Two conversations I had this week starkly illustrated the vast difference between companies and their approach to show prep and post-show follow up.
In one instance, I was speaking with a potential client about their upcoming schedule for 2016. The gentleman told me that he was relatively new with the company, having come from a much larger company with about ten times the amount of employees. He had been the coordinator of all of the company’s tradeshow marketing efforts – which were big. The new company had an ambitious schedule, too, and he went into some detail about what it took to prepare for the show in terms of logistics, promotion, planning, tradeshow giveaways and so on, and then he went into detail about how much information they brought home from each show in terms of data and sales leads and how much time it took to digest and disseminate that material throughout the company.
In other words, they rocked it. Deep and wide. No stone left unturned as it were.
Contrast that to a conversation I had a day later with a consultant who worked with dozens of companies to help them ramp up their abilities to engage with attendees, gather sales leads and create a plan for follow up.
“It astonishes me how many companies still don’t have a clue. They wait until two weeks before the show and call me and want help doing promotion and preparing. Fact is, they should have called me six months earlier,” he said.
So there’s definitely a large real-world spectrum of how much involvement companies have in their tradeshow strategy, preparation and engagement. Some get it and are taking every competitive advantage available to them. Others are shooting from the hip and hoping to get something good out of the show.
Twitter is a great source for a lot of things: breaking news, rants and raves, tracking of stories and trends. So nearly every day I’ll spend a few moments to see what’s being offered in the #tradeshow world.
It’s a mix of blatant self-promotion, informative articles and out-of-the-box posts that make ya just scratch your head.
Let’s take a look at a few that I found recently:
First, the good stuff. @CorporateFX posted a link to their daily Paper.li postings, and included a link to 35 Experts Predict the Events That Will Shape Your Future, courtesy of EventBrite. Future prognosticating? Great reading, even if it’s wrong. At this point, we just don’t know!
And then, without naming names, I came across blatant pitches to rent a monitor, buy a booth, check out designs and more. Nothing wrong with that, unless it’s all you do with your Twitter account. I wouldn’t name names because they know who they are. I’m sure I’ve done it, too. But that’s not all I do.
And as for those goofy off the wall posts? Naah, not so much. The #tradeshow world is not populated by too many goofy people. We all take this stuff seriously. Even me. Sometimes.
Check out the #tradeshow hashtag tracking on Twitter now and then. Along with #eventprofs. Another good one from the event world.
“…Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest.”
That’s a line from a Paul Simon song, The Boxer, recorded by Simon and Garfunkel.
And it happens all the time. “Selective hearing,” according to my wife, and perhaps many other spouses.
But does that sort of thing happen on the tradeshow floor? Do people see what they want to see and disregard the rest?
Do people see that cool, shiny new product and disregard the great support that your team offers for every purchase?
Do your visitors see the famous author in your booth, wait in line for a free autographed copy of her new book, and yet fail to see the great products that you’re selling?
Do attendees see the giant spinning logo above your booth but fail to see how your company’s story relates to them?
Of course, there’s no way that everybody at a show will see every aspect of your (or other) booths.
So what are they missing that you might do a better job at communicating to them?
Tradeshows cost time and money. A lot. So how do you differentiate from the thousand other exhibitors all vying for attention?
One way is to become a person of interest at the tradeshow. Here are a few ways to stand out from the crowd.
Be a speaker, or participate in a panel presentation. Typically these slots are open to company management, so if one of your management team is good at delivering a presentation or speaking extemporaneously in a panel situation, work to get them involved. Depending on the show, this kind of exposure can do wonders for word of mouth, especially if the presentation is top-notch. When I’ve given presentations at tradeshows, no matter how many people were in the audience, there were always a handful that wanted to pigeonhole me right afterwards and talk shop. Some have become clients.
You want more ways to become a person of interest? If you’re good, give demonstrations in the booth.
What about one-on-one interactions with booth visitors? You can be interesting by being energetic, outgoing, and asking a lot of questions. And if you have good stories, tell them. Everyone should have at least three good stories. At a party, they could be about things you’ve done or how you’ve lived. But at a tradeshow, if you have three good stories about the business, your products and how they impacted customers, share them.
Above all, if you want to be a person of interest at a tradeshow, just be an interesting person.
A tradeshow is a perfect opportunity to track stuff: sales, leads, visitors, and so on. Here’s a quick list of things you might consider measuring at each show. It’ll give you a chance to not only compare different shows, but it’ll help you track trends at different appearances at the same show year after year.
Sales. The key indicator of your success. The challenge with tracking sales from tradeshows is that you may get a sale in another 6 months, year or two years as a result of a single appearance. Be aware of where sales come from and track them to their source if you’re able.
Leads. Not quite as critical as sales, but a key indicator of the success of your overall tradeshow program. Identify cool, warm and hot leads and follow up appropriately.
New customers. Sales are great, but what percentage came from new customers?
Visitors. While many exhibitors don’t normally track booth visitors, if you can get a handle on at least an accurate ballpark number of booth visitors from show to show, that information will come in handy.
Samples. Do you give away samples, such as food or flash drives or swag? Keep track.
Demonstrations and attendance. Do you have a professional presenter at your booth? Keep track of how many are given each day and make a headcount of attendees.
Social media content. How many tweets, photos, videos and blog posts are you generating as a result of your appearance? Check things such as how many times your tweets were re-tweeted, or how many times your hashtag was mentioned, the numner of times you received an @ reply. If you saw a spike in Twitter followers or Facebook fans or Instagram followers during the show appearance, track that information.
Other online engagement. Do you steer people to your website during tradeshows? Did social media engagement drive traffic to your site? If you create a specific landing page for visitors, track the traffic on that. If you give away digital assets such as downloadable PDFs, white papers or product sell sheets, track that.
Finally, track the ROI. To calculate the ROI, divide the gross profit minus the cost of the show by the cost of the show. It will look like this:
ROI = (Gross Profit – Cost of the show) / Cost of the show.
For example, if it cost you $200,000 for the booth, travel, lodging, salaries, food, parties, transportation, etc., and you know that six months later the business generated as a direct result of the show was $359,000, you’d write the equation like this:
ROI = ($359,000 – $200,000) / $200,000
ROI = $159,000 / $200,000 = 79.5%
Measure as much as you can. You’ll be glad you did!
What’s the single most important thing you can do prior to your next show to save money? You might be surprised.
Tradeshow exhibiting can be expensive. So as an exhibitor, you’re always looking for ways to cut costs!
Just in time for 2016 planning, Mel White of Classic Exhibits recently teamed up with Handshake.com and gave a webinar aimed directly at you if you’re trying to cut costs in your tradeshow marketing.
From rental exhibits, to non-hanging-hanging signs (yes!), to cost-cutting in your graphic production, Mel gives you two dozen-plus items to consider.
Upon the release of my new book Tradeshow Success, as you may know (or not!), I offered free downloads of the digital version of the book (click here to get yours).
An interesting thing then happened. As exhibitors got their hands on it, one question has come up a number of times:
“I need help with pre-show marketing, so I was glad to see it addressed in the book.”
I’ve had conversations with a few of these people, and their position is clear: they’re not doing any pre-show marketing, or doing so little they know that they can do better.
In the book, I address pre-show marketing, promotion and preparation a number of times. For example in Step 3, “Getting Ready for the Big Dance,” Wally, one of the fictional characters in the book, discusses his pre-show preparations:
“There’s pre-show marketing and promotion, staff training, booth preparation, product and service preparation, show research, generating public relations, engaging social media, sales and lead-generation prep and so much more.”
So yes…there’s a lot to cover.
When I chatted with these exhibitors, I suggested that if they were starting from zero (and many were), they don’t try to do it all at once simply because it can be overwhelming. Find two or three things that they know they can get done either in-house, or by hiring someone to help out.
That may mean doing outreach via email and direct mail to remind customers and potential customers that you’re going to be at the show and giving them the details.
It might mean focusing on media and PR for this particular show and working to create reasons for reporters and media outlets to be interested in your business, as well as beginning to develop relationships with those that cover the industry.
It might mean ramping up your social media team to be ‘all hands on deck’ as the chatter around the show starts a few weeks prior, and to be onsite during the show taking videos and photographs and tweeting and sharing that information online.
Pre-show marketing is art as much as it is science. And as in all art and science, there’s no one answer that fits all situations. What works this year may not work next year. What works at one show may show poor results at next month’s show in a different location.
I believe the key to success in pre-show marketing is to pick a tactic or two or three, work it to the best you can, measure the results, make some adjustments and work to improve it at the next show.
Before you launch your pre-show marketing effort, make sure you have measurable and trackable goals in place. For example, if you came home with 45 strong leads at the last show, you might want to shoot for 60 this show. If you gave out 550 samples of your product, you might want to try and give away 650 this year. Or you want to get two article written about your business or products in industry press.
Whatever the goal, make it achievable and measurable. And have the personnel and methods in place to track those goals.
You want a successful tradeshow exhibit design and fabrication process, naturally. A number of factors come into play in the process, including (but not limited to) the timeline. When do you start the process?
It depends upon your current status: do you already have a booth and simply want to upgrade, or are you starting from scratch? Do you want to move up from a small 10×10 or 10×20 inline booth to a larger island? While you intuitively know where you are, the first step of the process is to take a few moments and write it all down. Share it with all team members. You may want to do a full Request for Proposal from potential new exhibit houses, or you may be comfortable with your current vendor and simply want to communicate the desire to upgrade to them.
In any event, make and share the assessment with those that will be involved.
One Year Prior to the Show
If you’re essential starting from scratch, you should probably look at the entire project from the 30,000 foot level about 9 months to a year out from the show date when you’ll want the new exhibit. This gives you a chance to determine a comprehensive and detailed budget. Having this budget document that includes all related costs such as storage, potential shipping, set-up costs and so forth will reduce the element of surprise for you and management once the project is officially under way.
This early discussion should also look at the main shows that you’ll be using the new booth at. Some companies have large booths that are used only once or twice a year, while they use smaller inline or popup booths at smaller shows. Look at things such as show goals and objectives, audience, traffic flow, etc.
Provide your exhibit house with a design brief detailing all of the elements of your new exhibit: size of booth, show goals, meeting spaces, storage, demo areas, branding elements, etc.
Six Months Out
Bu now you should be starting regular conversations with your exhibit house in earnest and their designer should be working from your design brief.
Your booth builder will want to have as much information as you can provide about the show such as dates, location, and other details. You may even want to provide them with your show marketing strategy and details so that they are aware of how you will promote your show appearance.
Four Months Out
You should have reviewed at least one or two designs and walked through any revisions with your 3D booth designer. You’re in the stage of finalizing all of the details prior to fabrication.
Graphic designers will have received graphic placement details and graphic dimensions from the booth designer and should be developing graphics in conjunction with the marketing team.
Reach out to I&D companies for early estimates and availabilities for set-up of the new booth, if it’s a larger booth that requires a set-up team.
Sometime in the next few weeks, depending on your exhibit house’s capabilities, the booth will go through fabrication.
One Month Prior to the Show
A walk-through with a booth set-up will be arranged and all graphics will be completed and placed. Any final items that need to be changed will result in a punch list that will need to complete by the exhibit house prior to crating and shipping.
This is when you’ll make final arrangements for shipping, I&D and storage if they haven’t been made yet.
Small Booths
Smaller booths, such as modular, kit or pop-ups don’t follow the longer timeline that custom island booths demand. Many can be chosen from a catalog and ordered quickly once graphic files are completed and are often capable of being shipped in less than a month, and depending on the complexity of the booth, in just a week or two.
At the Show
You have a great booth! Set-up was flawless because your exhibit house furnished thorough and easy-to-follow instructions for the I&D team. Your job is to work the show, talk with visitors and generate new business!
As part of the promotion of my new book Tradeshow Success: 14 Proven Steps to Take Your Tradeshow Marketing to the Next Level, I assembled 14 videos. Each short video focused on a specific step as detailed in the book. If you hang out on Twitter or LinkedIn and follow me, you may have seen them. They’re quick and descriptive, and are good introduction to the book. Here’s the playlist of all of the videos:
This week is the launch of my new book “Tradeshow Success: 14 Proven Steps to Take Your Tradeshow Marketing to the Next Level.” I’m doing a lot of the normal launch things an author would do: sending copies to industry media and bloggers, along with industry colleagues. Creating a list of clients and potential clients that I’d like to get the book into. And much more!
Beyond that, I’ve created a series of 14 videos, with each one relating to one of the chapters in the book. Those videos are appearing, about one a day, at my YouTube Tradeshow Marketingchannel. Check ’em out!
So what can you do? If you want to purchase the paperback, here’s the Amazon.com page. You can also buy the Kindle version for about half the list price of the paperback.
You can also read the book for free here at TradeshowSuccessBook.com. You’ll be asked to opt-in to a mailing list (which, if you gotta, you can always unsubscribe from).
What do you get in the book? As mentioned in the subtitle, I’ve detailed 14 steps that are critical to tradeshow success. Not every successful tradeshow marketer uses all of these steps with utmost efficiency, but most of them make very good use of many of the steps.
So what are the steps?
Let’s take a look at the 14 Steps:
Step One: Going with or without a Map? Are you doing enough planning and organizing around your tradeshows?
Step Two: Dollars, Pounds, Euros: How Much Do You Really Need to Make This Work? A breakdown of the budgeting process for tradeshows and what it takes to budget for a new exhibit.
Step Three: Getting Ready for the Big Dance: Pre-show planning and marketing.
Step Four: Did You Come to the Right Dance? Just make sure that your target market is at the show you’re going to dump all of that money into.
Step Five: Home is Where the Booth Is: Booth design essentials, including function, traffic flow, graphics and more.
Step Six: Is Your Frontline Team Up to Snuff? Booth staff training!
Step Seven: What Do I Do With All of These People in the Booth? Now that you’ve drawn a crowd, what do you do with them?
Step Eight: Tweeting, Posting and Instagramming Like a King or Queen: Putting social media to work for you in a creative way.
Step Nine: Who’s Keeping Track of Those Damn Tweets? Someone needs to create videos, blog posts, tweets, etc. Here’s a great look at some online content ideas.
Step Ten: Got a Stack of Leads: Now What? Lead generation and follow up.
Step Eleven: Becoming the Zen Master of Stats and Records: Record-keeping is the secret sauce to tracking your success.
Step Twelve: Stirring the Public Relations and Media Pot: Working with industry media.
Step Thirteen: Do QR Codes Still Kill Kittens? And Other Tech Questions: A quick examination of technology in tradeshows.
Step Fourteen: Out Of Your Nest: Time to Fly! Your call to action!
Want to grab your own copy? Use the links above to own your own. Or if you want the digital version (PDF download), try this:
