Best tradeshow marketing tips and case studies. Call 800-654-6946.
Best tradeshow marketing tips and case studies. Call 800-654-6946.

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Bringing Home the Bacon

In the swirl of the tradeshow marketing soup, you’re working to create a potent mix of trained staff, an awesome-looking and appropriately-functional booth, interactivity, social media engagement. When all is said and done, the ONLY important thing at most shows is: bringing home the bacon.

bacon2

When you get back to the office, the big question that determines the success or failure of your tradeshow marketing effort is this: did you get enough warm and hot leads to justify the expense of going to the tradeshow and planning to go again next year? Because if you haven’t, there’s something missing. But what?

When you examine the various and disparate elements that go into a successful tradeshow marketing experience, you may be reminded of the famous question attributed to Henry Ford: “I know that half of my advertising dollars are wasted, but which half?”

Make no mistake, if you can’t identify the wasted parts of your tradeshow marketing efforts, you’ll continue to leak dollars and leads and return from shows with half-empty cups of leads.

It behooves you to examine all of the elements of your tradeshow marketing to determine where the inefficiencies lie:

  • Tradeshow booth ‘look and feel’ and function: does your booth draw the right people and once they get there, is it set up to handle them properly?
  • Booth graphics: do your graphics qualify and disqualify visitors as they arrive?
  • Tradeshow staff training: what’s the level of knowledge of staffers on your products and services and are they properly trained in how to interact with visitors in the chaotic environment of a tradeshow?
  • Are you attending shows that offer the best market for your products and services?
  • Social media marketing: do your SM marketing staffers understand social media and the art of engagement?

By hitting all cylinders properly, you’re actually doing two things: one, you’re putting a much more effective tradeshow marketing machine on the tradeshow floor, and two, you’re positioning your company at a much higher level than most of your competitors.

Given the stakes at risk and the amount of money you’re investing in your tradeshow marketing, I have one question for you:

Why wouldn’t you want to do all of these things properly and with excellence to significantly increase the odds of bringing home the bacon?

If you’re not willing to do that, perhaps you are not yet ready for tradeshow marketing.

Oh, and if you want to know where the inspiration for the title for this post came from…

10 Things Zombies Can Teach Us about Tradeshow Marketing

Thanks to a recent post on tradeshow-exhibiting Zombies published here on the Tradeshow Guy Blog, Mel White, VP of Business Development for Classic Exhibits, was suitably inspired to come up with a Top Ten List on what we can all learn from zombies. Thanks for sharing, Mel!

  1. Single-minded Focus. You may not appreciate their all-consuming desire to eat your flesh, but they are committed to the task. They let nothing get in their way, except an ax to the brain. Your next trade show will be wildly successful, if you make it a priority, not an afterthought.

  2. Teamwork. Zombies travel in packs, like ravenous hyenas. That teamwork ensures them a much higher percentage of kills. There’s a reason “We killed it” signifies success. By working together, those poor doe-eyed attendees don’t stand a chance.
  3. Appearance Matters. You never forget your first impression of a zombie: filthy clothing, rotting flesh, vacuous stare, and rancid halitosis (that alone is enough to make you hurl). It’s sad but true. We judge people by their appearance. Your company spent considerable money to participate so shine your shoes, press your shirt, and dry clean that blazer.
  4. Lights, Motion, and Noise. The undead and the living are both attracted to lights, motion, and noise. As much as we try . . . we can’t resist it. When planning your booth, ask yourself this, “Will my exhibit attract 200% more zombies than my competitors?” If the answer is “No!” then you need to get creative (or consider a ceremonious human sacrifice ever day).
  5. Intelligence. Zombies love brains and so should you. Being smart about your trade show marketing means you understand that trade shows are not the same as print ads, videos, brochures, or traditional sales calls. Trade shows are opportunities to attract new customers and strengthen existing relationships.
  6. Fresh Meat. Ever notice that zombies won’t eat other zombies. They like their meals fresh. Fresh ideas and innovation, particularly during a weak economy, propel one company forward while leaving another one struggling to survive. Trade show attendees go for two reasons:  to find solutions to existing problems and/or discover innovations that will strengthen their operations or bottom line.
  7. Know Your Customer. In zombie-speak, we are customers. Good customers freak-out and get eaten. Bad customers ram a metal rod through a zombie’s skull. You want good customers, just without the “getting eaten” part. Good customers become good customers because we understand them and tailor our product or service to meet their needs.
  8. Preparation Matters. Zombies don’t need a trade show toolkit or an exhibitors handbook or an exhibit designer, they are 100% prepared the moment they go from living to undead. You’re not so lucky. You won’t succeed without thorough pre-show, show, and post-show preparation.
  9. Without Customers, What’s the Point? Wandering aimlessly is pointless, even to a mindless zombie. Zombies crave excitement. When a living, breathing human enters its proximity, it switches from listless to high alert. Serious exhibitors react similarly, albeit without the growling and moaning. We’ve all seen exhibitors who appear annoyed or resentful when an attendee enters their booth, interrupting their game of Angry Birds. What’s the point if it’s not about customers?
  10. There’s No Cure. Once a zombie always a zombie. If you love trade shows and are serious about trade show marketing, there’s no antidote. It’s in your blood. No matter how hard you fight it, once bitten, it’s incurable.

Photo by Bob Jagendorf from Flickr.

4 Ways to Avoid Tradeshow Exhibiting Zombies

As a tradeshow manager, one of the worst things you will ever face is a booth staff that has become, well, zombies part way through the tradeshow. If you leave the booth and come back to find your staff spending time discussing politics or gossiping about business (disengagement), or if you see things disappear (employee theft), ignoring visitors (wtf? – visitors are why they’re there!), you’ve got a Zombie Apocalypse!

Zombies in your tradeshow booth don’t actually walk around chewing on your tradeshow booth or looking to dismember visitors, but with active disengagement your booth staff might as well be zombies for all the good they’re doing your company.

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So, here are 4 ways to avoid Tradeshow Exhibiting Zombies.

Make sure your staff is trained. Nothing’s worse than untrained staff, expect perhaps an uninformed staff. If your staff doesn’t have the skills to interact positively with visitors or know how to answer questions, they might as well be the walking dead.

Marketing goal buy-in. If your booth staff has only the bare information on why they’re there (pick up a paycheck!), you’re doing your company a disfavor. Your booth staff, from the lowliest temp employee to the highest ranked engineer or member of management, should know exactly WHY you’re at the show, WHAT the goals are, and HOW to attain those goals. If they SEE the goal and BELIEVE in what you’re doing, chances are very good they’ll have BUY-IN and will participate with energy and enthusiasm. If so, they’re emotionally engaged. In not, they might as well be…you get the point.

Communication. Your Zombie Apocalypse is only a motion or two away if you aren’t able to communicate effectively and in a timely manner. If that means you’re tweeting about a prize giveaway or posting great deals on Facebook that will spur visitors to rush to your booth, but don’t tell all of the staff, those promotions may fall flat on its face.

Show them you appreciate them. Yup, sometimes the hardest thing for some folks is to say THANK YOU for a job well done. If your tradeshow succeeds and your staff did a stellar job, be sure to recognize them for it. Often the recognition can be nothing more than a pat on the back in front of the staff, but it can also mean that you’re buying them a nice dinner on the last night of the show and telling them as a group that you couldn’t do it without them. Whatever form of recognition you choose, you must be sincere and believable.

Follow these guidelines and the Zombie Apocalypse will likely bypass your company and instead devour your competition!

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 photo credit: possan

Re-thinking QR Codes

If you listen to some marketers, QR Codes are the coming thing. The best marketing tool of all time. Others say they’re hard to use and difficult to set up.

Neither may be completely true, but both have a little truth to them.

I’ve been scanning QR codes for a couple of years to see how they work, since I first picked up a smartphone app. And they’ve been, uh, mostly less than successful. In fact, I’d estimate that only about 1 in 4 or 5 QR codes scanned properly, and only 1 in 4 or 5 of those actually took me to a smartphone-optimized landing page.

Which begs the question: why should you use QR codes for your marketing?

Street fashion Rotterdam

I can think of only a few reasons. First, if you want to support your marketing efforts with a secondary channel, a QR code may be a good way to support that. Let’s say you’re offering a handout at your tradeshow booth, but you want to steer those people with smartphone QR code apps to download them as a PDF. You’re making the brochure or document available as a limited paper edition, but unlimited electronic downloads. A QR code should work just fine for this purpose – just make sure you state the purpose of the QR Code in easy-to-understand directions.

Secondly, if you want to share specific information that a smart phone user can put to immediate use, offering a QR code with a URL is a good way to steer people to that landing page. This might be a situation where you offer additional information for those that are looking for it.

As always, the caveats still exist: make sure the QR Code is easily scannable (high contrast black on white and large enough to scan), optimize the landing page so it looks good on a smartphone, and TEST the link right before it goes into action to make sure it works properly.

Yup, QR Codes CAN work. Just make sure that you have a damn good reason to use them.

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 photo credit: van Van Es

Making Real Connections Using Social Media

When you’re tweeting and posting Facebook updates and adding photos to your Instagram or Snapchatting like a 13-year-old, do you ever get the feeling that those updates are all…er…wasted and you’re not making real connections using social media? Do you find that very few people actually respond or read them?

Do you feel that they are not really connecting to your intended recipients – those online followers of your company and products?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Making that connection with your audience (customers, potential clients) is probably the toughest thing you’re tasked to do.

And I’m here to tell you that it’s not an easy thing to do. Even if I gave you a shortlist of things to do on a daily basis, it’s quite possible that you may get nothing out of that list. Or it may mean the difference between making the connection and being totally ignored by your followers.

But still, if you’re on social media, you’ll have to try to find what it takes to make those connections or your time will be wasted.

So let me offer some ideas on what it might take. For every person involved in social media for their company, the approach to these ideas will be different, some slightly and some extremely different, but your approach should fall under the same umbrella. To me there are just two main elements you need to provide.

Saint Etienne setlist.

CONTENT. By providing good content, you’re telling your audience that you care. Show your knowledge; share your expertise. Give things away that are worth something and are not just rehashed. Speak knowledgeably about how your products or services can actually help someone. Answer questions; offer insights based on your experience. And don’t worry about giving away secrets – there really are very few secrets left anyway.

CONNECTION. Yeah, it’s a cliché: connect with someone! The larger your audience, the harder it will be to find anything more than superficial connections based on your online back-and-forth. But…I think there’s something to be said for making the attempt.  It could mean cultivating and focusing on a handful of those people in your tribe that are engaged and responsive. You can’t connect with everyone, but for those that you do make a solid connection with, it’s worth it. Often those people will then become surrogates for you and your company, singing your praises without urging from you. BTW, the way to connect online is to get off subject: use humor; comment on photographs, share experiences that are non-business related. Connections are made on an emotional level much easier than on a business level.

And when it comes to connection, quality is better then quantity. In fact, there isn’t enough time to connect with everyone in your circle. Connect with those you are able to and have some sort of attraction to. Business happens with people you like and trust.

In your social media interactions (as in everywhere), be likeble and trustworthy.

 photo credit: Bo Valentin

Keeping Track of Changes in the Social Media World

Change is good.

Change sucks!

Okay, which is it?

You may recall the 1971 David Bowie song “Changes.” While it was often seen as a ‘manifesto for his chameleonic personality’ (Wikipedia), it’s not much of a stretch to say that the song applies to virtually everything in life. We live in a world full of changes, and when it comes to following the bouncing ball that is social media, we often get lost trying to keep up with the fast-paced world.

So where should you look in your attempts to follow changes? I’d love to say that this blog follows changes, but as a one-man band that’s a difficult, if not impossible task. However, there are a number of social media-related blogs and websites that I follow that do a great job. Some have dozens (or hundreds) of contributors that follow a wide variety of social media and web-related activity.

The challenge is winnowing the information down to what’s important to YOU. That’s not the easiest thing, and while I consume a lot of information, it’s difficult to read only the blog posts and articles that directly affect me. And in fact, I’m not sure that we should limit our intake to specific topics, because often a related topic or item can later become important.

So let’s look at a handful sites that have proven to be useful in tracking changes and keeping readers up-to-date.

Mashable: to me this is more of a tech-related site, but they do a darn fine job of tracking news and changes in all related spheres, from business and tech to lifestyle and fun watercooler topics, including a lot of social media. It started out on a much smaller scale, but as it’s popularity and readership rise, its horizons have expanded. They have smartphone apps and of course RSS feeds which make it easy to follow.

Social Media Examiner: Much more focused on social media that Mashable, the Social Media Examiner is often my first stop when I want to research any social media-related topic. Founded by Michael Stelzner a few years ago, the SME is the best at following trends and giving you countless how-to’s along the way.

Social Media Today: covering social media from blogging to tweeting and all points in between, Social Media Today casts a wide net.

Blogs:

Soshable is not high on my list, but the few times I’ve landed there I’ve come away impressed. Lots of good articles and a ton of tech and social media-related infographics make this very interesting reading.

Scott Monty: he’s the global head of social media for Ford Motor Company and knows his stuff. Scott is a fun read and you’ll always pick up some good information and tips when you land here.

Forbes on Social Media: surprisingly, or perhaps not, this is a great resource of articles and information.

Peter Shankman, the founder of Help Out a Reporter, is a globe-trotting writer, speaker and author. If you want cutting edge, read his blog.

Finally, this round-up from Hubspot is worth a look. There’s a list of 36 ‘don’t-miss’ social media blogs that they claim you should check out. I haven’t checked them all out, but  cursory look at a handful of them shows that you can’t go wrong here.

Summertime Winding Down…TradeshowGuy Blog Update (where have I been??)

It’s September…right? Seems like the summer has gone on a long time this year, and now that September is here and fall is around the corner (at least in the northern hemisphere), I thought I’d put out a Tradeshowguy UPDATE…

First things first: it’s been an extremely busy summer – but most of that business has been away from work. I got engaged to a lovely lady in June, moved into a new house with my fiance and her son in August (not quite done with that), and now am spending time getting my old house in shape for rental. Yes, good grief, I’m going to become a landlord. I also did a little

Tradeshowguy Tim and buddy Rich preparing to tee off at hole 16 at Pacific Grove Golf Course in August…

traveling and…as a result, managed to put the Tradeshowguyblog on the back burner for must of the summer. Aside from a few random posts, you didn’t see or hear from me much at all!

Not only that, but my company, Communication One Exhibits, is just starting work on a large tradeshow booth for a great client (more on that later). We’ve been in the design phase since May and are about to move into fabrication.

I’m also closing in on completing my first book – which has nothing to do with the tradeshow industry! It’s a fun history book that has been a joy to write. It should move into the design phase soon and I hope to have it out before the end of the year (again – more on that later!). While it currently doesn’t take up much of my time, it did occupy me a lot during late spring and early summer. So yep, that was another area where I dedicated time, energy and resources.

So, given all of the non-online activity in my life, what’s the outlook for Tradeshowguyblog.com? After all, since I started the blog in 2009, my goal has been to post 2-3 times a week, which has happened consistently since then with few interruptions. Frankly, I think the frequency of posts will diminish, but my hope is that the relevance of the posts will remain high or increase. I’d rather have one or two great posts a month than eight or ten so-so posts. When I’ve taught blogging at seminars and webinars, I’ve always held that consistency is important – more important than frequency. So no matter if you’re posting daily, weekly, or monthly: just make sure your audience understands your commitment – and live up to that commitment. And if it changes, let them know.

My other company, Communication Steroids, with my partner Roger Pike, is also reassessing our future. We’re looking to focus on providing online training for public speaking, social media engagement and other related topics – but again, that won’t happen until the personal stuff in our lives gets a little more normal (whatever that is!). The interesting thing about being a self-employed entrepreneur in the tradeshow industry is that, while there are always a lot of small projects that come and go, it’s the big ones that take up your time and energy. However, at my level, having a couple of big projects each year is quite sufficient. Any more than that and I’ve had to become more than just a single self-employed entrepreneur with a partner – I’d have to HIRE people instead of working with sub-contractors. For now, that’s more than I want or need.

If you’ve made it this far – thank you! I really appreciate your readership. If you’re a regular reader of the Tradeshowguy blog you should know that I’m still passionate about social media, even though it’s a fast-changing landscape and what worked last year may not work this year. That’s what makes it exciting – and I will definitely have a lot more to share about social media in the months and years to come. So stay tuned…!

Promoting Your Event Online

If you’re going to a tradeshow as an attendee, or putting on an event of your own, here’s a shortlist of the various things you’ll want to consider as the base elements of our online promotion:

Event website: should contain event information such as schedule, days, times, locations, etc. This is your basic high school journalism approach of the 5 W’s: Who, What, When, Where and Why. This is also where your online registration forms will be. The page should also be populated with the various social media buttons that allow attendees to share the information, whether before or after they have registered.

Media Kit: Your digital media kit is where the press and attendees or even those just with a passing interest will find more detailed information in a variety of formats: event descriptions, videos (interviews, show previews, testimonials, etc.), photos of past events (speakers, exhibitors, locations); logos, banner ads and any flyers or posters you want to make available to promote the event.

Public Meeting

Blogs: of course you should have an event-specific blog. While it’s tempting to fill the blog with self-promoting posts, you’ll have a much better chance to gain readers and traction by sharing information on problem-solving, issues, and how-to’s within the blog. You may, for instance, have case studies on how a product or service got a client over a hurdle. Or you may have examples of problems the industry faces and the various ways those problems are handled. The blog needs to have links to all of the various social media and event registration sites, too.

Social Media: before the event sit down with your media promotion team and plan out the timeline of promotions: tweets, photo opportunities, social media sites you’re focusing on and the various people that are tasked with social media engagement. Identify the partners and colleagues in your industry that you’re looking to team with on certain elements; identify (and agree upon) responsibilities. The more you know ahead of time, the easier the event execution will be. Plan tweets, PR meetings, industry trade blogs and publication connections and more.

Going Mobile: a majority of your event attendees will be using mobile access to the various social media outlets, so your online presence (blogs, websites) should be optimized for smartphones. If the event is big enough, you might consider creating an event app (lots of companies would be happy to do this for a fee!) so that all information is easily available anytime/anywhere.

E-Mail: an oldie, but goodie, e-mail is still effective at promotion. And remember that in these days of mobile access, less is more. Streamline your emails down to the barest critical information so that they get to the point and are easily read on a smartphone.

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 photo credit: mikecogh

Social Media: You Don’t Have to Be Perfect

I know people who hold back from doing things because they feel that if they don’t do it perfectly, they would rather not do it.

Excuse me, but you’re human. You will never be perfect. So don’t let your fear of not being ‘perfect’ out of the box on your social media tradeshow marketing hold you back.

Perfection DOES exist. But only in the eye of the beholder. For instance, a rose can be perfect. Or an outdoor landscape in the desert or mountain. Or a night out with your significant other.

social media: you can't be perfect, so don't try.
You can’t see the perfect forest for the trees!

But social media? Don’t hold your breath. All of your competitors and colleagues are still scrambling for the best way to do something. They’re trying to tweet at the right time to get more people to their booth. They’re looking to use Facebook to brand their appearance at the show. They’re hoping that Pinterest will hold someone’s interest enough after the show with photographs that those viewers will learn something or remember a bit or piece of the show.

But that’s all they’re doing: they’re just trying.

Don’t worry about perfect. Just think about the next step and take it.

7 Ways Your Social Media Tradeshow Marketing Sucks

On, no! Not another list post! But they’re so fun to write! Not only that, but putting thoughts into a numerical list makes it much easier to digest.
Here are a few ways that you may be coming up short, er, uh, sucking…at your social media tradeshow marketing.
  1. You’re not taking and sharing photos. People love photos and love to spread them around. Next time at the tradeshow booth, have your smart phone handy, or a digital camera. Take photos of visitors, get their names, post on Facebook, or if you have a lot, put ’em up on Flickr. Then share them throughout your social network.
  2. You’re not consistently tweeting. Just one tweet about your special tradeshow booth guest or author isn’t enough. Get it out several times a day. Post ahead of time by a few days. Use Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to schedule your tweets.
  3. You’re not shooting video and sharing it. Videos can be extremely useful, especially if you’re shooting videos of customers talking about how your products can help them (testimonials). Don’t worry about professional quality. Just keep it short and to the point – two minutes or less – and you should be fine.
  4. You’re not mentioning anything about your tradeshow appearance on your blog. Yes, your blog isn’t supposed to be rife with tons of posts about your company. It’s not a place for press releases and company awards your CEO just won. It’s for helping readers solve problems and answer questions and gain insight into your industry and products. But there’s nothing wrong with mentioning upcoming events you’ll be involved in, especially if there’s an opportunity for visitors to get questions answered or see how your products and services can solve problems.
  5. QR Nametag

    You’re spending too much time reading goofball posts and not actually creating good content. In other words, it sucks because you’re allowing it to be a time-suck. Be thoughtful and conscientious about your approach to social media marketing and the time you spend, and you’ll do a lot better.

  6. Thinking that each tweet, Facebook post or video that you post will translate to a sale. Social media and sales will probably never converge the way that marketers and sales teams wish they would. But if they understood how social media could build a tribe of followers and like-minded people, those connections may eventually ring the cash register. Not only that, it can create a tribe of people that will go to bat for you and help spread the word about your product or service. Face it; social media connections are generally fairly weak. Believing that each ‘like’ on your page means you’ve just gained a great friend or customer is wishful thinking. Instead, think of it as an introduction during a busy party. Once that introduction is made, look for common ground, offer useful information, respond to questions and engage without looking like a stalker. And DON’T try a hard sell – if you do, those casual connections will vanish.
  7. You’re not involved at all. Yes, it would be easy to write off social media as a weak marketing effort. If you do, though, you’re letting a terrific opportunity to meet and greet with no pressure slip through your fingers. Instead, look at social media as a way to continue to make connections, and even though they’re weak at the beginning, if you are a real person behind a brand, those connections will strengthen as you spend time working them.
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 photo credit: CUhomepage

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