Thought I’d take a look back at all of the guests that I’ve had on TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee since the turn of the year calendar in January. It’s been quite a few in three months, and I’ve enjoyed sharing these conversations with you (all links open up new tabs). Have you heard/seen all of these?
January 8: Charles Pappas. Charles discusses his new book “Flying Cars, Zombie Dogs and Robot Overlords.”
February 26: Eric Rosenberg. Eric used his appearances at events, tradeshows and conferences to help build his successful blogging career in the personal finance industry.
March 5: Leslie Ungar. President of Electric Impulse. Leslie shared a lot of great ideas here.
March 19: Nicky Omohundro of Little Family Adventures discusses her experiences as an official blogger at Natural Products Expo West.
March 26: Shep Hyken. As Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations, Shep’s been working with companies such as AT&T, Disney, Lexus and Merrill Lynch on customer engagement.
These guests have all been great fun, entertaining and educational – and thanks to all of them! I look forward to speaking with many more people later this year on the TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee! Subscribe to the audio podcast here.
The release date of May 1, 2018 has been set for my new book, Tradeshow Superheroes and Exhibiting Zombies: 66 Lists Making the Most of Your Tradeshow Marketing. The print proof copy just came in and it looks great, and heck, I can’t even find any major errors in it! Thanks to all who helped, from Jesse Stark who did the illustrations, to Mel White at Classic Exhibits (and his wife Mary) who went through the manuscript with a fine-tooth comb, to the great team at CreateSpace who are always on top of their game and to all else who lent support and good words (Ken, Andy and Anders, I’m thinking of you! And Roger too!).
So what’s in the book?
Lists. A lot of them. 66 lists, in fact. Corralled in chapters such as Budgeting, Buying an Exhibit, Preshow Marketing, Postshow Follow Up and more, it’s a compilation of a lot of the lists that have appeared on this very blog since 2008. Not all of them, though. Some were outdated. Most have been revised and updated. The people I’ve shared the manuscript with have told me that it’s a fun and quick read, with lots of different topics and lists that can be digested deeply, or skimmed to pick up a tip or two or three.
I’ll be creating a Thunderclap promotion to release on May 1, so watch your social media outlets for that. And if you subscribe to my Tradeshow Superheroes book update list or the TradeshowGuy Newsletter, you’ll learn how to get involved in that little thing.
All in all, I’m excited! Damn! A new book!
Now I get to start figuring out what the next one should be…
How do you get people to attend shows? And once they attend, what’s the best strategy to keep them coming? That’s the topic and TradeshowGuy Tim Patterson and Trade Show Ready’s Nick McCallion tackle in this wide-ranging interview. Plus: Tradeshow Tip of the Week and ONE GOOD THING!
Is there an inside game of tradeshow marketing success? Hey, it could be just a catch phrase designed to get you read.
But let’s explore for a moment.
If you’re a baseball fan, you might be familiar with the phrase “inside baseball.” It’s a term used mostly in the United States, that refers to detailed knowledge about a subject that outsiders are usually not privy to. Deep knowledge about any subject down to the minutiae often means that unless you have spent years doing whatever it is, you are not going to understand a lot of the talk. Hence, “inside baseball.”
Even though the term was around since the 19th century, by the mid-1950s the term was being used outside of baseball, particularly it was used in politics. To use the term in another field, such as business, technology or science is not unusual.
In using the term as applied to tradeshow marketing, let’s think about what that means.
Knowledge. You have the knowledge of what it takes to go from Point A to Point Z with all of the twists and turns.
Discipline. Not only do you have the knowledge, you have the discipline that it takes in the event industry to organize all of those moving parts in a coherent and effective way.
Skill. Skill comes with doing something over and over again, learning what works and what doesn’t, ironing out the rough spots and then learning some more so that you know what to expect, you know how to deal with issues as they come up because – hey! – they’re not that much of a surprise.
Networking. The event industry – like most industries – is a people industry. People make it run. People know how things work. People ask for and offer help. And face it – the events / tradeshow / exhibiting industry is built on getting far-flung people together under one roof face-to-face to do business. Networking skills are at their highest level and their most useful in this industry.
Inside baseball means you know why a pitcher is throwing a curve ball when the count is 3 and 2. You know that between pitches, players and coaches communicate strategy by pulling on an earlobe, brushing their thigh or arm, and of course keeping an eye on the opposing team’s silent communication to try and suss out the essence of the message.
Inside tradeshow marketing has to do with, for example, knowing how to position your brand in the marketplace, how to talk to booth visitors, when to book travel and hotel rooms, what restaurants are the best near any given conference venue, how to take advantage of those three or four days when the exhibit is set up in a competitive marketplace where thousands of potential clients are roaming the aisles. Having the right graphics and messaging can mean the difference between 250 and 350 leads. Having a booth staff that knows how to ask the right questions of visitors can mean the difference between and ROI of 10% and 100%. It all makes a difference.
And if you’ve done this for years, you know what works and what doesn’t. You know what companies are putting up a great exhibit and have a fantastically enthusiastic and well-trained staff and which competitors are just showing up because they think they should.
If you know all of that stuff, you know inside baseball. In the tradeshow world.
Selling anything, whether in a clothing store, a car dealer showroom, or a tradeshow, means in some sense you have to understand your buyer. You must have empathy for what they’re going through or the sale will be much more difficult.
When you put yourself in the shoes of your potential buyer, you feel what they feel. You understand what they understand. You know what problems they are facing. You know what it would feel like to have a solution to the problem that your product or service would provide. You must know what makes them feel good, what makes them feel hurt.
Your marketing strategy should include efforts to understand those potential clients or customers. Ask yourself these questions:
Do you really understand how they feel prior to learning about your product or service?
What is the perspective of your customer in regard to your product or service?
How do your prospects view the world?
What challenges do they face?
How do they view companies such as yours?
There are other related questions that will come up, but the goal is to see the world from their perspective as best as you can. The more you’re able to do this – and the better you’re able to communicate that understanding back to them – the higher your chances of converting them from a prospect to a client.
Briana Belden, Brand Manager of Wedderspoon Manuka Honey, joins the TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee for a discussion about how they approach tradeshow marketing: preshow outreach, what happens during the show, follow up, branding and more:
When I first got into the tradeshow world around the turn of the century (!), an issue that kept coming up time and time again was the color of tradeshow graphics.
There are a number of problems that come up with printing graphics with accurate color.
First, since we printed everything in-house at that point, we needed to make sure that the printer’s output was consistent with what was called for. A graphic designer will usually spec a PMS color (Pantone Matching System), which is a proprietary color space that identifies exact shades. That meant regular testing of the system to make sure that the color matched.
The inks in the printer must be of high quality so that when the computer that is used to process the print calls on the right combination of the various ink tanks.
Next, you have the computer monitor. Many clients would look at something on their monitor and think it looked exactly how they wanted it. Trouble it, monitors differ in their output as well. So, what you see on your monitor in your office may not be what I see on my monitor.
Don’t forget about the substrate you’re printing on. Whether it’s fabric or paper, simply by changing the source of paper from one package to another may bring a subtle difference. It’s the same with carpet dye. One dye lot may be slightly different from another, and if you try to match a new printed piece with an older printed piece, chances are good it won’t exactly match.
Then there’s the human factor. We all see colors differently, and usually the person operating the printers have a good eye for colors.
So how to address this? If you are trying to match a PMS Pantone color exactly, the best thing is to provide a paper-printed color sample that you like. For example, if you have a brochure or other printed piece that is exactly what you want, color-wise, make sure your printing vendor has that. If they have that piece in hand, chances are very high they can make adjustments in their process to create a printed tradeshow graphic that matches your desired color.
But understand that there a lot of variable! The technology has generally made it easier to color-match, but it’s not always guaranteed. Just work with your exhibit house or print shop if color-matching is important.
Welcome to the (perhaps) annual TradeshowGuy Expo West 2018 Exhibit Awards, where I totally (almost) at random, pick out a handful of the 3600+ exhibits at the Natural Products Expo West show and give them a little notoriety here on the TradeshowGuy Blog!
A couple of caveats: I’m not including any current clients of TradeshowGuy Exhibits – they’re already award winners in our book, and we don’t want this fun post to be biased towards, you know, clients! Besides, we’ve already posted photos of those exhibits.
So, let’s get started!
Best Big Brand Makeover: Kettle Foods
Kettle Foods started out as a small nut and chip maker in Salem, Oregon. In the past ten years or so the company has been bought and sold a handful of times and is currently operated as one of the major brands of the Snyder’s-Lance product suite. The island exhibit shows great color and ingenuity in piecing together many elements of the Kettle Brand.
Best Client-Made Exhibit: Stahlbush Farms
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with the good folks at Stahlbush Farms, near Corvallis, Oregon, for several years. But when it came time to do a new booth, it finally came down to having their own fabrication shop create it. It’s built using crates that double as counters, and everything fits neatly into a couple of crates. Nicely done!
Best Kitchen Sink Exhibit – DanoneWave
I think they used to be White Wave, but now it’s DanoneWave, still offering brands under the Silk, Dannon, Oikos, SoDelicious, Wallaby Organic and many others. I’ve always stopped by their booths over the years and chatted and tasted and this year was no exception. There’s a lot going on here: carts, hot air balloons, colorful images, detailed woodwork, a random vehicle or three – seriously, you can just walk around the thing for fifteen minutes taking it in!
Best Retro Motor Vehicle Use – Hansen’s
A cool psychedelically painted hippie van? Ff course! There are a lot of vehicles that show up in booth spaces at Expo West, but this one catches your eyes like no other.
Best Photo Op – Enjoy Life
Enjoy Life has seen their exhibit grow significantly in the last few years, from a small inline to a dominating island. This year they showed of a pseudo-underwater photo alley that invited people to shoot and share. Yes, there were a lot of photo ops throughout the show, but this made the biggest impression.
Best Rustic Exhibit – Kodiak Cakes
Kodiak Cakes of Park City, Utah, also had a great photo op section of their booth space, but I felt that the rest of the exhibit was more impressive. Beyond the photo op section was a forest, a lookout-like building and a wall of photos of booth visitors. A fun-loving and lively crew, too, passing out samples like crazy.
Best Simple Yet Powerful Statement Exhibit – Kashi
Last year, Kashi caught eyes with a simple statement with no brand ambassadors, no sampling – just a simple statement to support farmers in their transition to organic farming. This year they made a similar statement with a slightly modified exhibit. Powerful stuff.
Best Split Exhibit – Aqua Carpatica
Downstairs in the busy ballroom at Expo West, it’s a little hard to stand out. But Aqua Carpatica of Romania booked two 10×20 spaces across the aisle from each other and dominated the space with a spare, almost ascetic approach to pitch the cleanliness of their water. It was capped by a giant video screen, around 8 x 12 feet, and some tables and chairs – but not much else. Very attention-getting!
Best Tribute to a Fallen Comrade – Clif Bar
I met John Anthony over a decade ago when Kettle Foods was a client, and John worked for them. A fun and engaging guy to talk to, he moved to Clif Bar, Nature’s Path, UNFI and CLIF’s White Road Investments. I was having lunch with an old Kettle Foods friend a few months prior to Expo West and mentioned that I’d run into John at the 2017 show. He said he’d heard that John had died unexpectedly in the fall of 2017. Clif Bar did a nice job in their tribute:
All right – on that note, we’ll wrap up this year’s TradeshowGuy Expo West Exhibit Awards. Hope you enjoyed. Sorry if we missed your booth – but hey, there were over 3,600 exhibitors this year. Maybe next year!
Shep Hyken is an author, speaker and customer service expert consultant that’s been doing his thing for decades. He was inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame in 2008, and it’s a pleasure to welcome him to the TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee this week.
Music moves you, and so should the Ultimate Tradeshow Marketing Playlist. Yes, your list will look different from mine, I have no doubt. But take this list as a starting point in creating an ultimate tradeshow marketing playlist that will keep you moving and motivate you do have an awesome show next time.
And, yes, I’m old school:
“Hot Stuff” by Donna Summer. Your tradeshow booth is going to showing all of the hottest stuff you can muster, because you know that the only way to compete against your competitors is to have even hotter stuff.
“Electric Avenue” by Eddy Grant. Walk down any aisle at any tradeshow and you’ll wish you had sunglasses. Back lit graphics, light boxes, halogen lights, overhead lights. It’s all electric.
“Takin’ Care of Business” by Bachman Turner Overdrive. This was also Elvis’s mantra. Wherever it came from, it means you’re there to do some business, to meet and greet potential clients and customers. To take care of business! Check out Keith Moon introducing the band:
“Ballroom Blitz” by Sweet. Most every show I’ve been at has some action in the ballroom. Probably not the kind of action described in this classic tune, but how many other songs about ballrooms are you going to find? Big hair, big collars, men wearing makeup…what more could you ask from a mid-70s video?
“Make Me Smile” by Chicago. Any transaction in any situation goes better when you can make the other person smile.
“My Poor Brain” by the Foo Fighters. After three days of fielding questions, walking the floor and getting sore feet, setting up and dismantling exhibits, you’ll probably relate to this song.
“On the Road Again” by – take your pick – Canned Heat (my preference) or Willie Nelson. The great traveling songs.
“Come Together” by the Beatles. Couldn’t let the ultimate tradeshow marketing playlist get by without something by the Fab Four. Tradeshows, events and conferences are all about coming together for a common cause.
“Show Biz Kids” by Steely Dan. No, we’re not in the movie-making industry, but tradeshows are a lot about showing off the goods. It’s a Show. It’s Biz. And deep down, we’re Kids.
“Take It Easy” by the Eagles. When you’re stressed for a hundred reasons, and you need to take a break. Just take a deep breath and take it easy.
“Over and Over” by the Dave Clark Five. Once you get in the groove of doing tradeshows, this song will have more meaning for you. Do it over and over again!
“Magic” by any number of artists. We all try to create a little magic in our tradeshow booths. There’s an oldie called “Magic” by Pilot. Olivia Newton-John did a song of the same name. So did The Cars. And then there’s “Magical Mystery Tour” by the Beatles. And so on. All good stuff to inspire you to work your magic!
Let’s finish off this baker’s dozen list with “Jammin’” by Bob Marley and the Wailers. A tradeshow is chaotic, energetic, noisy, wild. And half the time you’re making things up as you go to accommodate the various questions and situations that come your way. So you are JAMMIN’!
