Here’s a novel idea: using the 3D Virtual Tour technology that is often used on real estate to allow potential buyers to virtually steer their way through the home, and use that tech to allow people to visit your tradeshow booth long after the show has ended.
That’s the topic of today’s interview on the TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee. Phil Gorski of Ova-Nee Productions spent a little time sharing how he started the company and how the technology works on a tradeshow booth.
At tradeshows, the game is all about attracting attention.
Have you considered a custom-printed floor?
Every client we’ve worked with that has chosen to use a
custom graphic on a printed floor has been happy with the result. They like it,
it looks good with the rest of the booth, and it gets positive comments from
their visitors.
There are a lot of different floor choices, but what I’m
talking about here is bringing the area below your feet into the overall graphic
design of the exhibit and booth area. When you incorporate a branding element
into the floor as part of the overall look, it adds POP and depth. Take a look
at these examples:
With Schmidt’s Naturals, their iconic flowery design spreads across the 10×40 space. It reinforces their overall brand. And when added to the clean and spare look of the rest of the exhibit elements, the colorful floor stands out.
Schmidt’s Naturals and their custom colorful flooring
Wildbrine chose a custom-printed floor that also added to the overall color scheme. The striped green and black floor added another dimension to the bright colors throughout the rest of their simple layout.
Wildbrine’s custom flooring of green and black stripes
Of course, you can create a custom look without printing a graphic below your feet. Another way is to use typical flooring but present it in unusual cuts or angles:
Dave’s Killer Bread/Alpine Valley’s custom-cut floor shows separation between two brands.
Another great example of a custom cut
Colorful tiles stand out!
Bring on the deck and a fake pool at Birch Benders
Whatever flooring you choose, there are any number of ways to make it stand out.
Disclosure: Dave’s Killer Bread, Schmidt’s Naturals and Wildbrine are clients of TradeshowGuy Exhibits; the others shown here are not.
The marketing funnel. It’s something I learned about years ago, but it’s interesting to reexamine now and then. Recently I attended the NAB Show in Las Vegas as a blogger and was asked by a few dozen companies if they could scan my badge. Once they scanned, I was put in the top of their tradeshow marketing funnel, even though they did exactly zero qualifying. See where this is leading?
When it comes to tradeshow marketing, the funnel does indeed
get interesting. As in any type of marketing, there are things you can control
and things you cannot. Scanning the badge of every person that comes through
your booth does indeed capture name and contact information and will likely
mean they’ll soon be getting emails from your company.
Let’s look at the tradeshow marketing funnel starting at the
very top.
The first step – the top of the funnel where its widest – is
the number of people attending a particular tradeshow that you’re setting up an
exhibit. For the sake of argument and easy math, let’s say it’s 100,000 people.
Do the Math
If you are one of 2000 exhibitors, that means you’re vying
for the attention of those 100,000 people along with 1,999 other exhibitors.
If the show is three days, 10 am – 5 pm, that means the show
floor is open for 21 hours. If each attendee walks the floor an average of four
hours a day and manages to visit one booth every five minutes, that means they
are visiting (again this is hypothetical and on average) 12 an hour, or 48 a
day, or 144 over the course of the show. If every attendee visited each
exhibitor at the same rate, you’d get about 13.9% of the 100,000 attendees to
stop by your booth, or 13,900 people. That’s 660 per hour, or about 11 per
minute. If a visitor stops by a booth every 2 ½ minutes, these numbers double.
But since people are unpredictable, let’s stay with the five-minute visit on
average.
Now – if those numbers are even close to real, what are you
doing to get their attention?
Are you giving out samples to visitors, doing product demos,
having one-on-one conversations? Or are you just randomly scanning badges of
every visitor even though they haven’t expressed any interest in your products
other than standing within scanning distance of the booth.
Every one of those interactions will mean that each person
will go into the top of the funnel, although admittedly they can’t be treated
equally because some will be more interested than others, some will be more
prepared to buy than others, and some are just kicking tires.
But they’re all in the marketing funnel. At this point we
can treat them equally.
For argument’s sake, let’s say that for every ten that visit
your booth, one expresses interest, enough interest to let them capture their
contact information.
That means some 66 people per hour have made at least an
initial commitment to let you invite them to the next step of the funnel. They
may have opted into an email list, agreed to have their badge scanned, or had a
conversation with someone in the booth. Again, assuming the show is open for 21
hours, you have approximately 1386 at the second level of your funnel.
Move People Through the Funnel
What do you do to move them along?
Here’s where the marketing funnel gets more interesting. Do
you simply email them? Or do you call them one-on-one to assess their real need
(or lack) to find out if they are a “hot” lead, “warm” lead or just a “cool”
lead that will be put on the back burner and perhaps inserted into a drip
campaign? Do you send them a sample? A PDF report of some sort?
An ideal tradeshow marketing campaign will have a number of
options available at the show, and each interaction should assess the visitor’s
desires and situation.
And let’s add one more step to the math.
Let’s say the average profit of your product is $10,000.
By adding up all the costs of your tradeshow appearance, you’re
spending $100,000 for this particulate show. That means you need to sell 10
customers to break even. If your average profit is $1,000, you’ll need 100
customers.
Anything more than those numbers, and the Return on
Investment on your tradeshow marketing plan is out of the red and into the
black.
But let’s take it one more step.
Improving Funnel Results
Let’s say that for every customer that purchases your premium product continues to purchase other products from you for an average of 7 years. The lifetime value of that customer acquisition just increased substantially, which means the money you spent at the tradeshow to come into contact with her means a lot more.
And if they’re a really happy customer, they may end up referring
a handful of new clients to you. Which makes that initial cost look better and
better with each passing year.
The more tradeshows you exhibit at, the more people you put
your products and services in front of. If you’re doing things right, or at
least learning from any mistakes you’ve made over the years and made adjustments,
your tradeshow marketing funnel will become less leaky. You’ll retain more of
the people that enter at the top.
We all have leaky marketing funnels. But by being aware of what works, what doesn’t and doing your best to maximize your returns, your results will keep improving. But it means paying close attention at every step. Keep asking your prospects what they need to learn, do they want to hear more, do they want a free sample or another product demo, or how they may want to interact with you and your company.
Once the tradeshow is over, it’s only natural to want to skedaddle
the premises and hightail it home as fast as possible.
But WAIT. Before you go, if you’re in charge of the exhibit
properties, or at least delegating the jobs to various entities, go over your
checklist.
That checklist may look something like this:
Dismantle: Whether you’re hiring a professional I&D crew or taking down the booth with a few fellow employees, make sure to check that all parts and pieces make it into the shipping containers. I can tell you from personal experience that things go missing: carpet pieces, crate endcaps, products and much more. If you are there, take photos as things are put in the crates. If you’re not there, have your hired crew take photos. Most will do so without being asking just for their own records, but by asking you’re making sure that it happens (usually). It also doesn’t hurt to make a shortlist of what is in each crate. I have lost track of the number of times a client has asked if we can track down some particular item a few months after the show. Know what crate to look in makes it that much easier.
Shipping: If you’re using a shipping company, be in good contact with your contact about the details, such as the BOL (Bill of Lading), shipping address, number of crates and pallets, etc. At big shows, sometimes trucks will check in at 9 am but it’ll be hours until they are actually able to pick up your crates. You’ll be billed for the waiting time, of course. Communicate all pertinent information to your trucker: pickup address, check-in time, move-out times – anything that is available from the show organizers. It’s usually (but not always) on the website.
Leads collected: the most important thing, at least as far as management and the sales team are concerned. No matter what form you have them in, digital or analog, triple-check to make sure they are getting safely back to the office.
Reserve your booth space for next year. This may or may not be on your list. But if it’s something your team typically does ahead of time, make sure it’s done.
Congratulate yourself on a job well done. Plan a little thank you gathering (dinner, coffee and goodies?) back at the office for your team to show them how much you appreciate them.
Look ahead to next year. It’ll come quicker than you might think!
Last time when you set up your tradeshow exhibit and lived
in it for a few days, did it feel cramped? Were you wishing you had another table
to sit down at with potential clients? Trying to cram too many products on too
few shelves?
Maybe it’s time for a new exhibit. So what’s holding you back?
It might be finances. Certainly that’s one of the biggest things that holds any company back. But beyond money, are you moving out of your comfort zone? It happens frequently. Many clients we work with at TradeshowGuy Exhibits have been using banner stands and pop-ups, which transport easily and take just a few moments to set up. Nothing wrong with that, but these companies have grown enough that they can afford a larger exhibit, one that not only looks good to give their brand a brand new look, but because it’s more complicated it needs to ship in a wooden crate using semi-trucks, it will likely need to be set up by an I&D (installation/dismantle) management crew.
What will your visitors think when you show off a new exhibit?
And yes, that moves many companies beyond their comfort zone.
Having been down that road with a lot of companies, we often help navigate that
path.
But if it’s money, there are ways to convince the purse
holders that it’s time to invest in a new booth.
First, consider what would happen if you did nothing for the
next 2-3 years. Your exhibit would be a few years older. Many of your
competitors might already have upgraded to a new exhibit which will look a lot
sharper than yours. How will your visitors then perceive your company compared
to those competitors? Remember that perception counts a lot, and almost nowhere
does it count as much as it does at tradeshows. Visitors there see you at your
finest. And if your finest comes up short from what you want and what your
visitors think you should be, that could be a problem.
Then again, maybe a new exhibit isn’t the answer. You might
be better off investing in booth staff training. Or pre-show marketing. By doing
this, you can still crank up the ROI on your tradeshow marketing investment and
put off the exhibit investment for a couple more years.
But if you are seriously considering a new exhibit, think
about who it will impact and how. Where will you store it? How much will it cost
to ship or setup and dismantle?
Understand how much time you’ll need to design and fabricate
the exhibit by talking to experience exhibit builders. Your new exhibit will
last you several years, maybe 5 to 7 or more depending on the type of exhibit
and how you use it.
Once you’ve decided that it’s a good move to pitch the
powers-that-be, be prepared. Contact a few exhibit houses to understand their
processes and timelines required, along with budget ranges for the size and
type of exhibit you’re considering.
Make a written description of the exhibit requirements. When
pitching the boss, offer a reasonable price range for the project, how long it’ll
take to amortize the cost (3, 5, 7+ years), do your best to explain how the
next exhibit will increase your lead generation (three clients in the past
three years have told us that the increased size of the exhibit and the newness
of it tripled their leads at the first show!).
Show the “soft” return on the exhibit, such as the impact
the new look will have on your current customers who see the positive direction
your company is taking. Or on the employees, who see the same thing.
There are a lot of things that might be holding
you back from investing in a new exhibit. But with careful planning and working
with the right partners, you can create an environment and a situation where
the new exhibit can become a reality.
During a recent Tip Club networking group gathering, the topic turned to “hesitation” and how we often hesitate instead of moving forward. It got me to thinking about how we approach moments in life where we choose to hesitate. Why?
Also, a tradeshow tip of the week and this week’s ONE GOOD THING:
Good infographics communicate information in a way that no article alone can and these 100+ digital marketing stats are no exception. This new post from VisualCapitalist.com draws research from Hubspot, BrightEdge, Statista, FoundationInc, OptinMonster and many others to illustrate results that marketers get from email, social media, mobile, paid advertising, lead generation, content marketing and others. Yes, this is digital only, but so many tradeshow marketers are combining digital marketing with their face-to-face marketing, that it made sense to not only show a bit of the infographic, but link to it. Here’s a link to the blog post; here’s a link to the infographic itself. Or click the graphic below and go direct to the graphic which we’ve put on this blog.
We all wish we had that idea that spread like wildfire.
Hotmail, or Napster, for instance. But with so many millions of ideas floating
to the surface of people’s minds on a daily basis, how do you get something to
spread?
Tradeshows, surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly), are
naturally built to spread ideas. There are lots of mediums that can spread
ideas: books, podcasts, radio shows, TV shows, online video, email, and so on.
But tradeshow marketing has a few advantages (and a few disadvantages, which we’ll
look at shortly).
The big advantage of using the medium of tradeshows to
spread an idea, whether it’s a product or service that you’re marketing, is
that you have a gathering of people that are specifically interested in your
products. Or at least they’re specifically interested in the market in which
your product sits. Another advantage is that the attendees usually have a lot
of influence in the company they work for and the market that they work in.
Which means if they see an idea they like a lot, one that resonates with them
or helps them out, they’ll talk about it. They’ll spread the idea to others
that can also spread it, or act on the product or service represented by the
idea.
What about the disadvantages? Even though the attendees at
the show have a lot of influence, it’s somewhat of a closed system. If you want
the idea to spread outside of the market that the tradeshow addresses, you’ll
need to go beyond. Having said that, perhaps that’s not even important.
Another disadvantage that tradeshow have as far as spreading ideas is that it’s largely a marketing effort, not an effort to spread an idea. But it can be done. I think back to 2009 when I attended Outdoor Retailer Summer Market in Salt Lake City. In promoting his new cameras, several times a day GoPro CEO Nick Woodman would stand on a table in the company booth, and shout and scream and give away t-shirts and other swag, and finally give away a few new cameras. His enthusiasm, hype and excitement simply could not be ignored if you were within hearing distance. To win, you had to sign up on one of their kiosks and opt in to an email list – and you had to be there to win when they gave away the goodies. They stilluse thesame approach (without Nick, though); I saw them do the same thing at NAB Show earlier this month.
GoPro’s Nick Woodman spreading an idea at Outdoor Retailer in 2009
At the time, the idea of a standalone “action camera” was
new. By using tradeshows as a marketing platform, or marketing medium, GoPro
was able to spread the idea of the standalone cameras right when the
competition was the new smartphone, and older digital cameras. But the GoPro could
be attached to your helmet, your torso or even to a skateboard or surfboard or
whatever – and with the wide-angle lens, it captured exciting and dynamic footage.
The idea was so new and unusual, it created a new genre of cameras, which have
been replicated by other companies in an effort to compete.
If the product or service brings with it such a forceful
idea, it can definitely spread like a virus. And tradeshows can be used
effectively to help launch the idea into the wider world.
Less than three weeks after a just-completed tradeshow, I
heard from an exhibitor I’d met at the show. He was interested in looking at
doing something new for next year’s show, which was still more than eleven
months away.
I commended him for being on top of it! His response was
that they waited too long last time around and they didn’t want to let it
happen again next year.
So what can you do now that this year’s big expo show is
over to prepare for next year’s show, even though it’s almost a year away? Let’s
count a few:
Plan ahead. Seems simple. But so many companies I talk to end up waiting until the last moment. There is no urgency to act until the dates in the calendar are nearer than you thought possible! Reach out to the various entities you may end up working with, whether it’s a current exhibit house, design house, graphic designer or whomever, and discuss your plans. You’ll get a sense of how much time things take which will give you much-needed information to put together a workable plan.
Find out what things will cost. In the case of a new exhibit, not just updating graphics on a current exhibit, you’ll need to determine how much the investment might be. There are industry averages, there’s your budget, and there’s your wish list. At some point these will all have to meet in the middle. If you’re unsure of how much your budget is, and how much things might cost, the sooner you gather that information the better prepared you’ll be as you move forward. Learning the cost of a potential new booth helps craft and shape the budget. Knowing your budget helps craft the final design.
Determine to the best of your ability what products and services you’ll be promoting. In most cases, clients we work with put this off until much closer to the show mainly because they want to have a handle on what will be available for sampling, when products or services launch and so on. At this point in your design discussions, you will likely leave placeholder graphics in place. But knowing if you have eight new products, or three, or fifteen, will help the direction of the design.
If you are not sure if you’ll continue to work with your current exhibit house, talk to several vendors. Each one will offer strengths and advantages; some will have obvious weaknesses for your specific goals. Learn as much as possible about them, speak to their current clients, learn about how the process went. Some companies will be a good fit and others won’t – there’s no real right and wrong. Often, it’s just a feeling, but feelings are important. All things being equal, people like doing business with people they like and get along with.
Take your time. If you’re more than half a year out, you have lots of time to ponder things. Run ideas by other people. Brainstorm some in-booth activities. Research what’s worked for others. The more time you are able to take, the more comfortable you’ll be with the decisions you finally reach. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll take a lot of time making decisions. Some people make snap decisions that are absolutely right. Maybe that’s you.
Finalize the plan. Get the various entities (vendors, designers, booth staff) lined up and make sure they’re all on board with the plan. Confirm the timeline, and add in a little buffer time for unexpected circumstances.
Once the show is underway next year with few to no glitches, congratulate yourself for getting so far ahead of the project!