If you weren’t able to join us last week for the Handshake.com webinar, here’s a replay. Lots of good things in here, as I covered everything from booth design and function to graphics, pre-show marketing, staff training, lead generation and follow up and more. Each of the 10 steps had 3 takeaways or discussion points for your team. Check it out here.
One of our newest clients, SoYoung from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, unveiled their new custom 10×10 booth to the public earlier this month at Natural Products Expo East in Baltimore, MD to great reviews.
“The show has been hopping and the booth is fantastic!” was the text I got from company owner Catherine Choi on day two of the show. She had a photographer come by to document the booth and products. Check out the gallery. And thanks to SoYoung – glad to have you as a new client!
In the 1992 Bill Clinton Presidential Campaign, his advisors made sure the campaign talking points were focused on the economy. So much so that they held as their campaign mantra “It’s the Economy, Stupid!”
It’s unimpeachable advice.
That is, to focus to sharply on one single element. Sure, they had to make sure that all other parts of the campaign were functioning well, but the economy was the overarching focus.
Focusing on making sure you follow up on your leads is as critically important.
The long-held statistic that 80% of all tradeshow leads are never followed up with may or may not be true (doubtful, actually), but what is true is that if you don’t follow up on those leads, you won’t sell anything to those potential clients.
In the course of lead generation and follow up, what’s really going on?
First, there are the methods of gathering leads. Make sure yours are effective.
Then, the leads must be graded in terms of Cool, Warm and Hot.
Third, the leads must contain information that allows the folks back in the office to follow up properly.
Fourth, they must be followed up in a timely manner, consistent with what was agreed to with the prospect.
And fifth, they MUST BE ACTED UPON!
It’s like they told me in junior high school: if you want to dance, you have to ask someone. You can’t just spend the entire dance standing in the shadows with all of the other folks scared to ask someone to dance.
Bring home the leads.
Follow up!
I’ve seen several writers and new sources chime in recently on the controversy of hiring models, aka ‘booth babes’ at tradeshows to attract attention.
Here the CBC looks at the continuing controversy.
Fortune Magazine covers a story where the RSA Conference, a top tech conference in San Francisco, has banned those scantily clad girls.
The Geek Feminism Wiki describes what exactly is a ‘booth babe.’
The Infotainer, Anders Boulanger goes into it in a couple of places on his blog, and nails it.
I don’t have much add, except for a few questions for the marketing geniuses who think that hiring an attractive scantily-clad model is going to bring in more leads and close more business.
First, do the models represent the essence of what your company is all about? Do they really show off what your company is all about? Unless you’re a company that rents dancing girls, probably not. Instead, the girls tell attendees that you really don’t have a specific product or service that is more important than, well, scantily clad girls. How do you explain that to clients?
Do the scantily-clad women attract potential buyers? Doubtful. More likely they’re an eye-candy distraction that will probably repel (read: embarrass) true buyers and draw in only those who are there for a quick gander, who will then also be embarrassed and quickly retreat because they’re intimidated.
Do your ‘booth babes’ help convert prospects to buyers? Again, in most cases: NO. Spencer Chen has done the math in detail here, which is a brilliant takedown of the idea that booth babes will help bring you more customers, but suffice it to say that someone hired strictly for their ability to draw in a specific type of male attendee probably won’t do you any good in getting a potential buyer to convert to a client.
Finally, in today’s world where ‘booth babes’ are already a controversy, why in the world would you court controversy when you’re trying to increase leads and close more accounts?
