After perusing an array of statistics from CEIR, Exhibit Surveys and others, I thought it might be fun to grab a handful of them and stick them in a cool infographic. Here’s what I came up with:
Download the PDF here: Tradeshow Marketing
In preparation for a meeting with a potential client, I put together an infographic on the various steps of the 30×30 Bob’s Red Mill booth our company did in 2012-2013.
Check it out! (click to expand)
Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this ongoing series.
Tradeshow pre-show preparation and marketing involves more than just a short look at how to attract visitors to your booth, or determining what graphics you’ll need to update on your booth. While there are more areas in your pre-show preparation that you shake a stick at, for the purposes of this article let’s take a look at just the target market and the products you’re focusing on:
So who, or what, exactly is your target market? Are you trying to reach grocery store owners, food distributors, software engineers or end users of your product? Keep in mind that your target market can change from show to show, and it can also change from year to year as your company matures. For instance, one eco-friendly diaper company I’ve worked with for years has seen their target market shift along with their strategy for each show as their products are in more stores now than a half a decade ago. They don’t need the distribution that they once yearned for. Now it seems that they need to focus more on the relationships with the clients they do have by providing them with the best service and product updates as possible, and add new distribution channels only if appropriate.
Typically, pre-show preparation will often focus just on pre-show marketing, and there’s nothing really wrong with that. If you focus exclusively on that, you may forget a few other items such as staff training or critical booth upgrades. Still, how you address your pre-show marketing will be crucial to the outcome of your show.
With pre-show marketing, here are some questions to ask:
By walking through this flowchart, you can identify areas that you’re strongest at, and determine what areas might need more attention. There’s no wrong answer when it comes to what pre-show marketing you should do or when you should do it, or even what you should focus on. But it is important that you create a plan, make sure that everyone involved in your tradeshow marketing efforts are aware of the plan and are able to do their part.
Just returned from Expo West in Anaheim where I had a number of tradeshow booth clients, including Bob’s Red Mill, gDiapers, Aisle7 and Hyland’s. One of my goals at this particular show was to do informal assessments of a couple of dozen booths, including booths that I picked at random, and those of companies that responded to my 2-minute video I posted about ten days before the show.
Since I have a handful of client booths at the show, I am disqualifying them from winning any awards (although I think they all were top-noth projects)!
Before getting to the awards, a few comments: first, these are for fun only. Nobody actually wins anything substantial except a mention in this blog. Second, while I spotted a number of booths that would qualify for awards such as ‘Most Cluttered,’ ‘Most Confusing’ and ‘Shouldn’t Even Be Here Because Mom Didn’t Approve it’ the point is not to speak ill of booths that should be improved. Hey, I can’t help everybody, right?
So, without furthre adieu, let’s begin:
Cleanest Look & Most Pristine Representation of a Brand: R .W. Garcia. Not a custom booth, but an aluminum frame-and-fabric construction, nonetheless this captured my attention with its attention to detail. The graphical heirarchy was clean: company name at the top with secondary bullet points describing the company’s products. The back wall graphic was dominated by images of chip bags, so there was no doubt about the company’s products.
Most Iconic Use of an Icon: Guayaki Brand Yerba Mate. Okay, I only caught one photo of this, but the use of a life-size cutout of the Pope drinking tea stopped me in my tracks and made me want to have Yerba Mate with His Holiness.
Best Story on a Booth: Amy’s Kitchen debuted their new booth in 2013, and this 30×30 island clearly captures the company’s natural image, including a back wall section with photos and captions detailing the company’s history.
Best Interactive Booth: While there were several booths that invited attendees to write notes on a board, YesTo asked people to write what they would say YES to.
Best Use of Shipping Crates: Several booths use shipping crates as part of their booth to save on time and shipping expense. Ridgecrest Herbals showed how its done with branded shipping crates that doubled as counters, benches and product display.
Best Dancing Mascot: SweetLeaf, with their Sweet Drops Sweetener doing his/her shaking to a live guitarist.
Best Use of an Olympic Stud: Drink Chia! How can you top an impromptu aisle race featuring Olympic athlete Justin Gatlin? (check out his race here)
Most Elaborate Use of Booth: Clif Bar. The 40×40 island that Clif Bar used to represent their brand included not one, but two enclosed client meeting rooms, two sample stations, messaging that showed their love of fun and helping Mother Earth and the creative use of repurposing old wood for something new. And more. Hanging plants in wooden boxes. Bicycle gears. Old window frames. The steep usage of the word ‘organic.’ With all of this disparate yet congruent elements, this booth came close to a Terry Gilliam dream (go ahead, look him up. I’ll wait.).
And finally, Best MashUp of a Beatles Album Cover: Love Birch. With their wacky replacement of John, Paul, George and Ringo’s heads with leaves, Love Birch took the iconic Abbey Road album cover and turned it on its head, and in the process stopped people in their tracks.
This is the 13th consecutive year that I’ve attended Expo West, and it still seems fresh and fun, bigger and bolder and more overwhelming every year.
A few final observations: while there was a lot of use of social media this year, it didn’t seem to be anything out of the norm for most companies. Several companies invited attendees to ‘like’ them on Facebook, or tweet out a photo for a prize, but not as many as you might think would.
I was also on the lookout for QR Codes, and was a bit surprised to find only one on display. I had tasked myself with testing each and every QR Code I ran across to see if it worked. This one didn’t. The invitation next to the code was to ‘like’ us on Facebook, yet when I scanned the code, I was taken to a home page of a website – not optimized for a smartphone – and there was no indication of how to get to Facebook from there.
With QR Codes seemingly fading from popularity at least at this year’s show, perhaps that’s a good thing since it seems that so many QR Codes fail at least one part of the test: tell people what they get when they scan, make sure its optimized for a smartphone, and then test it all to make sure it works.
Natural Products Expo West is the biggest natural products tradeshow in the US, with some 3,000 exhibitors and 60,000 attendees. Yes, it’s the big time.
2014 will be my 12th consecutive year at the show. Many of my tradeshow clients have been exhibiting there for year.
For example, come see Aisle7 in booth 1668, gDiapers in booth 3605, Hyland’s at 1804 and of course Bob’s Red Mill at booth 3546.
One thing I like to do at Expo West and other tradeshows is check out the booths. There are thousands of them and with that many to look over, frankly, it’s a bit overwhelming! This year, however, I’m going to try something new. I’m going to take a look at a few dozen booths with the specific intent of seeing how they do in the TradeshowGuy Booth Performance Test!
If you’d like to have me subject your booth to the performance test, just tweet me at @tradeshowguy and I’ll be glad to swing by and take a look!
Last week I flew into Houston to give a presentation for ISES Houston for their monthly meeting. This one focused on tradeshow marketing and was hosted by 2020 Exhibits. The presentation went over the various aspects of what it takes to compete on the tradeshow floor.
Definitely a fun time had by all: thanks to Vivian at Juz Do It Productions and Becky at 2020 Exhibits for making this all come together.
Check out the slide deck:
Once I thought I was a prognosticator, but that didn’t turn out very well. So perhaps we should see who else in the industry is trying to predict the future…
CEIR Predicts Slow, Steady Industry Growth (okay, this one wasn’t too hard)…
Top Event Tech Predictions, Part 2
2014 Global Meetings and Events Forecast from American Express (PDF download)
10 Event Trends for 2014: Event Manager Blog
and finally: Tradeshows to Grow 4% in 2014
Again, none of these are that earth-shaking, but it all appears to be good news in line with how the economy as a whole is doing.
If I were to predict anything, it would be that mobile marketing will continue to grow very quickly, and that any tradeshow marketer who is not paying attention to that little fact is doing themselves a big disservice.
Just added!
Four Fabulous Meeting Technology Predictions for 2014 (thanks, Jeff Hurt on Twitter!)
3 Event Tech Predictions for 2014 (thanks, Michael Brewer!)
Top Event Tech Predictions for 2014 (thanks, PCMA Convention Center)
Top Ten Predictions for the Event Technology Industry for 2014 (thanks, Conference Info)
14 Meetings Technology Trends to Watch for in 2014 (thanks Meet MR Holland and CorbinBall)
and finally:
Susan Friedmann, the Tradeshow Coach, with her top 5 predictions for 2014…
Read Part One of this series here.
You can get lost in the numbers. But sometimes it’s fun – and enlightening.
Visitors spend an average of 8.3 hours in 2.3 days on a tradeshow floor, giving exhibitors the chance to reach thousands of potential customers in a very short time (Center for Exhibition Industry Research, 2008). 39% of visitors come to the same show at least two years in a row, giving exhibitors a loyal base of committed potential customers (CEIR, 2008). 50% of attendees already have a buying plan when attending shows (CEIR, 2007). And finally – decision makers love exhibitions: 87% of survey respondents state that national exhibitions are an ‘extremely useful’ source of needed purchasing information (CEIR, 2004).
Tradeshows account for an average one-third of a company’s annual marketing budget. Much of that money is simply flushed down the drain. Why? Because many company tradeshow and exhibit managers don’t have a thorough, detailed plan for each show and often the booth staff is unaware of the reason for even being at the show, other than the general ‘business-building’ excuse.
Companies continue to go to tradeshows in spite of the amount of money that is spent. In fact, the event industry is on the rise. Since the recession late in the last decade, most industries and events have seen climbing attendance.
Tradeshow marketing is attractive because the cost of reaching a potential customer face-to-face is $219 with an exhibition lead, compared with $1,039 without one (CEIR, 2009). Add to that the fact that as human beings, we relish the idea of meeting colleagues, vendors, clients and prospects face-to-face: two-thirds of visitors place a high level of importance on face-to-face interaction during the pre-purchasing stages of the buying process (CEIR, 2003). Executives cited conference and tradeshow participation returns ranging from $4.00 to $5.91 per dollar invested (Oxford Economics, 2009).
With all of those numbers floating around, it’s attractive to leverage a series of tradeshow appearances into growing sales, a burgeoning market and a healthy bottom line. If only we knew exactly where all that money was going, right?
So here’s a series of questions that you should ask yourself regarding your tradeshow marketing budget.
Items to include in your budget – feel free to download the COE budget (link):
Even if you aren’t the person who crunches all the numbers on a regular basis, if you can make yourself do this on a regular basis, not only will you understand the bigger picture much better, but you become more valuable to your company!
Download a free Tradeshow Marketing Budgeting Template from Communication One Exhibits here (Excel spreadsheet direct link).
Here’s the rest of the series:
Where to start with your tradeshow marketing analysis? Let’s try at the beginning!
Okay, dumb answer to obvious question. Or….perhaps not.
The beginning can be a moving target. As a young writer I never knew where to start a piece of fiction or article or project. Then someone said ‘start anywhere, begin now’ – and with that I realize that it doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you DO start.
But for the sake of argument – and for the sake of having some cohesive structure to this article and the next few, we do need to start somewhere.
And that somewhere would be on determining your specific tradeshow marketing OBJECTIVES.
If you’re already going to shows, you should spend time discussing them and confirm that they’re still worth going to. A large client of ours abruptly pulled out of a large tradeshow after doing the math and realizing that the show was not helping their business. Instead, their main business had shifted online and it made more sense to move the tradeshow dollars towards the online area which paid more dividends.
Another client stopped going to a major show for a few years while reassessing their tradeshow marketing objectives. They’re back now, but only with a renewed commitment and specific reason or being there.
If you have not been to a specific show, you should plan to attend without exhibiting to get a feel for it. Talk to exhibitors, get feedback on their experience. Ask a lot of questions. Watch visitors and see how they interact. Research your competition and see what their booth(s) look like. Imagine how your booth would fit in side-by-side with those exhibitors.
As for what your objectives might be, how do you determine them? After all, every show is different – at least a bit. Some are drastically different: different audience, different competition at each show, different orientation (location of your booth, promotion by the organizers) and other ways that shows differ.
Some common objectives might include:
To gauge the success of meeting those tradeshow objectives, some metrics you might measure include:
How might you measure those metrics? Some would be manually counted by staff, some would be counted by scanning badges at the booth.
Here are some questions to help you determine your objectives:
There are no right or wrong objectives – only objectives that fit the needs of your organization. Once you determine those objectives, determine as well the metrics you’ll use to measure the success of meeting your objectives. And don’t try to do too much at a show. If you try to meet a half dozen marketing goals at a single show, your message and execution will be ill-defined. Focus on one or two main objectives and figure out how to best measure them.
Want a free digital copy of my “Tradeshow Success” book? Click here.
Dear Exhibitor,
You are an experienced tradeshow marketer. You probably have been to many more shows than most of your colleagues. You’ve seen it all – from the small mom and pop shows decades ago to the sophisticated shows with several thousand exhibitors. You’ve seen goofy musical acts, professional product or service demonstrators in booths, wolfed down tons of free food samples, pocketed hundreds of free giveaways until you finally decided they were mostly just worthless junk.
And it’s a pretty good bet you know what works. You’ve tested pre-show marketing, booth staff training, having your best sales people on the show floor and you wonder why your company’s sales staff still has a hard time following up on all of those leads once the show is over.
So let’s see it: let’s see the results of those years of experience. What did you get out of it? By now you must have figured out exactly where the wasted dollars are – and you’ve plugged those holes so that every single dollar spent on tradeshow marketing makes an impact. Right?
Yes, let’s see the records of all of those tradeshows. No doubt – with your experience – you can pull out a 3-ring binder for every show for the past decade and answer any question about the show: how much was spent on booth space, drayage, travel and lodging, pre-show marketing, etc. – and can show us what the ROI was on all of those dollars invested.
Heck, you can probably even show us in great detail with song and dance, the impact of your young social media team. No doubt they’re compiling stats on how many contests they’ve run through Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic to the booth – and what the results of those contests or show specials are. They likely have a precise count of the number of photos and videos they’ve posted in relation to the show, and what the feedback was from them.
So: let’s see them. Let’s see all the results of your professionalism in action. If you can immediately pull those results up on your computer or grab a binder and hand to me – then you’re good. In fact, you’re awesome. You can go back to whatever it was you were doing before you started reading this letter. After all, you are the pro. You’re the expert – the veteran tradeshow marketer who’s been doing this for years. No one can surprise you. After all, you’ve seen it all.
But, if not – if you can scrunch up your face and say ‘Hmmm…I might admit that there are a few missing spots…’ I would ask: What exactly is missing?
Don’t have all the records you think you should? You’re not doing all that you really could be doing at each show?
Let’s suppose that it might be good to have a refresher on the various elements of tradeshow marketing – JUST to make sure that you’re not missing any pieces. After all, it’s not a bad idea to see things from a new perspective, right?
So, from my viewpoint, here’s a list of what you might consider keeping track of in your tradeshow marketing endeavors:
These bullet points can be broken down in great detail and the more detail you have, the more educated you are – and the higher the chances that you will have a more successful show.
Remember this: your competition is out there and many of them invest heavily in booth staff training, pre-show marketing, public relations, and social media engagement. They’re not fooling around. If you’re not looking closely at these items on a regular basis and keeping your tradeshow marketing assessment current, you could be slipping behind because it’s a good bet your main competitors are. Those competitors want to win – and they want to take away your current clients and customers. No doubt they’re doing everything they can to achieve those goals.
What are you doing with your tradeshow marketing to keep one step ahead of your competitors? Are you investing in an upgraded booth when the old one is falling apart or do you limp along another year? Are you investing in keeping your booth staff on top of their game with regular trainings? Are you investing in creating a great experience for your clients and potential clients at the next tradeshow, or do you just cross your fingers and hope that the status quo will be ‘good enough’ for this year?
Do you think your competitors are settling for ‘just good enough’?
If not, what are you going to do about it?
Sincerely,
Tim Patterson
TradeshowGuy Exhibits
1880 4th Street NE
Salem, OR 97301
Toll Free: 800-654-6946
TradeshowGuyExhibits.com
PS. If you need help performing a complete tradeshow marketing analysis or audit, click here.
