LightFair and LEDs … Lighting the Way to Increased Sales

LightFair, from all we’ve heard and seen, was a huge success and could be the second most important conference to distributors (after their marketing group or company meeting).  It has given many publications lot’s of content.

Since we didn’t attend (Allen was traveling on client business, I’ve been laid up from recent surgery and other than seeing interesting products we’d probably be “in the way” since we’re not part of the selling channel for exhibitors!), we thought sharing some of information we’ve seen may be helpful.

But, for some commentary …

If you are a distributor, and lighting is important to your business, you need to have people attend this conference.  Someone from purchasing should attend to get to familiar with lots of names. A lighting specialist / champion needs to attend. Marketing should attend to capture product applications and case studies for better positioning to customers.  And consider treating LightFair the way Rockwell’s AutomationFair is treated … invite your customers to attend with you (or consider a promotion so that they can earn the trip to NY in 2015). With the speed of change in lighting, you can either lead in your marketplace or you can be the order taker.

And the information that various publications generate from LightFair can be harvested to be used as application content to promote lighting throughout the year.

According to what we’ve seen, LightFair was about LEDs, “smart” lighting and lighting controls among other things.

Here’s some of what we’ve seen in various newsletters:

• From LEDs Magazine‘s “Illumination in Focus” newsletter, “In a running trend over several years, networks and controls were at the forefront of the exhibits” and “lighting products, higher-quality retrofit lamps were the star of the show.”  Links in their newsletter included:LED lamps at LFI: Controls, dimming, and durability on display and there was mention of 3-way LED lamps from Cree, Philips and Sylvania amongst many other articles.
• Want to know about LEDs? The DOE hosted 20 free training sessions on LEDs … for free! Topics touched on landscape lighting, LED color issues, outdoor lighting, T8 LEDs for troffers, HID vs LED, LED street lighting, LEDs in the classroom and more.  Click here to download all 20 sessions.
• Many manufacturers showcased new LED solutions to upgrade from T12 or T8 to LED solutions, whether new fixtures, retrofit kits or replacement lamps. Briteswitch has information on all of the rebate opportunities for T8 LEDs.
• Here’s a brief overview of LightFair from Electrical Wholesaling’s Jim Lucy … a veteran LightFair attendee.

And here’s more on lighting:

• Here’s information on LED codes and retrofit standards from Consulting – Specifying Engineer
• A free webinar from Cree entitled Essential Lighting Controls for the Business Owner/Operator, to be held on Tuesday, June 17th at 1:00 PM ET.  It’s promoted in a Buildings magazine e-newsletter that targets building owners.  Distributors should take advantage of this and then promote the topic in their marketplace.  There is no reason why distributors shouldn’t hold webinars for their customers or for end-users in their marketplace to position themselves as “thought leaders”.  Click here to register for this webinar.
• Speaking of distributors sponsoring webinars, check out this webinar invite from Graybar:

Need help staying current with the ever-changing lighting landscape? Join us and guest speaker Mary Beth Gotti from GE as we discuss the guidelines you need to know to determine the right lighting solution for your building or facility. We’ll cover everything from LED tubes to fluorescent tubes, refit kits and new fixture solutions.

Learn more about Mary Beth and her presentation in this short podcast. I hope you can listen in!
Thursday, June 19, 2014

Best,
Karl Griffith
Graybar Director of Emerging Technology

(we have not published the registration link in deference to Graybar.  The above was in an email to Graybar customers / prospects)

As you can see, there is much going on in lighting. This product category can be a differentiator if you do promote applications and reach out to end-users to pull the business.  Here in Raleigh we’ve seen some major city projects mentioned as LED initiatives and then hear (read in local papers) about manufacturers who have earned the business (with no mention of a distributor … and don’t know if one was involved.) Companies and municipalities are justifying investments based upon ROIs (and some with the assistance of rebates.)  If you are waiting for the customer, or contractor, to come to you, you’ll miss a portion of the market.

Oh, and the next LED show?  Consider going to The LED Show which will be held September 16-18 in Los Angeles. Early bird specials end July 18.

And if you need ideas for marketing lighting, give us a call … or perhaps share how you’re promoting this to position yourself as “the lighting (or LED) resource” in your marketplace (and feel free to do it anonymously).