It doesn’t take that much to exhibit at a tradeshow. Just rent a booth space, bring an exhibit, a handful of staffers and do your thing.
Uh, what’s your thing, though? That’s the big question. Are you there to increase brand awareness? Show that you have a bigger or cooler exhibit than your main competitor? Take a client out for dinner and drinks?
It’s better to have a plan. To know what you want. More leads? Sales? Giving away a specific number of samples? Getting more social media followers? Certainly, you want to pick goals that are important to growing your business. But one step beyond that is to not only pick good goals, but to make them concrete goals, such as:
We want 150 good leads, 50 of which are new.
We want 300 new Instagram followers.
We want to hand out 1000 product samples.
We want to do 100 in-person demos of our product or service.
We want to meet with CEO’s of three major prospects.
Once you delineate those goals, create a plan to get there. Create the roadmap. If you want to meet with specific people, set appointments. If you want to line up new social media followers, make it easy. If you want new leads, have a method for uncovering the right prospects.
Tradeshow marketing can be expensive, but since you are at a place where thousands of prospects are all gathered in the same place, it’s also the ideal setting to generate leads at the lowest cost-per-lead you’ll ever manage.
Over a decade ago, I ran across Orvel Ray Wilson’s book (co-authored by Conrad Jay Levinson and Mark S A Smith) “Guerrilla Trade Show Selling” made a big impact on my knowledge of the tradeshow world. Years later, it still stands up. On this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee, I sat down with Orvel and quizzed him about the tradeshow world, public speaking in a pandemic and more:
This week’s ONE GOOD THING is the new Foo Fighter’s album Medicine at Midnight, set for release later this week. Here’s their most recent single, “Waiting on a War.”
Everything you do, everything you say, how you say it, what you wear, what you drive…they all send signals to other people. A Rolex sends a different signal than a Swatch watch. A Tesla sends a different signal than a Ford 150 pickup. A pair of shorts sends a different signal than a tuxedo.
We all choose the signals we send out, whether consciously or unconsciously. What kind of car we buy, clothes we wear, people we hang out with, how we speak, what we read?
When someone visits your place of business, what signals do you send? How clean is the floor, what kind of bathrooms do you have (and how clean are they)?
Every interaction a prospect or client has with you or your company is an opportunity for them to form an impression.
It’s the same thing at tradeshows. Do you ever think about the signals you send with your tradeshow presence? No doubt a lot of thought goes into how you’ll present your image and brand down to the right colors, the type of packaging, the types of products you design, create and market.
Everything in your booth sends a signal
But I wonder if that consideration goes all the way to the people in your booth. Do you decide if Jesse is a better choice than Aaron to represent the company in the booth? Do you choose branded clothing, such as t-shirts, for all of your booth staffers to wear from day to day? Do you train them on how talk to visitors, how to ask questions, how to stand, how to understand and control their body language?
What about the state of your booth and exhibit? Is the carpet clean? Is the garbage can overflowing? Does your exhibit have cracks and signs of wear and tear or is it in tip-top shape with new graphics and clean countertops?
Everything you do, wear, and speak sends a signal.
Every tradeshow visitor is looking for something. And a majority of those visitors are decision makers at their company or can influence buying decisions. Make sure you’re giving them what they want:
Have you ever been in a state of flow and known it? What exactly is flow? it’s been written about for decades. I thought I should dissect it a bit in this week’s episode of TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee:
One of the lesser seen but more important parts of your exhibiting experience is the help provided by labor that sets up your exhibit, work with audio and video setup, transportation, carpet/flooring and furniture. And you may (or may not) be surprised to learn that there’s an industry association that works on behalf of the more than 200 member companies that represent more than 12,500 fulltime tradeshow professionals and more than 50,000 part-time workers.
As with all companies in the events, tradeshows and conference industry, the EACA members have been dramatically affected by the pandemic, which cancelled or postponed hundreds if not thousands of tradeshows. The EACA, to work their way through the pandemic, has continued to hold regular virtual meetings and webinars for members, which are available on their website.
Executive Director Jim Wurm was on a recent industry call that I attended, and he mentioned that several webinars on their website might be worth a look. I took a look and found several that might be of interest to those in the tradeshow world.
Webinars about cash flow, internet advertising, the PPP program and lobbying efforts on behalf of the industry, scaling your business, employee engagement, and more. You can search for “webinar” on any page and you get something like this.
If you’re an exhibitor, several of these archived webinars may be of interest to you – check them out!
Zoom fatigue hit you hard enough yet? Tired of waiting for people to join you in your Zoom room and then wondering about all of the books on people’s shelves or what’s new in their background since the last time you talked to them on Zoom?
Hey, I get it. We are all kind of tired of the ways that the pandemic has impacted us. But buckle up, because it’s not going to change much in the near future. As a recent meme said, “Omg, what’s the first thing you’re gonna do when YOU get the vaccine shot?? You’re gonna go back home, wait a month, get your second shot, go back home, wait 14 days for antibodies, then keep wearing a mask and social distancing until community transmission reduction. That’s what.”
So there’s that. But as humans, we still crave connection and contact. Here are a handful of ways to stay connected in spite of the fact that we won’t be going to tradeshows any time soon.
Pick up the phone. Yeah, not much different than a Zoom call, but it’s a little less formal (as if Zoom is formal in any sense); it’s a little more casual and your concentration is on the voice of the person you’re talking to much more than it is on the background in the call.
Video call: Zoom, Google, Skype, Facetime, etc. But take it off the business side of your life. My family and I have a Zoom call every couple of weeks on a Sunday afternoon. I have three brothers in the northwest. My mom, who is turning 93 in a few months, is up Santiam Canyon. Last year we got her a MacBook Air and she’s learned the basics: email, creating and printing documents, listening to music, surfing the web. And Zoom calls. She loves them, and so do my three brothers (two younger, one older). The conversations are goofy, free-flowing and valuable.
Send a postcard. Since last summer when I started cleaning out my closet and found a small box of postcards that have been around for decades, I’ve been randomly sending postcards to friends, near and far. Postcards are cool. They’re different. And if you have a photo you took of someone, it’s pretty cool to send that to them as well (check out my SendOutCards account for more info on that).
Send a letter. When’s the last time you sent a letter – not an email – to someone in your circle? Like a prospect or a client? Letters are different than an email. They’re oddly more personal and professional at the same time, because, hey, who takes time to print a letter and stuff it in an envelope, anyway? I did this a few weeks back. It was cool. And I found out that several people had moved, so there’s that.
Send a gift. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, maybe a $10 coffee card, or some brownies (again, SendOutCards is great for sending gifts). When it comes to gift-giving, even on a small budget, the options are endless. While your inclination might be to send branded swag, I don’t think that part really matters. It’s such a rare thing to send someone a small “just thinking of you” gift that you’ll probably do better with something that doesn’t have your company logo on it. Sending a coffee card is a good way to schedule a virtual coffee with employees, clients or prospects.
Virtual Classes. On a wider scale, you might consider teaching what you know. If it’s not something you’re used to doing, you might start with a short five-minute tutorial on something simple.
What is hype, really, and is it a worthwhile thing to use to get attention in this busy world of today? Author and marketer Michael F. Schein of Micro Fame Media joins me to discuss this topic and many others in the world of marketing on this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee:
