I must get two dozen webinar invitations a week. On average, I attend one or two a week. Some are useful, most are not that great.
So is the webinar-as-promotion tool saturated? Overused? I suppose it depends on where you’re coming from. Many attend webinars, but even more people do not. And most companies don’t use webinars to show their expertise on a specific subject.
Webinars are useful when they are narrow, drilled-down topics, when they’re used to show expertise or to promote a specific product or skill.
But I think the exhibit industry is missing one area where a webinar might prove to be a very useful promotional tool: to promote an appearance at an upcoming tradeshow.
Here’s a brief video I put together to explore this topic:
Among all of the various promotion tools at your disposal, one of the best branding and outreach tools is a personal or company blog. I admit that this blog has brought me business and gotten me speaking gigs, so as much work as I put into it, I think it’s worth the time.
So the question is: are you blogging? If not, why not? If you are, what are you blogging about?
Here’s a collection of short videos I put together recently on how blogging might be best approached. The whole collection of five videos come to almost an hour of training, so if you can’t watch them now, bookmark this page!
Blogging 101: WHY You Should Consider Blogging
Blogging 101: Naming your blog and more
Blogging 101: Creating Great Posts
Blogging 101: Nuts and Bolts of WordPress (and other platforms)
One way to learn is to see what other people have done. You learn from both successes and failures. Here are stories of three successful efforts at using social media to promote events or appearances at tradeshows.
Check out these three short videos.
Let’s start with Portland, Oregon’s gDiapers – maker of eco-friendly kid pants:
And then move on to a US company called Relevansi that managed a multi-country, duo-hemisphere event long distance:
Finally to Criterion, a company in the manufacturing sector that used social media to get more leads and attention at a tradeshow:
iPads and tablets are pretty cool. The concept of having a hand-held tablet with amazing computer power has apparently taken over the world (thanks, Apple!) and launched a dizzying array of imitators and competitors. In spite of the competition, the iPad remains the most popular tablet, especially among tradeshow exhibitors.
In fact, several companies are now vying for your business by designing and creating iPad stands or kiosks which present the iPad to your visitors so they can interact.
But exactly what all can you do with that iPad in a kiosk?
And why would you want one?
If you have a problem getting information to people in a timely way at a tradeshow, an iPad stand might be the answer. If you have a need to engage people in an entertaining way, an iPad kiosk might be the solution. If you have a goal in mind that fits with one of the following ideas, an iPad kiosk may be the ticket!
While this is certainly not intended to be the complete list, use it as a thought-starter. Perhaps you can come up with other ideas on how that iPad kiosk can be used.
Product Demos: a visitor stops and with a few touches, is seeing how others use your product and how they might envision how it would work for them.
Photograph album: people love photographs, right? Of course: just look at the success of photo-sharing apps and sites such as Flickr or Instagram. With beautiful photos, you can show how other customers use your product or engage in your service. Depending on what your product is, those photographs can show details they might otherwise see, or the inside story of how it’s made. Lots of possibilities here.
Sign up for newsletters: want to capture a visitor’s email or other contact information? Set up a sign-up sheet for your regular newsletter (you do have a newsletter, don’t you?).
Send information without having to print something: face it, a tradeshow can be burdensome if you’re collecting sell sheets or printed product information. But you can encourage people to sign up for free PDF’s that can be sent via email, thus avoiding having to carry home a piece of paper. Eco-friendly – and it ends up in their email inbox instead of the round file.
Games: does your product or service lend itself to a short interactive game? You might consider having an app designer put something together that lets visitors learn about your stuff in a fun and engaging way by creating a game around it.
Product design: many items, such as clothing or house paint, lend themselves to an interactive experience where the user can compare one color with another to see how they like it.
Survey: want to do some market research? Setting up a short survey on an iPad kiosk allows folks to chime in on those questions which keep you up at night. You can keep it anonymous, or offer a small prize in exchange for their name and email address.
Quiz: perhaps your product can be positioned in such a way that a brief quiz is engaging. Come up with a handful of multiple choice questions or trivia questions to engage people.
These are just a few of the ways in which an iPad kiosk might help to engage visitors at your booth. Can you come up with anymore?
In the meantime, here’s a quick video from our iPad Kiosk supplier, Classic Exhibits, that shows how you might set up your own iPad kiosk. Remember, if this can solve a problem or satisfy a need if will be a worthy investment.
Check out the pricing at our Exhibit Design Search right now on iPad and Surface kiosks.
We haven’t met before, but I thought I might take a few moments to share some thoughts on your upcoming quest to find a new tradeshow booth consultant to assist with design and fabrication.
Bob’s Red Mill custom booth at Expo West 2013
First – congratulations! Tradeshow marketing is one of the most effective ways of marketing – IF you do it right. If you do it wrong, it can possibly be the biggest waste of marketing dollars you’ll spend this year. And if you do it wrong, you’ll have little to show for it. And if that happens, your mind will be poisoned with the thought that tradeshow marketing is a WASTE of TIME AND MONEY!
But…if done right, tradeshow marketing can be the BEST way to spend marketing dollars. Why? First, it brings you face-to-face with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people that are in the market for what you’re selling.
Second, it gives you a chance to establish a brand in visitors’ minds in just a few short seconds as they approach your booth. That brand can be reinforced by a well-trained staff once those visitors spend a few moments at your booth.
Third, it can cut the cost and the length of the sales cycle. By meeting people at a tradeshow and qualifying them (or disqualifying them as the case may be), you can quickly determine where they are in their pursuit of your product or service. That also quickly determines your next step – which can be confirmed with them before they leave your booth.
Finally, while tradeshow marketing can be exhausting, it can also be FUN. You can get your team away from the office to a far away city. By getting people out of their comfort zone, they tend to depend on each other. By focusing on the exhibiting task at hand during the day, you build trust and respect and confidence in your team. By letting off a little bit of steam after hours with each other, you help each of them appear more real.
So, what to do first?
Here’s a quick checklist before you choose an exhibit and design team.
Know your goals. Define those goals and be specific. Even though the overall goal of tradeshow marketing – any kind of marketing – is to grow the business and bring in more sales, each show may have a slightly different goal because of the nature of the show. If you plan to exhibit only once a year, it may work to try different exhibit companies out. But if you plan to exhibit several times a year, take your time to work with an exhibit consultant that you are comfortable with and enjoy working with personally. If an exhibit house is competent – and certainly most are – the most important factor is how well you get along with them.
Understand the timeline. If you are looking to purchase a small ten-foot inline booth from a catalog, you really don’t need much time to do that. Graphic design will usually take the most at this point. On the other hand, if you’re building a 30×30 custom booth, plan on several months. A recent large custom booth our company worked on took about 8 months from the kick-off meeting to the set-up at the show. Know your timeline and build in extra time for reviews and speed bumps – you’ll always have them. A good tradeshow project management knows what a realistic timetable is and can advise you on what it will take depending on what you want.
Know your budget, and remember that exhibits can be expensive. If you don’t have a realistic idea up front what your company is able to spend for a tradeshow booth for design and fabrication, it can get awkward awful quick! Any reputable designer will not start on a design until he knows how much a company has to spend. A good consultant will likely start the conversation by sharing industry averages, and then explaining how their company’s pricing compares to those numbers. For a quick rule of thumb, for inline booths, expect to spend around $100 a linear foot. For custom island booths, the price can range upwards from about $140 per square foot. Electrics and special lighting can drive the cost up, but those are good rules of thumb to start with.
Plan on training your team. Even if it’s a small show with just a couple of staffers, it pays to be prepared. When your team knows how to quickly qualify and disqualify visitors, it will immediately increase the lead count. Booth etiquette is important, too. No eating, talking on cell phones, standing with arms crossed, etc. All of those behaviors – and more – keep visitors away.
There’s more than just the show – there’s pre-show marketing and post-show follow up. Before the show, your company should be reaching out to potential visitors, informing them of the tradeshow appearance, and what you’ll be doing there: new products/services, special appearances, contests, etc. A social media marketing full press before the show will help draw interest and people to the show and to your booth. A good tradeshow marketing consultant will be able to assist you with planning and execution of your pre-show marketing. Post-show follow up is twofold: sales and marketing. Sales will be following up on all of those leads based on urgency; marketing will be taking content created from the show (videos, photographs, etc) and dripping them out via social media and other outlets to not only remind people of your appearance, but to tease them a bit for next year’s show.
Designate a point person for all ‘official’ communication between your company and the consultant company. While your company may have a marketing team all chiming in with their opinions on the design and fabrication process, when you designate a single person to funnel all communication through, decisions become easier – and final. If the team decides that the color is blue and the point person communicates that to the consultant company’s point person, then that decision is final and the process moves forward.
Jump in! Once the kick-off meeting is underway, trust the process. If you’ve never gone through the process of designing and fabricating a tradeshow booth that fits your company’s needs, keep in mind that your consultant has done it – many times. They’re professionals. Trust them to stay in touch and guide you through the many decision points you’ll have along the way. Follow the designer’s lead and offer your candid assessment of the design and watch how it changes until it becomes a final product ready to be fabricated. Trust your graphic designers. Trust your instinct.
By following this checklist, you’ll go into your booth project with eyes open.
Tradeshows can wield a terrific impact for businesses. The effect of waves of people coming to your tradeshow booth to find out more about what you do – and buying from you – can be great for the bottom line.
The thing is that trade shows can be crowded, and you need to work hard to set yourself apart from the competition. That can be accomplished in person with great banners, marketing materials, and branding. But there are things that you can also do with social media to generate a buzz that will keep people talking for a long time.
Use Twitter Hashtags to communicate – Twitter hashtags are a great way to make sure that the conversation keeps going. If people have a question after they leave your tradeshow booth, or simply want to talk about what they saw, they can leave a tweet with the tradeshow hashtag. That way they can be sure that the right people see what they’re talking about.
Hashtags are simply the pound sign immediately before a word on a tweet. It makes them searchable in Twitter, so anyone attending the show, or looking to find out more information, can find it.
Use giveaways – Are you giving some promotional products away at your Nimlok tradeshow booth? You can use these items to spark a little interest online. Mentioning them on your Facebook page or in a tweet can motivate people to make an appearance, and see what you have to offer in person.
Why not let people know that you’ll have a free _____________ to the first 100 people? If what you’re giving away is truly valuable, it may just be the incentive to get them to come earlier, creating a demand.
Preview your exhibits at the show – Do you have something great planned for your tradeshow booth? Facebook and Twitter are the perfect place to give your customers and fans a little taste of what they’ll be in for on the tradeshow floor.
What aspects of your industry or business are you highlighting? Is there something specific that you’re looking to promote? This is the place to expand your reach and get in front of people. Letting people know what they can expect ahead of time can increase the crowd.
Use QR Codes – Your marketing doesn’t have to be strictly from the online world to the trade show floor. You can use your tradeshow presence to drive people back to your website and social platforms and create more long term relationships. This can be achieved easily through the use of QR codes. You can put these simple codes on any of your marketing materials, and when your customers scan them, it will return them to a specific website of your choice.
You can send them to your Facebook page, if you want them to become a fan. You can send them to your blog if that’s where you’re publishing your best content. You can send them to a Pinterest page, if that’s where some of the best pictures of your work reside. The possibilities are endless. This is a great way to keep people wanting more.
Use The Same Graphics And Logo – You worked hard to come up with the perfect banners, branding and message for your offline tradeshow presence. Don’t throw that all away. Make sure that your Facebook and Twitter cover photos incorporate the same design. This will help keep a consistent look and feel between your offline business and your online presence.
About the author: Matthew Brennan is a marketing writer based in the Chicago area. He regularly writes about content marketing, blogging, and engaging with your audience. He has been published on ProBlogger, Soshable, and Business2Community. Connect with Matthew on his website, www.matthewlbrennan.com, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+.
The following is a guest post by Amanda of It’s Blogworthy.
Several years ago, trade shows were a completely different type of event. Vendors spent time face-to-face with clients, but after clients moved to the next booth, the interaction was essentially over. Marketers at trade show events worked tirelessly to bring customers in to their company’s area with giveaways, door prizes and specialty items.
In the past few years, trade shows have become an interactive event that begins before the show starts and doesn’t end until far after the booths have been packed up. Although marketers still use traditional materials (free pen, anyone?) social media has allowed them to connect with clients and potential clients in a whole new way. Will you be attending a trade show soon? Download the best apps for trade shows and check out these five ideas for making the most of social media at your next trade show.
Promote your attendance before the trade show begins on Facebook to build excitement about the event. Encourage customers who will be attending the event to visit your awesome Nimlok booth, and use your social channels to engage with them before you set foot at the event. Create a Facebook event and invite your customers, which can help you see what kind of traffic your booth might have. Use questions and polls to gauge interest. During the event, post up-to-the-minute pictures and behind-the-scenes shots of your booth, and don’t forget to post a post-event wrap-up.
Use Twitter to connect with your customers and other vendors using the official hashtag for the event. You can use this hashtag to judge social media interest in the event and seek out your target audience. Twiter is a great way to break the ice before the event and establish friendly relationships with potential customers, which may encourage them to stop by your booth when they arrive. Twitter is also a great way to connect with reporters, media outlets and influencers who will be covering the event; you may be able to spread news about promotions or company news through these channels.
If you have products that can be demoed – or an especially charismatic sales rep who will be attending the trade show – YouTube can be a great marketing tool before your trade show, during and after. Think about creating a series of videos hyping up your booth and sharing it through your social media channels and on the official hashtag for your event. At the trade show, take a quick video of your booth in action, or short interviews with individuals who stop by your booth (especially if he or she has a large social media network and may re-share your content.) YouTube makes it easy to create fun, informative videos and get them out to your audience quickly.
Create a Foursquare listing for your booth and encourage people to check in when they stop by. Foursquare may not be utilized by an extremely wide audience, but for the tech crowd, “mayorships” and badges can be highly sought-after social media rewards. Also, offer a prize for checking in to encourage the use of this channel with your audience.
Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare are all fun ways to enhance your trade show experience, but LinkedIn may be the way to close the deal with new clients or customers. Encourage them to join your company’s LinkedIn page to learn more about your business and connect on a professional level. You can also use your LinkedIn channel to promote professional development seminars or speaking engagements during the trade show event.
About the author: Amanda is a social media manager for a health care organization by day and a blogger and freelance writer by night. She’s also a mom to an amazing 2 year-old boy and wife to a great guy who indulges all her celebrity gossip. Amanda loves coffee, fashion, social media, and cats (not always in that order.) Her work has been published on family.com and blogher.com. Visit Amanda’s blog, It’s Blogworthy or follow her on Twitter and Google+.
A tradeshow attracts all sorts of people: vendors, exhibitors, store owners, tradeshow managers, booth handlers and more. They all have different goals at the show. But it’s safe to say that many of them end up doing a lot of the same tasks with a smart phone or iPad, which means that many use the same apps.
Here is a list of apps I’ve used a past tradeshow junkets that come in handy. Some are essential while others are just nice have.
Google Maps
Whether you use Google Maps of the native iPhone mapping app, getting from Point A to Point B in a rental car should be as easy as possible.
Alarm Clock
Yeah, who needs the hotel alarm clock when you have your clock app? I was glad I had it the time the power went out at the hotel!
Camera
Having a camera on your smart phone can be the handiest thing you’ll ever use. Need a picture of a booth? Want to record a quick video testimonial?
The Weather Channel
Yes, you spend most of your time inside, but knowing what’s going on outside can help you adjust travel and meeting schedules.
Wikipedia
You could just open up your web browser, but the Wikipedia app makes it that much easier to look up something specific.
AAA
Driving a rental car means you assume risks. AAA’s app is very useful in helping you get roadside assistance, searching for hotels, and perhaps cashing in on member-only deals.
WC Finder
Out walking and need a potty? The WC Finder may help you out. I say ‘may’ because it doesn’t always have accurate information – although I’ve found it is correct more often than not.
GasBuddy
You have to fill up the rental car before returning it. This app gives you easy access to the closest, lowest-priced gasoline.
Hidden
Helps find your iPhone if you lose it. Of course, you’ll need a laptop or an iPad or you’ll have to coordinate with someone back in the office to find it, but Hidden is great at tracking lost iPhones.
ATT Scanner
One of many QR code scanners on the market.
Vine
Is Vine a source of silly six-second videos or does it help capture a client’s buzz and help spread it around? Once you try it, you may find you like it.
Twitter
Set up your account to ping you whenever you get an @reply. Great way to keep up with online buzz by searching hashtags.
Facebook
Post photos, updates and more quickly.
Foursquare
Check into places – you might even learn something about the area or see that a client or prospect is on Foursquare, too.
Carbonite
This has saved me more times than I can remember. Back up the computers at home and have immediate access to any archived file, like a forgotten set-up drawing or contact information. Easy to view and download files, which you can then forward via email.
Dropbox
Much the same as Dropbox, although there are strong differences. Dropbox can have shared files and folders, which can give clients access to files with more ease than Carbonite.
Evernote
While I’ve used this app for a couple of years, I know that I haven’t come close to using all of its features. Those that do rave about it for file clipping and saving things that you can easily access on any device.
Appzilla
99 apps in one, including things like auto camera, Clinometer, Decibel measurement, flashlight, Plumb Bob, Sleep Aid and even a ton of fun things like generating a fake phone call or fake text when you just have to have a good excuse to get out of a meeting.
Instagram
Everyone is here posting filtered photos, are you? Not essential, but lots of eyeballs there.
Pinterest
Great place to view and post photos of clients, booths, meetings, people and more.
Are you going to a tradeshow simply to sell products?
Right! Of course you are!
But seriously, there’s more to a tradeshow than just selling. Among other things, there’s no doubt that you’re there to build brand equity and credibility.
From a practical standpoint, your tradeshow booth not only has to function to meet your exhibiting goals, but the booth itself should shout “THIS IS US!” without anyone saying a word.
From the look and feel of your booth to the style of interaction with your visitors, anyone who drops by should go away with a distinct feeling of what your brand is all about.
Marquis Spas at Aqua Show
Having seen the design process from initial discussion to final fabrication and set-up, I can say that creating a booth that helps build brand equity is not an easy thing. It’s also not that hard. Anyone who’s been with the company for a few years knows the brand inside and out. They know who their customers are, they can describe the brand in a sentence or two and they know how their products are perceived in the marketplace. They also know how they separate their brand from their competition.
All early discussions in a booth-building process should focus on the brand: who you are, what you do, how does the marketplace perceive you, etc. You have collateral on hand that aptly demonstrates the brand. All of this will be communicated to the designer, who – if she’s competent – can craft a design that does indeed should “THIS IS US!” to any tradeshow visitor.
Beyond the look and feel and function of the booth, though, when you exhibit at a tradeshow, you are giving visitors the most important aspect of your brand: your representatives. These are usually employees, although some reps may be hired professionals, which should know your business and product line inside and out. They should be 100% aware of the company’s goals at the show – and how those show goals may differ from other shows – so that if any visitors pops an unusual question, they can address it confidently, whether it means finding someone who knows the right answer, or if it’s even a question that should not be answered at all.
A visitor will not stop at every booth at a tradeshow. That’s impossible – there’s not enough time! A visitor will leave the booths they visit with a strong impression of the company. That impression will be gathered from the few moments they stop at a booth: the look and feel of the booth and the interaction of the staff, and the product offerings. Miss one of the links in the chain, and the impression may be easily outweighed by one or more of your competitors.
The way you draw your visitor to your booth also plays into their perception of your brand. Did they receive an email invitation? A direct mail piece? Did they see a tweet or read about your appearance on Facebook or Google+?
Every bit of the pre-show invitations and post-show follow-up should adhere to the line of building brand equity.
The sum of all of these efforts is the final impression that your visitor receives from your show appearance. How many pieces are you missing? How many are complete?
