March 11, 2014

Expo West 2014 Tradeshow Guy Booth Performance Awards

Just returned from Expo West in Anaheim where I had a number of tradeshow booth clients, including Bob’s Red Mill, gDiapers, Aisle7 and Hyland’s. One of my goals at this particular show was to do informal assessments of a couple of dozen booths, including booths that I picked at random, and those of companies that responded to my 2-minute video I posted about ten days before the show.

Since I have a handful of client booths at the show, I am disqualifying them from winning any awards (although I think they all were top-noth projects)!

Before getting to the awards, a few comments: first, these are for fun only. Nobody actually wins anything substantial except a mention in this blog. Second, while I spotted a number of booths that would qualify for awards such as ‘Most Cluttered,’ ‘Most Confusing’ and ‘Shouldn’t Even Be Here Because Mom Didn’t Approve it’ the point is not to speak ill of booths that should be improved. Hey, I can’t help everybody, right?

So, without furthre adieu, let’s begin:

Cleanest Look & Most Pristine Representation of a Brand: R .W. Garcia. Not a custom booth, but an aluminum frame-and-fabric construction, nonetheless this captured my attention with its attention to detail. The graphical heirarchy was clean: company name at the top with secondary bullet points describing the company’s products. The back wall graphic was dominated by images of chip bags, so there was no doubt about the company’s products.

Most Iconic Use of an Icon: Guayaki Brand Yerba Mate. Okay, I only caught one photo of this, but the use of a life-size cutout of the Pope drinking tea stopped me in my tracks and made me want to have Yerba Mate with His Holiness.

Best Story on a Booth: Amy’s Kitchen debuted their new booth in 2013, and this 30×30 island clearly captures the company’s natural image, including a back wall section with photos and captions detailing the company’s history.

Best Interactive Booth: While there were several booths that invited attendees to write notes on a board, YesTo asked people to write what they would say YES to.

Best Use of Shipping Crates: Several booths use shipping crates as part of their booth to save on time and shipping expense. Ridgecrest Herbals showed how its done with branded shipping crates that doubled as counters, benches and product display.

Best Dancing Mascot: SweetLeaf, with their Sweet Drops Sweetener doing his/her shaking to a live guitarist.

Best Use of an Olympic Stud: Drink Chia! How can you top an impromptu aisle race featuring Olympic athlete Justin Gatlin? (check out his race here)

Most Elaborate Use of Booth: Clif Bar. The 40×40 island that Clif Bar used to represent their brand included not one, but two enclosed client meeting rooms, two sample stations, messaging that showed their love of fun and helping Mother Earth and the creative use of repurposing old wood for something new. And more. Hanging plants in wooden boxes. Bicycle gears. Old window frames. The steep usage of the word ‘organic.’ With all of this disparate yet congruent elements, this booth came close to a Terry Gilliam dream (go ahead, look him up. I’ll wait.).

And finally, Best MashUp of a Beatles Album Cover: Love Birch. With their wacky replacement of John, Paul, George and Ringo’s heads with leaves, Love Birch took the iconic Abbey Road album cover and turned it on its head, and in the process stopped people in their tracks.

This is the 13^th consecutive year that I’ve attended Expo West, and it still seems fresh and fun, bigger and bolder and more overwhelming every year.

A few final observations: while there was a lot of use of social media this year, it didn’t seem to be anything out of the norm for most companies. Several companies invited attendees to ‘like’ them on Facebook, or tweet out a photo for a prize, but not as many as you might think would.

I was also on the lookout for QR Codes, and was a bit surprised to find only one on display. I had tasked myself with testing each and every QR Code I ran across to see if it worked. This one didn’t. The invitation next to the code was to ‘like’ us on Facebook, yet when I scanned the code, I was taken to a home page of a website – not optimized for a smartphone – and there was no indication of how to get to Facebook from there.

With QR Codes seemingly fading from popularity at least at this year’s show, perhaps that’s a good thing since it seems that so many QR Codes fail at least one part of the test: tell people what they get when they scan, make sure its optimized for a smartphone, and then test it all to make sure it works.

February 24, 2014

Join me at Expo West in Anaheim for the TradeshowGuy Booth Performance Test

Natural Products Expo West is the biggest natural products tradeshow in the US, with some 3,000 exhibitors and 60,000 attendees. Yes, it’s the big time.

2014 will be my 12th consecutive year at the show. Many of my tradeshow clients have been exhibiting there for year.

For example, come see Aisle7 in booth 1668, gDiapers in booth 3605, Hyland’s at 1804 and of course Bob’s Red Mill at booth 3546.

One thing I like to do at Expo West and other tradeshows is check out the booths. There are thousands of them and with that many to look over, frankly, it’s a bit overwhelming! This year, however, I’m going to try something new. I’m going to take a look at a few dozen booths with the specific intent of seeing how they do in the TradeshowGuy Booth Performance Test!

If you’d like to have me subject your booth to the performance test, just tweet me at @tradeshowguy and I’ll be glad to swing by and take a look!

January 24, 2014

Savvy and Systematic Tradeshow Marketing (slide deck)

Last week I flew into Houston to give a presentation for ISES Houston for their monthly meeting. This one focused on tradeshow marketing and was hosted by 2020 Exhibits. The presentation went over the various aspects of what it takes to compete on the tradeshow floor.

Definitely a fun time had by all: thanks to Vivian at Juz Do It Productions and Becky at 2020 Exhibits for making this all come together.

Check out the slide deck:

A Savvy and Systematic Approach to Tradeshow Marketing from KMUZ Community Radio

January 3, 2014

2014 Tradeshow and Exhibit Industry Predictions

Once I thought I was a prognosticator, but that didn’t turn out very well. So perhaps we should see who else in the industry is trying to predict the future…

CEIR Predicts Slow, Steady Industry Growth (okay, this one wasn’t too hard)…

Top Event Tech Predictions

Top Event Tech Predictions, Part 2

2014 Global Meetings and Events Forecast from American Express (PDF download)

10 Event Trends for 2014: Event Manager Blog

and finally: Tradeshows to Grow 4% in 2014

Again, none of these are that earth-shaking, but it all appears to be good news in line with how the economy as a whole is doing.

If I were to predict anything, it would be that mobile marketing will continue to grow very quickly, and that any tradeshow marketer who is not paying attention to that little fact is doing themselves a big disservice.

Just added!

Four Fabulous Meeting Technology Predictions for 2014 (thanks, Jeff Hurt on Twitter!)

3 Event Tech Predictions for 2014 (thanks, Michael Brewer!)

Top Event Tech Predictions for 2014 (thanks, PCMA Convention Center)

Top Ten Predictions for the Event Technology Industry for 2014 (thanks, Conference Info)

14 Meetings Technology Trends to Watch for in 2014 (thanks Meet MR Holland and CorbinBall)

and finally:

Susan Friedmann, the Tradeshow Coach, with her top 5 predictions for 2014…

December 30, 2013

Tradeshow Marketing Analysis, Part 2: Budgeting

Read Part One of this series here.

You can get lost in the numbers. But sometimes it’s fun – and enlightening.

Visitors spend an average of 8.3 hours in 2.3 days on a tradeshow floor, giving exhibitors the chance to reach thousands of potential customers in a very short time (Center for Exhibition Industry Research, 2008). 39% of visitors come to the same show at least two years in a row, giving exhibitors a loyal base of committed potential customers (CEIR, 2008). 50% of attendees already have a buying plan when attending shows (CEIR, 2007). And finally – decision makers love exhibitions: 87% of survey respondents state that national exhibitions are an ‘extremely useful’ source of needed purchasing information (CEIR, 2004).

Tradeshows account for an average one-third of a company’s annual marketing budget. Much of that money is simply flushed down the drain. Why? Because many company tradeshow and exhibit managers don’t have a thorough, detailed plan for each show and often the booth staff is unaware of the reason for even being at the show, other than the general ‘business-building’ excuse.

Companies continue to go to tradeshows in spite of the amount of money that is spent. In fact, the event industry is on the rise. Since the recession late in the last decade, most industries and events have seen climbing attendance.

Tradeshow marketing is attractive because the cost of reaching a potential customer face-to-face is $219 with an exhibition lead, compared with $1,039 without one (CEIR, 2009). Add to that the fact that as human beings, we relish the idea of meeting colleagues, vendors, clients and prospects face-to-face: two-thirds of visitors place a high level of importance on face-to-face interaction during the pre-purchasing stages of the buying process (CEIR, 2003). Executives cited conference and tradeshow participation returns ranging from $4.00 to $5.91 per dollar invested (Oxford Economics, 2009).

With all of those numbers floating around, it’s attractive to leverage a series of tradeshow appearances into growing sales, a burgeoning market and a healthy bottom line. If only we knew exactly where all that money was going, right?

So here’s a series of questions that you should ask yourself regarding your tradeshow marketing budget.

What is your annual tradeshow marketing budget?
What percentage of the company’s overall marketing budget does the tradeshow division make up?
Who determines what the annual tradeshow marketing budget is?
1. How often does that assessment take place?
2. Is that assessment shared throughout the company, or is it generally kept quiet?
3. Is the budget increasing, decreasing or staying about the same?
4. Is your current budget enough for what you plan to do? What you’d like to do?
5. What’s the breakdown of the budget?
  1. Booth space rental (shipping, drayage, other show costs)
  2. Booth upgrades, etc.
  3. Travel/lodging
  4. Promotion
  5. Giveaways
  6. Product samples/displays
  7. Other
  8. What is the company decision-making process for creating a new tradeshow booth?
  9. Does the company’s marketplace success directly impact your tradeshow marketing budget?

Items to include in your budget – feel free to download the COE budget (link):

Booth Design and construction
Show Services
Personnel
Advertising and Marketing
Shipping
Lead Gathering
Post Show Sales Data
- Leads
- Cost per lead
- Number of known show sales
- Average sale
- ROI
- Miscellaneous

Even if you aren’t the person who crunches all the numbers on a regular basis, if you can make yourself do this on a regular basis, not only will you understand the bigger picture much better, but you become more valuable to your company!

Download a free Tradeshow Marketing Budgeting Template from Communication One Exhibits here (Excel spreadsheet direct link).

Here’s the rest of the series:

December 23, 2013

Tradeshow Marketing Analysis: Where to Start

Where to start with your tradeshow marketing analysis? Let’s try at the beginning!

Okay, dumb answer to obvious question. Or….perhaps not.

The beginning can be a moving target. As a young writer I never knew where to start a piece of fiction or article or project. Then someone said ‘start anywhere, begin now’ – and with that I realize that it doesn’t matter where you start, as long as you DO start.

But for the sake of argument – and for the sake of having some cohesive structure to this article and the next few, we do need to start somewhere.

And that somewhere would be on determining your specific tradeshow marketing OBJECTIVES.

If you’re already going to shows, you should spend time discussing them and confirm that they’re still worth going to. A large client of ours abruptly pulled out of a large tradeshow after doing the math and realizing that the show was not helping their business. Instead, their main business had shifted online and it made more sense to move the tradeshow dollars towards the online area which paid more dividends.

Another client stopped going to a major show for a few years while reassessing their tradeshow marketing objectives. They’re back now, but only with a renewed commitment and specific reason or being there.

If you have not been to a specific show, you should plan to attend without exhibiting to get a feel for it. Talk to exhibitors, get feedback on their experience. Ask a lot of questions. Watch visitors and see how they interact. Research your competition and see what their booth(s) look like. Imagine how your booth would fit in side-by-side with those exhibitors.

business chart showing success — photo by salfalko, some rights reserved

As for what your objectives might be, how do you determine them? After all, every show is different – at least a bit. Some are drastically different: different audience, different competition at each show, different orientation (location of your booth, promotion by the organizers) and other ways that shows differ.

Some common objectives might include:

Building your Brand
Entering a new market
Bringing home qualified leads
Sales, pure and simple
Recruiting partners
Networking with current clientele
Supporting vendors
Sign contracts
Develop RFP’s
Collecting new prospects to start drip marketing
Public Relations
Recruit new employees

To gauge the success of meeting those tradeshow objectives, some metrics you might measure include:

Number of demos given
Number of press mentions
Number of visitors to booth
Number of new leads
Number of applications for positions
Number of RFPs

How might you measure those metrics? Some would be manually counted by staff, some would be counted by scanning badges at the booth.

Here are some questions to help you determine your objectives:

What are your main show goals and objectives?
What is your secondary objective?
Who in your company defines your goals and objectives?
How well do you meet those goals with your tradeshow marketing?
Understanding that each trade show has a different target market and a different mix of attendees, how do your goals and objectives change from show to show?
What is your target audience?
Does this show meet that target?
What companies are your main competitors at the show?
How do they stack up against you in terms of Booth size and scope, presence, staffing, pre-show marketing and visibility

There are no right or wrong objectives – only objectives that fit the needs of your organization. Once you determine those objectives, determine as well the metrics you’ll use to measure the success of meeting your objectives. And don’t try to do too much at a show. If you try to meet a half dozen marketing goals at a single show, your message and execution will be ill-defined. Focus on one or two main objectives and figure out how to best measure them.

Here’s part two: Budgeting

Want a free digital copy of my “Tradeshow Success” book? Click here.

December 16, 2013

An Open Letter to Veteran Exhibitors

Dear Exhibitor,

You are an experienced tradeshow marketer. You probably have been to many more shows than most of your colleagues. You’ve seen it all – from the small mom and pop shows decades ago to the sophisticated shows with several thousand exhibitors. You’ve seen goofy musical acts, professional product or service demonstrators in booths, wolfed down tons of free food samples, pocketed hundreds of free giveaways until you finally decided they were mostly just worthless junk.

And it’s a pretty good bet you know what works. You’ve tested pre-show marketing, booth staff training, having your best sales people on the show floor and you wonder why your company’s sales staff still has a hard time following up on all of those leads once the show is over.

So let’s see it: let’s see the results of those years of experience. What did you get out of it? By now you must have figured out exactly where the wasted dollars are – and you’ve plugged those holes so that every single dollar spent on tradeshow marketing makes an impact. Right?

Yes, let’s see the records of all of those tradeshows. No doubt – with your experience – you can pull out a 3-ring binder for every show for the past decade and answer any question about the show: how much was spent on booth space, drayage, travel and lodging, pre-show marketing, etc. – and can show us what the ROI was on all of those dollars invested.

Heck, you can probably even show us in great detail with song and dance, the impact of your young social media team. No doubt they’re compiling stats on how many contests they’ve run through Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic to the booth – and what the results of those contests or show specials are. They likely have a precise count of the number of photos and videos they’ve posted in relation to the show, and what the feedback was from them.

So: let’s see them. Let’s see all the results of your professionalism in action. If you can immediately pull those results up on your computer or grab a binder and hand to me – then you’re good. In fact, you’re awesome. You can go back to whatever it was you were doing before you started reading this letter. After all, you are the pro. You’re the expert – the veteran tradeshow marketer who’s been doing this for years. No one can surprise you. After all, you’ve seen it all.

But, if not – if you can scrunch up your face and say ‘Hmmm…I might admit that there are a few missing spots…’ I would ask: What exactly is missing?

Don’t have all the records you think you should? You’re not doing all that you really could be doing at each show?

Let’s suppose that it might be good to have a refresher on the various elements of tradeshow marketing – JUST to make sure that you’re not missing any pieces. After all, it’s not a bad idea to see things from a new perspective, right?

So, from my viewpoint, here’s a list of what you might consider keeping track of in your tradeshow marketing endeavors:

Overall Tradeshow Marketing Objectives
Shows You Attend and the Specific Objectives for Each Show
Budgeting Figures
Pre-show Marketing
Public Relations Outreach
Exhibit Booth: size, age, layout, cost
Booth Staff: who are they; what’s their experience and training and overall level of knowledge of the tradeshow marketing efforts
Show and Booth Visitors: breakdown of each show in detail
Social Media Sharing: who’s in charge, what content gets shared, what are the results
Post-show Follow Up
Lead Generation: methods of collection, grading, distribution
Record Keeping
Final Overall Assessment

These bullet points can be broken down in great detail and the more detail you have, the more educated you are – and the higher the chances that you will have a more successful show.

Remember this: your competition is out there and many of them invest heavily in booth staff training, pre-show marketing, public relations, and social media engagement. They’re not fooling around. If you’re not looking closely at these items on a regular basis and keeping your tradeshow marketing assessment current, you could be slipping behind because it’s a good bet your main competitors are. Those competitors want to win – and they want to take away your current clients and customers. No doubt they’re doing everything they can to achieve those goals.

What are you doing with your tradeshow marketing to keep one step ahead of your competitors? Are you investing in an upgraded booth when the old one is falling apart or do you limp along another year? Are you investing in keeping your booth staff on top of their game with regular trainings? Are you investing in creating a great experience for your clients and potential clients at the next tradeshow, or do you just cross your fingers and hope that the status quo will be ‘good enough’ for this year?

Do you think your competitors are settling for ‘just good enough’?

If not, what are you going to do about it?

Sincerely,

Tim Patterson
TradeshowGuy Exhibits
1880 4th Street NE
Salem, OR 97301
Toll Free: 800-654-6946
TradeshowGuyExhibits.com

PS. If you need help performing a complete tradeshow marketing analysis or audit, click here.

December 2, 2013

Are You Maximizing your Networking and Marketing Opportunities at Tradeshows?

The following guest article was written by Chris Newkirk:

Tradeshows can be a huge expense for small business owners and although statistics show businesses can increase revenues and grow their customer base from events like these, many companies still struggle to attract attention and make trade shows worthwhile.

What are you doing wrong?

Networking involves a whole lot more than shaking hands and handing out business cards. If you view everyone as an opportunity and stop seeing them as people, chances are you’re going to strike out. Consider how you like to be approached. People can sense they are being targeted for a sale, opportunity or referral from a mile off.

Treat people like people and look to make friends and connections. Don’t approach people by asking them, ‘what do you do.’ Try asking questions that target them personally, can help spark a genuine conversation and can lead to a memorable discussion.

Ask open ended questions that are event specific and don’t bombard people with materials, information or sales pitches. After you engage them in conversation, before they leave ask them if they’d like to be added to your contact sheet, or what information they’d like you to send them.

Encourage visitors to find you on Facebook and if you have access to an IPad give people the opportunity to check you out your Facebook and Twitter profile. You can generate buzz by picking a hashtag for the event. Use banners to promote your hashtag—encourage people to help you get your hashtag and the event trending on Twitter!

Are you making a memorable impression?

Everything from the time you arrive and leave, the things you talk about and the way you use your display and products all can work together to make you memorable—or leave you dead in the water.

You’ve heard it a million times, arrive early and leave late, it really does work. Approach the early birds and try to become people’s ‘first friend,’ check back throughout the day and see how they’re doing. These people will remember you and can lead to referrals.

While you’re there make the most of your space. Do extensive preparation well in advance so you know what size the space you’re provided with will be and what regulations you might have for light and sound. Update your display if it’s old or if your banner stands are outdated or damaged. Consider spending more on displays that are less common and can draw attention to your booth. Even something as simple as a few laptops where visitors can browse products or the company blog will keep people at your booth longer and help draw a crowd.

A pretty booth won’t set you apart from the crowd though, they tend to be a dime a dozen. Try something fresh.

If you haven’t done it before, consider introducing the use of technology in your display. Informational kiosks are one way to remove clutter from your table and promote environmental ideals. IPads are a tool that you can use to display your entire product inventory or allow people to browse your company blog and interact on your social media sites. You can invite people to sign up for your newsletter or add their email if they’d like more information about your company, industry or product directly into a spreadsheet instead of using a paper sign-up.

The use of technology as allows you to engage with more people. If a larger group of people are visiting your space, you can invite some to use the IPad and kiosk while you engage directly with others giving you more time to form relationships without worrying about isolating other visitors.

Other ways to create an engaging space include:

-Enlarge your space using mirrors

-Use a projector to display video

-Take photos of your clients when they stop by and stream them on your projector or share them on social media throughout the event

-Suspend company products from the ceiling

-Incorporate lighting to illuminate your space

How are you following up after the show? Try reaching out through social media

If you have a company blog, writing a series of posts about the trade show and the people you met can be a great tool for networking. Share the post with people from the event and mentioned in the context via email and social media. Because they’re included they will be more likely to share the post on their own networks.

Don’t use follow-up emails to bombard people with a slew of sales information. Provide them with materials that demonstrate value like links to internet videos, industry information and special reports and educational white papers. Preface the email with things like, ‘I thought of you when,’ or ‘I thought you might be interested.’ The key is to keep in touch without coming across as pushy or simply trying to sell something.

Keep in mind some of your most valuable contacts may end up being people who have never been your customer, but instead end up sending a high volume of referral business to you.

The bottom line

Networking is about relationships. If you’re attitude, body language or display is unwelcoming or un-engaging people have no incentive to talk with you or form a relationship with you. Your end goal shouldn’t be to target everyone you meet to get their business. Instead your goal should be to form solid relationships so you can get business from everyone they know.

Author’s bio: Chris Newkirk works in marketing and sales consultation. Chris attends a number of trade shows a year and enjoys learning what methods work for companies in various industries and enjoys sharing his networking tips.

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What they're saying about Tradeshow Success...

"It's a great book, Tim. I've been doing trade shows for years and yet I never knew much about how to go buy or select an exhibit until I read your book. I highly recommend this to small to medium sized businesses looking to take their trade show marketing to the next level." - Anders Boulanger, CEO and Founder of the Infotainers

"Your book is really wonderful. Amanda in our Marketing Department saw it and said, “Oh, that’s really smart! It could be like a textbook for marketing students and professionals.” She’s right. It’s a really smart move for your brand. The content is great. I’m still trying to figure out if QR codes really do kill kittens : )" - Matt Cox, Vice President of Marketing, Bob's Red Mill

"When Tim asked me to read Tradeshow Success, I thought, “Oh crap! Does the world really need another prescriptive manual about tradeshow marketing?” Boy was I wrong. You are in for a treat. Tim takes the dark arts of tradeshow marketing and makes them accessible to anyone – whether you’re a novice to a tradeshow warrior. You’ll meet characters like Katie from Gotcha! Cookies ‘n’ Treats and Wally from Pharaoh, with engaging and entertaining stories about their tradeshow challenges. Social Media? Tim immerses you in the “whys and hows” of using LinkedIn, Twitter, Emails, etc. to drive attendees to your booth and boost your ROI. And that’s just one chapter! Design ideas, staff training tips, lead management, and more. It’s all there for you to enjoy, implement, and share." - Mel White, Classic Exhibits

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