gathering incremental information. Transactions like
downloading information should be clean and quick. Throughout the website, prospective
customers should encounter clear calls to action, proposing the next step in the sales cycle.
Customized email follow-up should be mapped out so that the conversation can be resumed
where it left off, with follow-up coming quickly and intensely over the ensuing two weeks in order
to be most effective at generating sales.
Consider: Do you also need versions translated into other languages for follow-up purposes?

5
Some web sources of information about Digital Assets -
Images and Video:
“All About Images.” University of Michigan Library Research Guides,
https://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=282942p=1885348
Accessed 22 Nov. 2020.
Chi, Clifford.“6 of the Best Video Formats for 2020.” Hubspot, Dec 2019,
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/best-video-format
Dadfar, Kav.“Understanding all the Different Image File Formats.” Digital Photography School, 2015,
https://digital-photography-school.com/understanding-all-the-different-image-file-formats/
Maayan, Gilad.“8 Best Video File Formats for 2020.” IEEE Computer Society,
www.computer.org/publications/tech-news/trends/8-best-video-file-formats-for-2020
“Image File Formats.”Wikipedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_formats

6
“YouTube vs Vimeo” articles:
https://howsociable.com/blog/vimeo-vs-youtube/
https://www.foximusic.com/youtube-vs-vimeo-corporate-videos/
https://blog.hootsuite.com/vimeo-vs-youtube-business/
Vimeo plans and pricing: https://vimeo.com/upgrade

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