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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Online Customer Service: a Personal Experience

Okay, it’s only happened a couple of times to me, but they were both significant, so they’re worth recounting.

When I moved last year, Comcast said the best way to transfer service to my new house was to just take all the equipment to the new location and give ‘em a call when the hook-up was complete and they’d just turn the switch and voila! we’d have service!

Well, generally speaking, that happened, except for one thing. I have online voice mail access, and no matter what I was doing, or who or how often I was calling, or who was at the other end of the line, they couldn’t make my voice mail appear online. It worked fine on the phone, but I was used to checking it online. For whatever reason, Comcast insists on creating a whole new account when you move and transferring everything over, which was one of the main reasons the voice mail wouldn’t transfer seamlessly.

After several calls in 8 weeks and several promises that it would happen, in my frustration I tweeted:

 

  @Comcastwill responded right away and connected me with a tech who solved the problem within 24 hours:  

 

In another instance, my company was  having an ongoing discussion over disagreements in a contract with Cision after we had leased Radian6 to use for social media research for a client. It seemed no matter how we responded or whom we responded to, it was as if no one was listening. The emails, phone calls and letters we sent were ignored. When we did get a communication from Cision, it was always a new person with no knowledge of any previous communication, and the conversation had to start all over from the beginning. We even sent the CEO a registered letter hoping to at least get someone’s attention, but to no avail.

Finally I posted this on Twitter:


Within a couple of days (it wasn’t immediate), I heard back from someone at Cision asking for a phone number so they could contact me. I gave it to them, and was contacted by someone that was actually interested in helping us resolve the issue. It took a few weeks and some back and forth, but it was resolved to our satisfaction.

It really shouldn’t surprise me, but customer service is very active on Twitter. Is it because companies are dedicating resources to tracking online conversations, or manning the Twitter accounts? Are they afraid of having a negative experience go viral, which has happened too many times to count? Is it just smart business? Or is it something else?

Whatever the impetus, I like that there is often a quick way to get someone’s attention and get issues resolved.

What’s the World Domination Summit? Nothing Short of a World-Class Event

So how do they do it? How do the volunteer organizers of World Domination Summit pull off a top-notch, world-class event – including tripling the attendance in the past year?

Perhaps we should start with what in the world IS the World Domination Summit? While you’re likely to get a few thousand answers when you ask the attendees, to my mind the event is a gathering of creative, innovative, entrepreneurial-minded folks from dozens of countries that takes place over a long weekend in Portland, Oregon every July. It just wrapped up its third year. Yup, its third year.

Author Don Miller onstage at World Domination Summit (photo credit: Armosa Studios)
Author Don Miller onstage at World Domination Summit (photo credit: Armosa Studios)
Bob Moore of Bob's Red Mill

Year one – 2011 – saw almost 500 people gather for two days of speakers, workshops and casual networking meet-ups. 2012 that number doubled to about 1000. This year, the attendance was 2800, filling the historic Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland for two days of presentations along with several other smaller workshops and meet-ups where attendees got to listen to and interact with authors, speakers, literary agents, entrepreneurs and other creative folks.

And every one of them seemed to be in a damn good mood all weekend long!

The event was started a few years ago by author and blogger and world traveler Chris Guillebeau, who had been mulling over the idea of gathering some of his blog readers together for a couple of days of listening to interesting speakers, exchanging information and learning. He hoped he’d get 50 people – and ended up selling out almost 500 tickets, with demand for much more.

After the first year – in which he admits he lost around $20K – he realized he needed to get a little more organized on how to actually run a successful event. Well, the event was successful from the attendee’s standpoint, but when the organizers lose twenty grand, something has to change.

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As the preparation and organization for year two of WDS wound down, they realized they’d have about $100,000 left over. What to do with the money? After all, the idea was not to make a profit (although they didn’t want to lose any), but to help people out in their endeavors. It was decided to give the money back to the attendees, and at the end of the event each person got an envelope with a $100 bill and a note urging them to put the ‘funds to good use. Start a project, surprise someone, or do something entirely different – it’s up to you.’

Of course, there’s a large social media component to the event, with an online searchable database so you can connect with and learn about other attendees, as well as overt promotion of the event hashtag #wds2013. Loads of tweets and events, packed with thousands of photos, showed up continuously throughout the weekend. As I’ve observed many times before, events and social media fit together like hand and glove – they’re made for each other.

Many attendees have posted photos on their Flickr accounts, including this cool collection from Mike Rohde, which gives a good representation of the event through his creative note-taking.

Now that the third year of WDS is over, what made it such a successful event?

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From my vantage point as a twice-attendee (2012 and 2013), I think there are two keys: first, it’s absolutely non-corporate in any way shape or form. There are no logos anywhere (except WDS), and no mentions of any underwriters. I admit I really appreciate that aspect. Second, it comes off as a genuinely helpful gathering of like-minded people who simply love getting together.

At the Saturday morning keynote from presentation expert Nancy Duarte, I sat next to a woman named Vicki and asked her why she came. “I’m addicted to inspiration,” was her response. I’ve been reflecting on that ever since. Addicted to inspiration. We all want and need inspiration – and the World Domination Summit gives it – in spades.

The speaker line-up ranges from well-known authors, writers and radio host to not-so-well known people who simply have a great story to tell. In between there are interesting highlights of attendee stories, the Unconventional Race, lunch meet-ups, indie-movie screenings, yoga breaks, wide-ranging workshops and much more – all topped off by a private party in downtown Portland at Pioneer Square, which got passers-by wondering just what the hell was going on behind the fences!

At one of the gatherings, entrepreneurial expert Andrew Warner interviewed Chris and they spent time discussing the money aspect of the event. Surprisingly (or not), there are no secrets. As Chris said, there are 2800 people attending, most of whom paid about $500 – do the math (it’s around $1.3M gross). But as he said, renting the halls, producing the various pieces of swag, offering catering for mid-morning snacks, renting Pioneer Courthouse Square et al – it all adds up. The event was expensive to produce – and all of the speakers are non-paid volunteers (what wasn’t clear is if their travel and lodging were paid for; I’d be curious to know that).

In other words – the World Domination Summit is unique in a true sense of the word: there’s nothing quite like it in the world. Attendees feel like they’re ‘in’ on something that no one else is.

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Takeaways:

  • Be unique – do something that is unlike anything else.
  • Don’t taint it with corporate sponsorships, which ultimately take away from the uniqueness.
  • Offer a wide variety of speakers.
  • Surround the event with mini-gatherings to spur more networking.
  • Have a great sense of humor about how everything works – and be ready for things to go sideways.
  • Be open about all aspects of the event.

Check out the complete set of #WDS2013 photos provided by event organizers here.

Are You STILL Using QR Codes?

Are QR codes even worth using anymore?

I admit it. I carry a cell phone around with me that can read QR codes in an instant. Yeah, it’s the new iPhone 5. Works a whole a better than my last phone, the iPhone 3, which was my last phone.

QR Codes not optimized for smartphone
Why is it so hard to optimize a QR Code link landing page for smartphones?

Nonetheless, I scan QR codes all the time. Why? Because I want to see if they work. And, it appears that many of them fail miserably.

Most QR codes miss at least one of the three main items that are required for a successful QR code. One, they have to be easy to scan. Two, there has to be an explicit stated reason to scan the QR code. And three, the link that you are taken to must be easy to read and optimized for a smart phone, since most QR codes are scanned on a smart phone.

When I was at Expo West in Anaheim in March of this year, I scanned about 15 QR codes. Not one of them had all three of those items in place. Most had the first two, but failed on the third – which is the optimization of the landing page for the QR code.

I’ve seen a number of articles in the past few months that lament QR codes, and some even go so far to say that QR codes are dead. I don’t think QR codes are dead, but I do think that they are not used quite as much as they used to be. Just a couple of short years ago they seem to be ‘the new thing’ but it never quite materialized in that way. Instead, QR codes are more effective when used for a very specific purpose such as downloading a sell sheet at a tradeshow, or linking to a specific landing page for more information then you can easily show.

However, it still comes down to this small but apparently difficult challenge: getting all of the elements of your QR code right before launching it. First, make sure people know exactly what they get when they scan the code. Describe what it is they’re going to get when they scan it. Is it more information? Is it a contest they can enter? Is it some downloadable PDF file that gives them more information? Is it a white paper?

Next, make sure the QR code is easy to scan. Black ink on a white background on a fat surface is best. It should be at least an inch to an inch and a half in size. If you really want to make a big deal every cougar out of your QR code make it a foot in size and invite people to scan it. Put it in their face.

Third, create a landing page that looks great on a smart phone. A typical webpage comes up on a typical smart phone with such small font and graphics that it is useless and people will just go away.

Finally, test it! Print out your QR code in real size, scan it with several smart phones in your company, examine the results and make sure it all works.

No, I don’t think QR codes are dead. But it appears that most companies attempting to use them are slowly killing them by misuse.

 

How GoPro Dominates Using Social Media and Tradeshow Marketing

I first encountered GoPro at the 2009 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market show in Salt Lake City. Nick Woodman was making a spectacle of himself. About once an hour, he would get on top of a platform and start yelling at the top of his lungs. He would exhort visitors to check out the brand-new product – a small HD camera that captured crazy video with a wideangle lens. It was small enough to strap to a helmet, chest, end of a ski pole, wherever.

Trying to get your hands on a GoPro camera at Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2013
Trying to get your hands on a GoPro camera at Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2013

During these hourly exhortation’s Nick would regale his audience with examples of how great his product, the GoPro camera – and how it captures extreme sports videos – is. It also engaged eager visitors with the chance of winning one.

The story of GoPro is one that happened very quickly. It didn’t take long for the combination of trade shows, social media, and virtually giving away the store every single day to create a rabid following.

If you follow GoPro on Facebook, you’ll notice that they give away everything they make to one person every single day. I’ve signed up hundreds of times and never won. But it doesn’t keep me from signing up again and again and again. That’s how much I’d like to get my hands on their latest and great HD sports-action toy.

Early in 2013, Nick Woodman, the CEO and main figurehead of GoPro was featured on the cover of Inc. magazine. The story was about how he had grown the company to a multi-million dollar enterprise and created a new camera niche virtually out of nothing. The company had done it with a great product that is groundbreaking, and the combination of tradeshow marketing, social media and pure moxie.

Since I saw them at the 2009 outdoor retailer when a market in salt Lake city, I’ve been a big fan of GoPro. They offered $100 off of a camera if you purchased at that time and a coupon for discount on a future purchase when their new HD camera came out. I bought one of their early cameras and have had fun with it ever since.

In January 2013 I attended Outdoor Retailer Winter Market and it didn’t take me long to find the GoPro trade show booth. It wasn’t large compared to many other booths at the show, about 30 x 30, but it was plastered with a dozen or so large screen video monitors. As you enter the booth you were given a chance to sign up and possibly win a new HD camera. They also indicated that with the sign up, you would be emailed a coupon for a $100 discount on their new HD camera. So in effect, they’re giving you a chance to win something and they’re capturing your information so they can stay in contact with you.

I talked to one of the girls working the booth and discovered that Nick was not there, but it didn’t matter by this point because the company was too big for Nick to go to every tradeshow. GoPro has quickly proven itself to be a serious player in the camera industry, and has been called ‘the fastest growing company in the world.’

Several times a day a GoPro booth staffer stands up to give away T-shirts, swag and of course that coveted GoPro HD model camera. Hundreds of people yelled, screamed, waved arms and otherwise made fools of themselves hoping their name would get called.

Go Pro’s custom tradeshow booth matched their brand’s look, feel and style. It looked a bit brash and with the multiple video screens your eyes were drawn to action, action, action as the sports action videos played in an endless loop.

Suffice it to say that with the combination of savvy social media, aggressive trade show marketing and a groundbreaking product, GoPro dominates their niche. They certainly have new competitors – with any new product that carves out a big share of the market, someone will come in and try to catch to the leader. And someone may yet catch up with GoPro. But GoPro’s excellent marketing – including tradeshow marketing – is proving to be all they need right now to be the leader of the pack.

Check out the Inc article.

Then check out the selection of videos.

Click here to grab my Tradeshow Follow-up Checklist

Expo West 2013 Re-Cap

(Warning: self-promotional blog post. Not recommended more than once or twice a year…)

It was my 11th year at Expo West as a representative of a company that provides exhibit booths for exhibitors.

First: 11 years? Kidding, right?

Bob's Red Mill - Expo West 2013

No. The first booth client I had way back in 2003 was Kettle Foods of Salem, Oregon, which lead to doing a booth for Nancy’s Yogurt / Springfield Dairy, Natracare, Hyland’s Homeopathic, gDiapers and many others.

Besides having to basically eat your way through the day with the glut of food samples, I spent time meeting exhibitors and making connections.

And making sure that my new projects were working.

The two new booths my company, Communication One Exhibits had this year were from Bob’s Red Mill and gDiapers. The Bob’s Red Mill was a custom 30’ x 30’ booth, designed by Greg Garrett Designs of Vancouver and fabricated by Classic Exhibits. It was a stunner and was definitely well-received by the company – including Bob Moore, who called it ‘impressive’ – and show visitors. The exhibit had three structures – a main company info-display area, a product display area and – in a new move for Bob’s Red Mill – a food sampling station. The main structure was capped with a 4’ cupola high atop a structure that echoed their mill store in Milwaukie, Oregon. Either end of the main structure had 52” video screens that continuously showed informative videos.

Bob has a great way of making an entrance. Bring along a Dixieland band! Check out the video from Day One:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8aFhxjan0w

gDiapers1

The other booth was at the other end of the scale. gDiapers, of Portland, Oregon, is a company that offers reusable diaper covers with disposable inserts. Years ago, when I was VP of Sales and Marketing for Interpretive Exhibits, we designed and constructed a 20’ in-line booth for gDiapers that had plenty of display space, slat wall and a fabric banner across the top. As their clientele needs evolved, so did the company’s desire for a simpler display that was easier to set up. So with the help of Portland’s Boothster, we designed and built a 10’ inline booth that had a small display area and a large 10’ fabric back wall, along with cardboard chairs and cardboard tube-constructed counter with wrap-around graphic. The booth looked great and gDiapers loved it!

Yes, I blog about social media and tradeshow and event marketing, but my company Communication One Exhibits has a ton of great capabilities to design and fabricate tradeshow booths to suit any need.

Let me now step off of my soapbox…thank you verry much for your time!

7 Surefire Ways to Energize Social Media at Tradeshows #7 – Understanding the Positive and Negative Effects of Social Media Engagement

See previous posts in this series: Basics, Look at What Others are Doing, Don’t Publish Selfish Content, Don’t Just Push Stuff Out, Build Relationships, Try New Things and Create a Roadmap.

Since social media is always on 24/7/365, it’s easy to sleep through something important. No, that doesn’t mean you have to stay awake and never hit the sack, but it does mean that you need to be aware that when something breaks, immediate action is called for, even if that immediate action is to send out a tweet or post to Facebook when you’re still sucking down your first cup of coffee waiting for the caffeine to kick in.

For instance, if your company is mentioned in a negative way, such as a product complaint or customer service issues that is wacky or unusual enough that it might go viral (see United Breaks Guitars), you can’t wait to respond. You have to craft a message of some sort right now. That may mean the only message you get out before management gets a chance to weigh in is ‘we see the issue and will have a response soon.’

Temperature gauge

Those who wait allow the energy of social media to potentially grow exponentially. But if you get out in front of the issue, you at least are telling the world that you see there’s an issue and will make your statement soon. Then you put together your statement and get it out there.

Social media is happenin’ NOW and there’s nothing you can do to hold back the tide once it gets going.

When you prepare for a worst-case scenario, it doesn’t mean that you’ll ever have to use that response. But it does mean that IF such a negative thing happens, you at least have a framework of a plan in place on how to respond.

On the other hand, good things can happen in an instant as well. Oreo Cookies had a social media team in place while watching the Super Bowl last month. When the power went out for 35 minutes, Oreo had an ad posted before the power came back up. The story of the quick response is well documented by David Meerman Scott on his fine WebInkNow.com blog.

You can generate good things in an instant, and you can get in front of bad things quickly. But you must be prepared to react or act instantly, and not wait for some corporate approval. By then it’s probably too late.

Ignoring negative comments on your blog or Facebook page is not a good practice, either. If you can’t at least acknowledge the comment to say thanks for sharing your thoughts, it opens the door to a chance that the comments will feed the internet beast, drawing more negative comments which then becomes like a snowball rolling down a hill, gathering mass and speed. Instead, offer a thanks to the commenter and address the comment if possible (snarky name-calling need not be responded to unless there’s a legitimate concern being expressed; even then, point out that you’re happy to respond to negative comments but that name-calling is not okay). Use negative comments as an opportunity to learn what’s bugging your community. Is there a problem you’re not seeing? Are you missing a negative situation that could lead to worse problems? Often, those negative comments are an opening to seeing things that you might have otherwise missed.

Think Long Term: remember that those comments and videos and blog posts and Facebook comments and tweets are there for a long time. Like, as long as the internet will exist. In other words, longer than we’ll be around. Damaging comments and posts can and will stick around for a long time, doing their damage long after we’re gone. By keeping this thought in mind, it’ll help filter everything through a screen which allows you to post only those items which you don’t mind sticking around for decades to come.

And how’s your online reputation? One of the fastest growing enterprise opportunities in the online world is Reputation Management. It’s the new social media skill. How are you at managing your online reputation? Can you suss out the bits and pieces that will shred your reputation? Can you point out the great posts and tweets that build up yoru reputation? By all means, take time to look closely and see what is really going on regarding you – and the company you work for. Make note of anything that may not look or feel right, and work to correct it. You’ll be glad you did. And be sure to download our Social Media Audit outline to help you get started.

 

To recap:

  • Social media is on 24/7
  • Prepare for a worst-case scenario
  • Ignoring negative comments can get you into trouble
  • Think long-term
  • Reputation management is the new online social media skill

7 Surefire Ways to Energize Social Media at Tradeshows #6 – Create a Roadmap

See previous posts in this series: Basics, Look at What Others are Doing, Don’t Publish Selfish Content, Don’t Just Push Stuff Out, Build Relationships and Try New Things.

Now that you’ve worked your way up through the basics (social media audit, social media policy, listening) and have been exposed to the various elements of social media/tradeshow promotion, you’re ready to create a playbook.

only a little off-course

This roadmap will take you through each show throughout the year. My suggestion is to create a playbook for each show that you go to, although if you do several similar small shows, you can probably create one plan and work it for each of those shows. For the bigger shows, though, you should create an individual calendar.

First, settle on your realistic goals. Determine what you did last year in terms of leads, press mentions, sales, etc., and then set this year’s goals in each area.

Identify your point person for the effort. Often this is one person who leads a small support staff.

Identify content you want to create, and how you’re going to create it. This can range from blog posts, to videos (testimonials, client interviews, guest interviews, demos, etc.), photographs and more. Identify who’s going to create and curate the content.

Identify any promotions you are implementing that are show-specific. These could focus on new product releases, special show deals and more.

Integrate your social media efforts with the rest of your marketing efforts. Too often, companies fail to successfully create a synergy with the social media marketing and the traditional marketing efforts such as radio or TV, print and direct mail. By getting these two areas together (if they aren’t already), you can create a monster promotion that is more than the sum of the two parts.

Finally, create your calendar. A good calendar will start a year before the show, and will include any post-show efforts of content release from this year’s show. About six months before next show, you’ll want to meet and brainstorm ideas for using social media to bring people to your booth. Then set the various tasks at 3 months, 2 months, a month and the weeks leading up to the show. This might be something such as searching for the show’s hashtag to check activity or contacting any promotion partners to start implementing the various tasks that complement each other. Toss any ideas into your calendar – chances are you can’t overdo what the calendar tells you to do. Make notes as you go along and use those to adjust and make course corrections for the next show.

Now that you’ve created your playbook with promotion, content ideas and tasks, just execute the plays as they come up.

Recapping…

  • Set realistic goals
  • Identify the point person
  • Identify promotions
  • Integrate social media with traditional efforts
  • Create your calendar
  • Execute the plan!
Creative Commons License

 photo credit: pnoeric

7 Surefire Ways to Energize Social Media at Tradeshows #5 – Try New Things

See previous posts in this series: Basics, Look at What Others are Doing, Don’t Publish Selfish Content, Don’t Just Push Stuff Out and Build Relationships.

Yes, you MUST try new things. One of the coolest ‘experiments’ I’ve run across for pre-show marketing was done by Griffin Technologies of Nashville (described here on the Classic Exhibits blog).

In a nutshell, Griffin refurbished a VW camper van, set up a website to dump a bunch of fun content on, then headed off to the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, all while continuing to blog and post videos to the blog. By the time they arrived at the show, hundreds of people were waiting for them – as successful a pre-show marketing experiment as I’ve seen in ages.

So, yes, you must try new things. Experiment. Remember that what worked last year may not this year. This goes back to those idea that you may adapt or copy that we discussed in an earlier segment of this series.

Day/Night Meadow/Tree

Ask yourself – what do my customers want? Is there any way to use that knowledge to crate a buzz? Do your products or services have an element that you can exploit that other companies can’t? What can you use to get their attention?
Don’t be afraid to try a new angle on an old promotion. Put a twist on another company’s successful social media promotion. Experiment, experiment, experiment!

How can you get their attention? By looking at how others have succeeded at getting attention gives you a clue to how you can try to get attention as well. Don’t be afraid to take a chance on a promotion, whether it’s old or new. If it feels like it fits your product, service and company, it’s probably worth a shot.

Recap:

  • Try new things
  • Experiment
  • What worked last year may not work this year
  • What do customers want?
  • What will get their attention?
Creative Commons License

 photo credit: yugenro

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