• November 9, 2009

10 Tips To Use Social Media To Close More Biz At Your Tradeshows

Note: the following post was originally published as a guest post on Steve Farnsworth’s Digital Marketing Mercenary on 11.6.09.

Need more proof that social media is a great place to meet people of like minds?

A couple of weeks ago I was doing research for a presentation on Social Media and PR, so I went to Twitter, searched for the hashtag #PR and came upon several tweets that contained the hashtag.

One was Steve Farnsworth. Being the direct kind of guy I am, I picked up the phone and left a voice mail with him. It wasn’t long before he called back, and soon we were trading notes on various social media experiences we’d had.

The conversation led to a handful of ideas for my presentation (which went over well, btw), and also led Steve and I to do a Tweet chat about using social media to close more biz at tradeshows.

The process of talking, hashing out ideas, articulating those ideas and preparing for a chat or a presentation tends to focus your mind. As a result, I came up with list of a number of ideas on how to use social media to bring people into your world at tradeshow appearances. Some of these ideas will take just a little organization and execution by just one or two people. Others may take more investment of time, energy and money – but hey, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

1. Tweet out contests and promos for people to come to your booth. Keep a count of how many people stop by and ask about the freebie as a result of the prize. When tweeting at or about a specific show, ALWAYS use the show’s hashtag.

2. Create a hashtag for your company at the show. For instance, if your company was Keen Shoes, you could include the hastags #Keen and #ORSM09 – after the show count how many times those hashtags were retweeted.

3. Create a minisite or blog dedicated to your appearance at a specific show, or targeted exclusively towards your tradeshow marketing efforts. Offer white papers, e-books and special reports exclusive to the site; perhaps related (or not) to your tradeshow appearance. Drive traffic there through social media, email and other sources. Web traffic and download metrics are easily trackable through Google analytics and basic web stats. Folks that download the white papers and reports are now in your marketing/sales funnel.

4. If you have a Facebook company page (if you don’t, you definitely should), send out regular messages to your ‘fans’ about special deals or prizes that you are offering at the booth. This could be done ahead of time as well as during the show. By offering different prizes, you can track the responses from each medium.

5. Invite people to post a tagged photo taken at your booth to their Flickr account. If you have some sort of celebrity, or even a nifty backdrop such as a tropical beach, this would encourage more participants.

6. Shoot a commercial at your booth and post the best ones on your YouTube channel. Invite visitors to take 30 seconds and promote your product in any way they’d like. Low budget? Use a Flip video camera for $150 and start shooting.

7. Invite a few prominent bloggers in your industry to stop by for a chance to get a scoop on your new product or service. Make sure they have links available for their post. In fact, you might create a special landing page just for readers from that blog. It’ll give you a chance to respond specifically to interest in that show or those specific products, plus you can easily measure the metrics of people coming in via that link.

8. If you’re a speaker, and are doing a presentation where you’re projecting your laptop on stage, show your audience real-time tweet searches and Twitter comments about your presentation. Caveat: do this ONLY if you’re willing to take a few negative comments. But hey, it’ll make your presentation much more timely – and it’ll give you some real feedback on what you need to improve! A quick search for the hashtag after the show will give you measurable feedback about the presentation. It also gives those not at the show a chance to peek at the conversation while it’s happening.

9. Invite guest speakers, bloggers, product reps and others to appear on your live streaming video channel at UStream.TV or other video streaming site. Track visitor metrics and comments.

10. Give out Pokens (or thumb drives) with all of your company’s Social Media contacts. Track how many people come to your Facebook page or your minisite.

I haven’t see all of these ideas put to use, but many have been used to great success. Would love to see what methods you’ve used to combine social media with face-to-face tradeshow marketing. After all, while you can meet people online, meeting in person is where you really solidify that relationship.

• November 9, 2009
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• October 19, 2009

23 Pre-Show Marketing Promotions, Tactics and Ideas

Sure, your booth looks great. Your tradeshow staff is tip-top, trained and raring to go. The next step in your overall tradeshow marketing plan is to get people to come to your booth WANTING to do business with you. You want them lined up when the doors open each day, raring to hoof it to YOUR booth for something special.

Don’t leave it to chance. A modest investment in time, energy and dollars will pay off. In your pre-show planning, determine your show objectives and shape your promotions accordingly.

Here are some ideas for promotions that should inspire you to put pre-show marketing on to your ‘must do’ list.

1. “Missing glove” promotion: one of the older ways of getting people to come to your booth is to send them one glove,
   

   

   and ask them to come to the booth to get a matching glove for the other hand. You could use a key and lock, travel coffee mugs/lids, etc. The incentive is to get your visitor to make a point of coming by your booth to get the missing item.

2. Direct Mailer: Target your own house list, last year’s show attendees; who ever you think might benefit from being able to do business with you. Create a postcard or other mailer and send out a few weeks before the show.
3. E-mail: Remind your newsletter list (you do have a newsletter, right?) about the show. Mention any incentives you have in place for show attendees.
4. Online on your own website: put mentions of the show on the front page and other relevent pages on your company website.
5. Newsletter: whether you have an e-mail or snail mail newsletter, be sure to mention to your recipients that you’re going to be at the show.
6. Online on the show website. By becoming a show sponsor, you’ll get your company branded consistently on the show website. Make sure your banner ads mention the booth number and any promotion you’ll be doing at the show.
7. Radio – if appropriate (for a consumer show, for instance), radio advertising can bring people to the show. ALWAYS have a call to action in your radio ads: ‘come to booth XX to register to win a blank,’ etc.
8. TV – same with Radio.
9. Social Media: Twitter: for your social media marketing, the goal is to bring people to your booth and create awareness about your company and products. Tweet out about specific prizes, offers, products, etc.
10. Social Media: Facebook page. On your company Facebook page, set aside a special area to let people know about your show appearance and any special events, offers, products, etc. that might be of interest.
11. Social Media: LinkedIn mentions. Post show updates in your status box, and get your sales people and other show attendees to do the same. YOu can also join a related group and pose a question about a specific problem or challenge in your industry. Include a link to your tradeshow landing page online, or minisite if you’re created one.
12. Create small stickers with your booth #, date, city, etc. Put it on all correspondence that goes out to clients or prospects: invoices, letters, packages, etc.
13. Send out map of show floor with your booth highlighted. Mention any freebies you’re giving away, or new products your launching.
14. Limited time incentive: first 50 people at the booth get a free prize.
15. Target CEO’s with a ‘dimensional’ mailed package. For instance, as a SendOutCards member, I can easily send cookies, brownies, gourmet foods, books, DVDs. This will get the attention of the target! Personalize the message with a special invitation to come by the booth and learn about your products or services.
16. Fax-blast reminders to business that you already have a relationship with (fax marketing has various restrictions, so make sure you are following those rules).
17. Have your sales people drop off invitations in person.
18. Starting about 5 – 6 weeks before the show, have your sales team start making appointments at the trade show.
19. Your PR department should be making arrangements with key media players and outlets to make sure they know of new products, new features on older products, etc. Anything that gives you a bit of a hook to get airtime or mentions in the media.
20. Send a coupon for a free gift that your prospect can pick up at your booth.
21. Create a ‘show appointment’ book, and book appointments with your key customers or prospects. As part of your confirmation, send a copy of the book page to your clients with the appointment hand-written in.
22. Have all of your sales reps and anyone else that regularly communicates with clients and prospect via email to add a show mention (with booth and show location and date) to their e-mail signature file.
23. Create a mini-site where all of your show-related documents would reside. Have a special password-protected area for your employees and ‘premium’ clients where they can find contact info for all your tradeshow staff, staff schedule, and other pertinent information. Mention the site in all your outgoing correspondence (remember the sticker? put the URL on it!)

• October 19, 2009
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• October 16, 2009

Bravo! Show Hits 15 Years in Portland

I spent a couple of hours this week at the Bravo! Live Tradeshow in Portland at the Oregon Convention Center yesterday, produced by BravoEvent.com.

The event features businesses that focus on event production, including caterers, event design and production, entertainment, event planning, transportation and tours and venues. Bravo! founder Mary Lou Burton conceived the idea for the show after her wedding in which she couldn’t find a central source for planning such an event. The tradeshow itself is about fifteen years old, held every October in Portland.

I’ve been to the show perhaps half a dozen times and always find it a friendly, moderately-sized regional show that has a lot to offer. This year I connected with a lot of exhibitors from my old hometowns of Sisters and Bend in Central Oregon. Always great to chat with people who are living where I grew up – especially the folks at The Lodge at Suttle Lake, just a short jaunt from the small Scout Lake where I learned to swim as a kid, in the upper Cascades.

Some 150 exhibitors showed their stuff. Of course the most popular are the caterers and brewpubs who sampled crab-cakes, ales, sweets, and yummy snacks.

The most interesting booths to me included the Portland Photo Booth, The Lodge at Suttle Lake (probably because I grew up near there and was interested to see how they were progressing), Wanderlust Tours, DWA Trade Show and Exposition, Astoria/Warrenton Chamber of Commerce, A Majestic Mountain Retreat, and Tickets Oregon.

My attraction to the booths, interestingly enough, were not because of how the booth looked, but with what they had to offer and how the folks staffing the booth interacted.

For example, the photo booth at Portland Photo Booth is a big attractor: you’re invited to sit in the booth and take a series of photos – just like you used to as a kid! The booth is available for rent for parties, corporate events, shows, etc. at a flat fee for unlimited usage during the rental time. Great way to get your guests involved.

The Lodge at Suttle Lake is a magnificent resort on the east end of Suttle Lake on the Santiam Pass in the Central Oregon Cascades. I told Becca at the booth that I grew up learning to swim at Scout Lake, just a mile or so up and over the hill from Suttle Lake, and that I had camped with my family several times at Suttle Lake. So we hit it off great. Always nice to connect with someone from your home town!

Pat Conlon at Wanderlust Tours went into a passionate description of what his company offered and I kept thinking “I need a job like that!”  Patrick and the company spend their time taking folks on canoe, kayak, cave, volcano and GPS Eco-Challenge tours among other things. Neat.

But I think I was most impressed by Patrick Lamb’s Tickets Oregon, a new company that handles online ticket sales for Oregon events. Patrick is a Grammy-nominated musician who has toured the world and played with such folks as Lionel Hampton, Diane Schuur, Bobby Caldwell, Gino Vannelli, Jeff Lorber, ‘Little John’ Roberts, Curt Bisquera, Herman Jackson, Mel Brown, Marlon McClain, Nate Philips, The Crazy 8s, Dan Balmer, Paul Delay, Norman Sylvester….(okay, it’s an impressive list). In person Patrick is gregarious, passionate and knowledgeable. He’s the owner/founder of Tickets Oregon and as he told the story of why he started the company I couldn’t help get caught up in his tale. It also occurred to me that this is the way to get people involved in your endeavors: tell them a story about why you are involved. If it resonates, they’ll want to get involved.

In public speaking I always teach that personal stories are powerful. They hook people and draw them in. It’s the same in tradeshow marketing. Tell a powerful tale and you’ll hook your visitors.

As tradeshows go, Bravo! is a small regional show – and the organizers pulled it off very nicely. The exhibitors are extremely high quality, the registration process is nearly seamless (okay, a slight bump in getting a badge but they had a ready-made Plan B), and best of all the show was free to industry types.

And the crab-cakes were outasite!

• October 16, 2009
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• October 10, 2009

Using Social Media with Tradeshows and Other Events

Pulled out the Flip Video Cam and recorded a few thoughts on using social media with tradeshows, conventions, conferences and events:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GJiDj8C6vQ

• October 10, 2009
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