Tradeshow Marketing Expert & Dynamic Public Speaker/Trainer
Here’s the challenge: you’re sharing a booth with a much bigger and more visible partner. How do you create buzz, build traffic and get the word out? Bring on the social media, of course! But of course there’s more to it than just sending out a few tweets and creating a Facebook page.
Tim Patterson discusses the results of a virtual tradeshow with InGenex Digital Marketing CEO Derek Mehraban (psst – lots of great ideas in this podcast!)…
Links:
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…
Got a few minutes to spend? Great! We have some great ways to help you wast, er, uh .. spend your time – and learn something while being entertained!
It’s called a podcast, in case you’ve been living on Mars since 1971. And here are a batch of them that have been posted on Tradeshowguyblog.com over the past several months.
Enjoy!
Andy Saks: Andy’s a terrific presenter and trainer, and spends a fair amount of his time working for clients at tradeshows.
Lew Hoff of Bartizon discusses iLeads, the new iPhone app:
Steve Farnsworth: how to use YouTube to explode your traffic at tradeshows.
Mike O’Neill: Author of Rock the World With Your Online Presence discusses everything from LinkedIn and Facebook to Meetup.com and Twitter and how those various social media platforms can be used to promote events.
Matthew Selbie: What is the Opiniator? How can you use it in your business? What can you do with it at tradeshows?
Pooja Dhawan of FashionSpy.com: Want to find out how Facebook can work to draw people to your tradeshow booth? Find out how Pooja Dhawan of FashionSpy.com, a wholesaler of womens young contemporary fashions used Facebook and other social media outlets successfully.
Matt McCabe: what’s new and hot in the world of promotional products from Matt McCabe of PromotionalProducts.org.
Eric Lukazewski: the tradeshow marketing ninja of Echelon Exhibits in Chicago discusses the company’s revamped website, social media marketing and Manny Ramirez’s arrival in Chicago.
I love productivity tools, and love sharing them with friends and colleagues. I got to thinking the other day that I’ve never actually compiled a list of those tools and posted it. So here ’tis: some are old friends, some are brand new tools. All of them help me do what I need to do with my online and offline world.
So…in no particular order or preference (all links open a new browser window)…
Online:
Software:
Hardware:
What cool tools do you love? Please share!
You’re at a tradeshow, it’s time to close up the booth and head out for dinner and drinks. Maybe catch a Tweetup. Or maybe it’s still several weeks to the tradeshow and you want to schedule a Tweetup. How do you find a good place to meet, or to have dinner and drinks?
Try Yelp. They’re quickly building a reputation as an information provider that offers reviews of businesses – from people that have patronized the business. From Yelp’s website: “Yelp allows consumers to share the experiences they’ve had with local businesses and lets business owners share information about their business with their customers. Simply put, it’s word of mouth–amplified.”
Word of mouth – amplified.
This works from two directions: if you have a business that’s near a convention center, you’d better be listed on Yelp. If not, it takes a few moments to set up an account.
If you’re a small business, you’d better be looking at building a customer community program this year. Starting building an email (and SMS) list so you can offer specials and promotions to those customers. If you’re at a tradeshow or convention, Yelp is a great resource: on a recent vacation I used Yelp to track down a number of restaurants that I never would have otherwise found. All were worthwhile – some more than others – but each Yelp review gave insight into other customers’ experiences and thoughts.
Of course, Yelp can be a double-edged sword if you’re a small business. Treat a customer badly and you might create a firestorm of negativity – deserved or not. With new location-based and customer-review services popping up, it’s going to be a harder line for businesses to walk.
Besides Yelp, your business should be visible and listed on Google Maps and Facebook. Consider looking at newer and not-so-well-known platforms such as FireEagle, Loopt, Gowalla, or Rummble or any of another hundred or more LBS-services.
With more and more people going mobile, the niche-oriented businesses such as Foursquare and Yelp will become bigger and bigger players. Not only can you use them to connect with people, find a great restaurant or coffee shop or tire store, as a business you’ll find a competitive advantage by being first to be found by that small but growing number of people using the services.
Eric Lukazewski, the Marketing Director and trade show ninja (according to his Twitter bio!) at Echelon Exhibits in Chicago, discusses the company’s revamped website, social media marketing and Manny Ramirez’s arrival in Chicago.
The year: 2016
The scene: a busy tradeshow floor in Chicago
The situation: almost half of the exhibitors at the show are welcoming visitors to the show, who are ‘checking in’ via Foursquare (or some similar app – who’s to know what will survive that long). After then check in at the booth, they’re rewarded with a couple of spiffs. Maybe a free download just for show visitors, a store discount, or a chance to win something cool. Maybe they get a free one-on-one with the CEO. Doesn’t matter, could be anything of value. By checking in, they also automatically are asked if they want to opt-in to receiving special offers via text message or old-fashioned e-mail.
When visitors check the stats in Foursquare they see that hundreds of visitors have also checked in at the booth, as well as many others. There’s a thriving online community of people who are also connecting face-to-face thanks to location-based-marketing apps. It could be Facebook, could be Foursquare or any other of the LBS (location based services) apps that are thriving in the new, increasingly connected world. With the deep personal profiling that has grown in the past few years, it’s easy to connect with people who are interested in the same things, or have certain characteristics in common, such as location, similar job titles, or even off-job interests like golf or skiing. Meetings are arranged either by users or companies who have an interest in bringing these small groups together. Kind of like a Tweetup on steroids.
The scene is not that far from reality. Location based marketing is exploding. Mobile marketing is right behind. Some people are already starting to use the mobile and GPS tools to great effect. Sarah Perez writes on Read Write Web that the key to success for your location-base app is to find a way to reward people for their activities. So what’s your reward?
Indeed. Give something of value to a group of people that are hungry for that item and you’ve started opening the door to a new client-customer relationship.
While Lopez refers to a recent study by Forrester Research that shows ‘only 4% of U.S. online adults have ever used location-based apps such as these, and only 1% out of those that use them do so more than once per week’ – just think back to the middle part of the last decade where people were just getting excited about podcasting and blogging, both of which are now well established. Web 2.0 was the new buzz. Since 2005, the incredible growth of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has been the focus of countless media spotlights.
The world is going mobile, and GPS-related services and location-based marketing is poised to take off big time. There’s huge potential there for the masses. And even now, as the Forrester research points out, the current small group of users of Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, MyTown, Brightkite are all very influential. People look to them for opinions and leadership. Friend ask what they’re up to and who’d they buy from.
It may not be the time to jump into location-based marketing quite yet for a tradeshow, but if you did you would not be too far ahead of anyone.
photo credit: abulhussain
Life lessons are sometimes slow to present themselves. It wasn’t until I hit my 40s that the idea of ‘ask for what you want’ really came true for me. Now I do it all the time. Well, when I think of it and when it makes sense.
But it is amazing what you can get if you ask. Now I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to tie this to tradeshow marketing, but I bet it can be applied somewhere. Perhaps to a vendor, a client, a potential customer…somebody. If you want something, just ask!
For instance, I’m a Comcast cable subscriber. I’ve heard that many people through the years have not been happy with the service. Truthfully, it’s always been great for me. The few issues I’ve had have been handled promptly and courteously.
I got started with Comcast when I signed up one of those service bundles. You know the kind: they package internet, cable and phone service and give you a sweet deal so you’ll buy all of them. And of course it’s a limited offer; the price will go up after a year.
So I bought it knowing that the price would go up after a year (this was several years ago, by the way). At the end of the year I got the latest bill in the mail – which showed the increased pricing – and I decided to give them a call, since the price was going to go up about $30 a month.
“Hi, I’m a customer of about a year and I notice that the price for my bundled service expires. I’m actually shopping around and am interested in what you can do for me.”
“Hang on a minute, let me check.”
I wait for a moment before the service rep comes back. “I see that you’ve been paying your bills on time every month and that you’re currently paying X for the bundle. I can give you the current bundle price. It’s not the same as it was when you signed on, but it will still save you $20 a month. How does that sound?”
“Great! Thanks!”
Another example:
One of the credit cards I’ve had for several years hit me with an annual fee earlier this year. I hear that’s happened to a lot of people since the new rules went into effect. So I got on the horn to the service rep and asked if they’d mind waiving the fee. I told them if they didn’t I’d probably cancel the card. The balance at that point was $0 and it wasn’t a card I used a lot. Made sense to ask them if they’d drop the fee.
They checked my history (“you’re a long-time customer and we appreciate your business!”), and after a moment said they’d be glad to give me a one-time waiver on the fee. That saved me $39. If they try to hit me again next year with the feel, I’ll ask again to have them waive it. May not get it, but if I don’t ask it’s certain that I won’t.
One more example – this time I got a great deal by keeping my mouth shut. Sort of.
I was at the rental car kiosk in Anaheim a couple of years ago. I had reserved a compact car. They happened to be out of compact cars and told me they could upgrade me for a small fee. I politely said no because I’d been through this before and wanted to see what they were willing to do for me. In a sense I was silently asking to see what they could come up with instead of quickly agreeing to his first offer.
After a few minutes of poking around his computer, the agent said he could upgrade me for no extra charge to a Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible – one of the few cars they had available. Would that be okay?
Uh. Yeah. That’d work.
So I drove with the top down in a hot little sports car for four days in LA. My suitcase didn’t fit in the trunk but I was able to wedge it in the back seat area so I didn’t care – it was all good.
Point is: keep on asking. As a salesperson, keep on asking your customers for the business. If you’re setting up a tradeshow booth, ask the show services folks how they might upgrade your booth. Ask for a better space a few days before the show – perhaps someone has dropped out.
Ask to be upgraded to a suite at your hotel for no extra charge. Ask for a complimentary meal.
Ask. Ask. Ask!
You may not get it even if you ask.
You will definitely NOT get it if you DON’T ASK!
There always seems to be something new in the promotional products world. I recently was introduced to Matt McCabe of PromotionalProducts.org, who consented to be interviewed for a brief podcast.
Do you march to the beat of a different drummer? Or do you fall in behind other exhibitors, advertisers and marketers lock-step, following the same marketing and exhibiting methods that have been used for years?
I first heard the phrase ‘march to the beat of a different drummer’ when I was a pre-teen – just about the time I started to learn to play drums in the school band. Just about the time I was recognizing rock drummers such as Dave Clark, Ringo Starr and Charlie Watts.
YES! I thought. I play to a different drummer! Even though I had no idea what it really meant. I just assumed that it was a cool to march to your own beat – whatever that beat was.
Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not always a good thing to march to your own beat. Some people do that and end out on the fringe, where no one wants to follow and the audience is sparse. As a marketer, you’re looking for the largest possible audience for your specific message. For some products and companies, that market is in the millions. For others, it may be much smaller, in the hundreds or even dozens. Or less. Just depends.
Marching to the beat of a different drummer means to follow your instinct and gut as much as it means to follow the numbers or stick to a ‘tried-and-true’ path. In the conclusion to ‘Walden’, Thoreau writes, “If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.”
The creators, inventors and marketers who marched to a different drum were also ones who changed the world. Look at the life stories of folks like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple, Bill Gates of Microsoft, 3M’s Art Fry (who invented the Post-it note), Alexander Bain (fax machine – in the 1840s! – look it up) or one of many others who saw things differently.
At your next tradeshow, look around. Who is doing things differently? Is the wacky company that’s making a giant 7-foot-long shoe out of cardboard in their booth? Is it the company that chopped a VW bus in half to make a mini-micro bus to fit in their ten-foot booth? Is it the exhibitor that chopped and painted an industrial storage container and made it into a unique booth?
What grabs your attention? What draws crowds at events?
Now: what can you do in your tradeshow marketing efforts that show off your extraordinary beat to a different drum? And how can you do that in such a way that it gets people attention, invites them into your world, shows them that you are different in a good way, and yet doesn’t cross that imaginary line into fringe or bleeding edge?
And if you can do that, will you tell the rest of us how it’s done??
photo credit: dominic bartolini
Here are the slides from the July webinar I did as an introduction to Social Media:
