How can you work with a partner at a tradeshow? What can collaboration do to cut your tradeshow marketing costs and help spread your company’s name around a bit more?
While there are some benefits to be gained by working with partners in any endeavor, there are trade-offs to consider as well.
Share a Booth
Let’s say you’re a small company that struggles to come up with money for booth space and exhibit rental. If this is the case you might consider contacting a company that, while not a direct competitor, is at least in your industry and would benefit from exhibiting at the same show.
By renting the booth space together, you’re splitting the cost of both the space and the exhibit. Of course, you only get half a booth. Depending on your offerings, however, that might be a good fit and a good way to get your name out into the marketplace.
Another benefit comes when staffing the booth. By paring down the booth size and splitting with a partner, you need less people overall. While you would obviously want to have your side of the booth staffed, in some shows and situations one benefit would be to spell the other guy while he’s on a break.
Promote Each Other’s Products
Here’s a promotion that I’ve seen done successfully. Find another 4 or 5 exhibitors that are complementary to your company – but not direct competitors – and create a traffic-generation promotion. Create a map of the show floor highlighing the five participating booths, print it on bright paper, give each booth a stamp. Offer prizes from each exhibitor to be drawn from all maps that are stamped by all exhibitors and submitted. This encourages more traffic to each booth. Of course it’s up to you to take advantage of the additional traffic with your own offerings.
Social Media Pumping
Whether you’re on Twitter or Facebook, you can easily work out a similar promotion. However, instead of doing it on-site, do it online. Each vendor sets up a series of tweets via Hootsuite.com to drive traffic to their own – and their collaborator’s – booth. By doing this, you’re taking advantage of each other’s community, exposing all of the separate exhibitor’s online communities to all of the others.
Team Up To Impress
If you have a partner company that you work well with, float the idea of doing a ‘team dinner/party’ to expose each of the company’s to the other’s community. Company A invites a dozen or so clients, Company B does the same. The two companies split the tab. Everybody gets to know everyone else. Imagine if you could ramp this up to three, four or five companies.
Brainstorm
With all of the various companies that exhibit at any given show, how can you leverage the event to help your company and assist another company for the greater good? Can you come up with a single product together? Can you combine two products for a single offering? A real estate company might team with a home staging company to offer a special deal at a show. A software designer might team with one of his clients to create a custom version of the software for a larger, different market.
There’s really no end to the amount of ways that you can collaborate with other exhibitors to bring both (or all) of you more business.
After walking the floor of many a chaotic tradeshow, I’m always interested (and somewhat amused) by what catches my eye. And what doesn’t.
So what works to bring ’em in? What is like honey to the fly?
Here, in no particular order, are several things that made me stop and take a look at a product or service:
demonstrations: a professionalpresenter with a 5-7 minute presentation can do wonders for a tradeshow exhibit
eye candy: this can be large colorful graphics, something moving (rotating or spinning graphics/wheels/etc), booth babes, anything that says “STOP! LOOK! NOW!” Admittedly, the booth babes drew my eyes but rarely connect me to an actual product!
celebrity:
whether it’s Muriel Hemingway or Dr. Andrew Weil or anyone else that catches an eye, a celebrity gives your booth credibility and power – at least to a certain amount of the audience.
unusual product: a new or unusual product, even in a lousy-looking booth, can be enough to draw me in.
unusual booth design: a stellar, spare, unusual booth design is a very attractive piece. If it’s unusual enough it’ll have people stopping regardless of the product. Again, the product has to be worth the attention or the booth design fails. But with the right combination, POW!
giveaways or free samples: a typical giveaway gets me to stop for a heartbeat. A cool/unusual/clever giveaway that ties in with the product gets me thinking. If it’s damn yummy I will come back for more and figure out where to buy the product when I get home.
smile: a pleasant smile and non-threatening greeting from a booth staffer does wonders in getting people to stop and examine your offerings.
action in the booth: video or audio interviews draw a crowd. A simple camera/microphone set-up makes people curious. Curiosity helps draw a crowd.
The initial goal of your booth is to get a visitor to stop. Once they’ve stopped, they’ve mentally committed at least a smidgen of time to your offerings. From that moment, it’s up to your (highly trained) booth staff to positively engage them, qualify or disqualify them, grab contact info if interested and move them into the sales funnel.
Did you send out a Tweet too soon? Now what? Our friends at BNET discuss the potential problem of what might happen when information gets out via social networks before your company wants it out. Should you delete a tweet or a Facebook posting? What happens if someone thinks you’ve got something to hide?
Depending on what your company’s involvement is in social media, there are a number of approaches you can take to moving forward during the first quarter of 2011. And that’s the KEY: MOVING FORWARD from wherever you are at this moment. With the forward motion of all things social media, if you sit still you’ll get further and further behind!
If your company is NOT doing anything with social media:
If you’re at the very beginning, you’ll have to start somewhere. Starting anywhere is better than not starting at all. Ask around the office, and look for your company’s own ‘digital native.’ This is the person that’s already online with social media. They’re already on Facebook and Twitter. They may be posting fun videos on YouTube or Facebook. Perhaps they’ve got a LinkedIn account. They’re adept at discussing and moving around in the social media world.
Once you find that person, sit down with your marketing manager and the company owner (presuming you’re a small or medium-sized company and have easy access to these people) and discuss the following steps:
Where you are
Where you want to go in the next 3 – 6 months
What tools you’ll need
Who will be in charge of the company’s social media efforts
How much time it will realistically take to set up accounts and start to build your community
What are your goals
What are the steps required to meet those goals
What other internal or external help you’ll need
At this point, you’re really doing a full assessment of where the company is in social media. Find out what your strengths are, where the holes are in your knowledge and determine the best way to fill those gaps. Here is where you’ll also be appointing someone (or two or three) that have the capabilities to lead the company’s social media efforts.
From here, look to what how you can start to create a community, stay in touch with them and provide them with information, content and response to their feedback.
Then, start: get the Facebook and Twitter accounts going, check in daily, put up links on your website to direct people to the new social media outposts. At the outset, once the accounts are set-up (should take a very short amount of time), the initial involvement might be a few minutes a day. As you see more of your community finding you, you’ll have more opportunity to ask questions, look for feedback and find ways to respond to their comments and questions.
If your company IS ALREADY involved in social media…but you feel there’s a LOT more you could be doing:
GET CREATIVE: If you’re past the first few baby steps described above, this is where you can start to get creative with your postings. Take note of what other companies that ‘get’ social media do. Riff off of their efforts. Come up with ways to creatively produce short videos that show the human side of your company, such as this one from gDiapers that was a video birthday present where employees described what they liked about their boss Kim.
VIDEO is a great tool to share how-to’s, information, what-ifs and much more. It’s an invaluable tool to humanize your company. How can you be creative with your videos?
EVENT CALENDAR: Create an event calendar that outlines your company’s 2011 event schedule. Determine which of the events is the most important, and focus on putting together a significant social media effort into connecting with your community around that event. Don’t ignore the other events; but by choosing a ‘most significant’ event, your social media efforts will fall in line. If you choose to, for instance, do a lot of giveaways via Twitter at the big show, plan on supplementing your other shows with smaller Twitter giveaways. If you’re planning a Tweetup at the big show, think about putting together smaller Tweetups at your smaller shows.
LISTEN: Consider digging deeper with your listening tools. The more you listen to what’s being said online about your products, company and competition, the quick you can respond to issues that arise. Tools such as Radian6, Jive Software, Hubspot and more offer access to deep, real-time conversations around the important things in your world. Some are free, some are paid, but all can help lift the lid a little more on what people really think.
RESPOND: When you come across a conversation that relates to your product or service offerings, step in. David Meerman Scott, in his newest book “Real-Time Marketing and PR,” tells the tale of a company that saw a comment from someone who was not happy with the non-response from a company on a request for quote for a telephone system. The company politely stepped in offering to help on any questions or to offer a quote. Long story short: they sold a $250,000 phone system be responding to a tweet and asking if they could help. So yes, this stuff does happen. It is important and it shows that by responding to an issue in real-time, good things can happen.
BLOG: If you’re not blogging yet, this is an opportune time to figure out how your company can use a blog to stand out in the crowded marketplace. Blogging is not a casual commitment; it requires consistent time, energy and thought, and there’s likely no immediate payoff. But a blog is the best online tool to position your company as a leader in your field, share ideas, create community, and stake out ground.
If your company is neck-deep in social media:
If you’re already doing great things with social media, you probably have a good sense of how you got here, and perhaps where to go from here.
CONTINUE LISTENING: look at different tools that can help you uncover conversations that you previously didn’t hear about. Look at new tools. Keep your ear to the ground. Read blogs on social media such as the Social Media Examiner and Mashable.
BUILD YOUR NETWORK: The wider and deeper your personal and professional network, the more opportunities that will arise out of that network. You’ll find new knowledge, timely information and quicker access to new tools.
ENHANCE YOUR PRESENCE: Since you’re already blogging and you’re on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and perhaps other social media outpost, ask yourself: how can we enhance the connectivity of these tools? What can we do to show our community who we really are? What can we do to reach more of them? Do we share more of ourselves? Do we offer more how-to’s and tutorials? Do we do more webinars? Do we bring in experts in the field and interview them? Do we step up to a higher level of video production? No matter where you are, there is always room for improvement. How can you improve either in incremental steps or in a big leap?
Social media is many things. It’s a great learning tool. It’s an amazing real-time connectivity tool. It’s hard work; it’s fun. It’s unlike anything the world has seen up until this century and it’s changing the nature of business. It is leading to transparency in more company activities. It empowers consumers to gather information from unlimited sources before they commit a dollar to a purchase.
Social media is perfect for the event world. Events are inherently social. Business is social. By learning how to effectively use the social media tools at your disposal, you’re moving a step ahead of your competition and a step closer to creating a valuable community that will help support your business.
If you’re online and involved in social media, you’ll soon run into the question: how to manage those online relationships? After all, you don’t really KNOW these people that you’re connected to. You don’t HANG OUT with them on weekends. You don’t PARTY with them.
But they’re still in your life. Sort of. Your digital life, anyway.
It’s an interesting question, and there’s no one answer. But I did run across a slide show from Heidi Miller that addresses the question. I didn’t get to see or hear her presentation, but the slides will give you a lot to think about:
When speaking in Jacksonville at the EDPA’s annual conference earlier this month, I asked for a show of hands to see how many bloggers were in the audience.
A few hands went up. I expected more. Many more. Not sure why…maybe my expectations are unrealistic. Or maybe it’s that I’ve seen the value in having an active blog. It keeps your mind sharp, it keeps you in front of a growing audience, and it it lets people know who you are and what your expertise is.
Yet many companies simply don’t consider blogging as a valuable marketing tool. Here’s how I see blogging in terms of helping promote a tradeshow appearance or to enhance a tradeshow marketing schedule.
It gives you a place to tell your audience about the new stuff (products, service) that you’ll have at the show.
Blogging is a platform to invite any partners that may have at the show to discuss their products and how it ties in with yours.
It’s easy to insert a video into a blog.
You can easily post photos of visitors to your booth.
You can give reviews and opinions of the show and other products and services.
Your blog is a ‘home base’ for all things show-related. Post documents, downloads, press releases, etc.
Having said all of that, blogging is not to be taken lightly. It’s a significant committment in terms of time and energy. And if you are going to set up a blog for your company, it’s important to make sure that you have new material showing up regularly, whether it’s every week, three times a week or just a couple of times a month.
But once you’ve made the committment and the process of blogging becomes part of your routine, you’ll discover that it’s a great outlet for all sorts of things. You can post slides from a presentation, videos from your company, how-to’s and informational tidbits that educate and illuminate your audience.
It also allows you and your company to gain more visibility within your industry and target audience.
Blogging isn’t the end-all and be-all of online presence, but it’s a valuable marketing and positioning tool.
What is there to love about tradeshow marketing? After all, it’s expensive, it’s hard work and you have to travel and set up stuff. And then stand for hours a day talking to hundreds or thousands of people. And then tear it down, pack it up and head home.
So what’s to love? Let’s count the ways…
Opportunity: a tradeshow is a great opportunity to meet people who, in most cases, have PAID to be there and WANT to see what you’re showing off.
Learning: when you’re attending a tradeshow you’re going to be exposed to hundreds of new products and service offerings in your industry.
Competition: while the booth across the aisle may be competing with you, it’s easy to feel a kinship with him. After all, they’re in the same boat as you: trying to keep their business going and thriving. By sharing stories and getting to know each other, you can connect better to the community that you all share.
Travel: If you don’t like to travel, scratch this from your list. But if you do, getting on the road for several days is always great – if for nothing more than a change of pace.
Challenge: the simple challenge of putting your best foot forward at a tradeshow amidst all of the other exhibits is unlike other marketing challenges.
Challenge 2.0: If you approach the next tradeshow as a personal challenge, see how well you can do in your sales, your presentation skills, listening, answering questions. There’s a lot to learn about your interpersonal skills engagement on the tradeshow floor.
Opportunity 2.0: At a tradeshow you have access – if only for a few moments – to CEO’s company presidents, marketing managers, etc., any of whom can open great doors for you if make a good connection. So…how can you make a connection?
Market Research: Your booth visitors are a great source of information – if only you ask. Do a survey, hand out questionnaires, have people demo new beta products so you can get in a little product testing while pitching your newest stuff.
After Hours: Whether you’re in Vegas, New Orleans, Anaheim or Buffalo, there’s always a new place you can check out after the show. Take a client, get to know a colleague a little better. After hours at a tradeshow is a great opportunity for deepening relationships. And, uh, y’know…for having some damn FUN!
What can you add to the list? What do you love about tradeshow marketing?
What? You’re done already? Seems to me that you just got started! I mean, there’s so much left to do. Why, it felt like just yesterday that June arrived, all full of too many Oregon rainclouds and green grass. Now we’re already past that Thanksgiving turkey carcass and ready to wrap and then unwrap presents. Holy Christmas, indeed!
So what did you accomplish, 2010? Your Facebook website passed 550 million users and more than 3 million active business pages. But there’s still plenty of room to get involved. Your Twitter users passed 17 million, and thousands (probably tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or even millions) of companies are seeing the value in the real-time customer engagement that you facilitate. But still some company bosses think it’s kid stuff. Right. Well, in a year or two, those folks will be wishing that had seen the light in 2010.
Speaking of carcasses, I see that MySpace did a complete makeover earlier this fall. I keep getting invitations to go back to my page, but the few times I’ve bothered it hasn’t intrigued me much. So…probably not. Sorry.
Personally, it was a challenging and enlightening year. But aren’t they all? I bought an iPhone during spring so that I could see what the fuss was about. And of course, to see how that whole smartphone thing works. After all, how can I blog about mobile marketing and tweeting and stuff if I wasn’t personally involved?
And as for the iPhone itself, so far I’m only mildly impressed. Yes, it’s only a 3G (got it right before they announced the 4G) and it has a few minor issues. But overall, a nice piece of gear. But I’m already thinking about what I might replace it with when the contract winds down.
‘Twas certainly a good year for some personal-growth-type stuff as I continued to expand boundaries. It was great to be involved with a number of live speaking gigs and several webinars (thanks to Classic Exhibits to helped promote them), topped off by the presentation at the Exhibit Designers and Producers Association annual conference in Jacksonville, Florida earlier this month. I hope/plan to see more of those in 2011.
As for the Great Beyond, 2010, you claimed some of the Greats indeed. We said goodbye to folks such as J. D. Salinger, Leslie Neilsen, Gary Coleman, Tony Curtis, Eddie Fisher, Patricia Neal, Dennis Hopper, Frank Frazetta, Lynn Redgrave, Fess Parker, Don Meredith, Dino De Laurentiis…the list is too large. Can you just hold off for a little while so we can enjoy some of these people while they’re still around?
So, 2010, you give way to 2011. What can we expect? More of the same? Or perhaps some new thinking? Oh, you’re right. It’s up to us. WE have to decide to change. You don’t just make things better because the days on the calendar have flipped over.
Okay, well…let me think about it. And see if I can come up with a blog post that’s actually WORTH reading!
He’s an author, public speaker, blogger, TV guy, publisher…and more…and he’s just 30. I caught up with Scott Ginsberg this week to talk about the last ten years and see what he’s got up his sleeve for ’11.
The latest Tradeshow Marketing Tips newsletter is a ‘short-list’ of our favorite social media resources.
There are places to get started blogging, photo-sharing, doing online social media research, and more. You’ll find video-sharing sites, web conferencing, event promotion sites and things that we’ve used over and over—along with a few items that we’re just learning about. If you have a resource to share – please do! Just leave a comment on this post…and thanks!
