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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Five ways to use social media at your next trade show event

The following is a guest post by Amanda of It’s Blogworthy.

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Several years ago, trade shows were a completely different type of event. Vendors spent time face-to-face with clients, but after clients moved to the next booth, the interaction was essentially over. Marketers at trade show events worked tirelessly to bring customers in to their company’s area with giveaways, door prizes and specialty items.

In the past few years, trade shows have become an interactive event that begins before the show starts and doesn’t end until far after the booths have been packed up. Although marketers still use traditional materials (free pen, anyone?) social media has allowed them to connect with clients and potential clients in a whole new way. Will you be attending a trade show soon? Download the best apps for trade shows and check out these five ideas for making the most of social media at your next trade show.

Promote your attendance before the trade show begins on Facebook to build excitement about the event. Encourage customers who will be attending the event to visit your awesome Nimlok booth, and use your social channels to engage with them before you set foot at the event. Create a Facebook event and invite your customers, which can help you see what kind of traffic your booth might have. Use questions and polls to gauge interest. During the event, post up-to-the-minute pictures and behind-the-scenes shots of your booth, and don’t forget to post a post-event wrap-up.

  1. Use Twitter to connect with your customers and other vendors using the official hashtag for the event. You can use this hashtag to judge social media interest in the event and seek out your target audience. Twiter is a great way to break the ice before the event and establish friendly relationships with potential customers, which may encourage them to stop by your booth when they arrive. Twitter is also a great way to connect with reporters, media outlets and influencers who will be covering the event; you may be able to spread news about promotions or company news through these channels.
  2. If you have products that can be demoed – or an especially charismatic sales rep who will be attending the trade show – YouTube can be a great marketing tool before your trade show, during and after. Think about creating a series of videos hyping up your booth and sharing it through your social media channels and on the official hashtag for your event. At the trade show, take a quick video of your booth in action, or short interviews with individuals who stop by your booth (especially if he or she has a large social media network and may re-share your content.) YouTube makes it easy to create fun, informative videos and get them out to your audience quickly.
  3. Create a Foursquare listing for your booth and encourage people to check in when they stop by. Foursquare may not be utilized by an extremely wide audience, but for the tech crowd, “mayorships” and badges can be highly sought-after social media rewards. Also, offer a prize for checking in to encourage the use of this channel with your audience.
  4. Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare are all fun ways to enhance your trade show experience, but LinkedIn may be the way to close the deal with new clients or customers. Encourage them to join your company’s LinkedIn page to learn more about your business and connect on a professional level. You can also use your LinkedIn channel to promote professional development seminars or speaking engagements during the trade show event.

About the author: Amanda is a social media manager for a health care organization by day and a blogger and freelance writer by night. She’s also a mom to an amazing 2 year-old boy and wife to a great guy who indulges all her celebrity gossip. Amanda loves coffee, fashion, social media, and cats (not always in that order.) Her work has been published on family.com and blogher.com. Visit Amanda’s blog, It’s Blogworthy or follow her on Twitter and Google+.

Best Apps for Tradeshow Travel

A tradeshow attracts all sorts of people: vendors, exhibitors, store owners, tradeshow managers, booth handlers and more. They all have different goals at the show. But it’s safe to say that many of them end up doing a lot of the same tasks with a smart phone or iPad, which means that many use the same apps.

Here is a list of apps I’ve used a past tradeshow junkets that come in handy. Some are essential while others are just nice have.

Google Maps

Google Maps

Whether you use Google Maps of the native iPhone mapping app, getting from Point A to Point B in a rental car should be as easy as possible.

 

 

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Alarm Clock

Yeah, who needs the hotel alarm clock when you have your clock app? I was glad I had it the time the power went out at the hotel!

 

 

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Camera

Having a camera on your smart phone can be the handiest thing you’ll ever use. Need a picture of a booth? Want to record a quick video testimonial?

The Weather Channel

Yes, you spend most of your time inside, but knowing what’s going on outside can help you adjust travel and meeting schedules.

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Wikipedia

You could just open up your web browser, but the Wikipedia app makes it that much easier to look up something specific.

 

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AAA

Driving a rental car means you assume risks. AAA’s app is very useful in helping you get roadside assistance, searching for hotels, and perhaps cashing in on member-only deals.

 

WC Finder

WC Finder

Out walking and need a potty? The WC Finder may help you out. I say ‘may’ because it doesn’t always have accurate information – although I’ve found it is correct more often than not.

 

Gas Buddy

GasBuddy

You have to fill up the rental car before returning it. This app gives you easy access to the closest, lowest-priced gasoline.

 

 

Hidden

Hidden

Helps find your iPhone if you lose it. Of course, you’ll need a laptop or an iPad or you’ll have to coordinate with someone back in the office to find it, but Hidden is great at tracking lost iPhones.

ATT Scanner

 

ATT Scanner

One of many QR code scanners on the market.

 

Vine

Vine

Is Vine a source of silly six-second videos or does it help capture a client’s buzz and help spread it around? Once you try it, you may find you like it.

 

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Twitter

Set up your account to ping you whenever you get an @reply. Great way to keep up with online buzz by searching hashtags.

 

facebook-app

Facebook

Post photos, updates and more quickly.

 

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Foursquare

Check into places – you might even learn something about the area or see that a client or prospect is on Foursquare, too.

 

 

Carbonite

Carbonite

This has saved me more times than I can remember. Back up the computers at home and have immediate access to any archived file, like a forgotten set-up drawing or contact information. Easy to view and download files, which you can then forward via email.

 

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Dropbox

Much the same as Dropbox, although there are strong differences. Dropbox can have shared files and folders, which can give clients access to files with more ease than Carbonite.

 

Evernote

Evernote

While I’ve used this app for a couple of years, I know that I haven’t come close to using all of its features. Those that do rave about it for file clipping and saving things that you can easily access on any device.

 

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Appzilla

99 apps in one, including things like auto camera, Clinometer, Decibel measurement, flashlight, Plumb Bob, Sleep Aid and even a ton of fun things like generating a fake phone call or fake text when you just have to have a good excuse to get out of a meeting.

 

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Instagram

Everyone is here posting filtered photos, are you? Not essential, but lots of eyeballs there.

 

 

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Pinterest

Great place to view and post photos of clients, booths, meetings, people and more.

 

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Skype

Make cheap phone calls on wi-fi or 4G.

 

 

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Starbucks

Find and pay for coffee.

 

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Pandora

Listen to your favorite tunes!

 

 

What are your favorite tradeshow travel apps?

Tradeshow Marketing IS Your Brand

Are you going to a tradeshow simply to sell products?

Right! Of course you are!

But seriously, there’s more to a tradeshow than just selling. Among other things, there’s no doubt that you’re there to build brand equity and credibility.

From a practical standpoint, your tradeshow booth not only has to function to meet your exhibiting goals, but the booth itself should shout “THIS IS US!” without anyone saying a word.

From the look and feel of your booth to the style of interaction with your visitors, anyone who drops by should go away with a distinct feeling of what your brand is all about.

Aqua Show
Marquis Spas at Aqua Show

Having seen the design process from initial discussion to final fabrication and set-up, I can say that creating a booth that helps build brand equity is not an easy thing. It’s also not that hard. Anyone who’s been with the company for a few years knows the brand inside and out. They know who their customers are, they can describe the brand in a sentence or two and they know how their products are perceived in the marketplace. They also know how they separate their brand from their competition.

All early discussions in a booth-building process should focus on the brand: who you are, what you do, how does the marketplace perceive you, etc. You have collateral on hand that aptly demonstrates the brand. All of this will be communicated to the designer, who – if she’s competent – can craft a design that does indeed should “THIS IS US!” to any tradeshow visitor.

Beyond the look and feel and function of the booth, though, when you exhibit at a tradeshow, you are giving visitors the most important aspect of your brand: your representatives. These are usually employees, although some reps may be hired professionals, which should know your business and product line inside and out. They should be 100% aware of the company’s goals at the show – and how those show goals may differ from other shows – so that if any visitors pops an unusual question, they can address it confidently, whether it means finding someone who knows the right answer, or if it’s even a question that should not be answered at all.

A visitor will not stop at every booth at a tradeshow. That’s impossible – there’s not enough time! A visitor will leave the booths they visit with a strong impression of the company. That impression will be gathered from the few moments they stop at a booth: the look and feel of the booth and the interaction of the staff, and the product offerings. Miss one of the links in the chain, and the impression may be easily outweighed by one or more of your competitors.

The way you draw your visitor to your booth also plays into their perception of your brand. Did they receive an email invitation? A direct mail piece? Did they see a tweet or read about your appearance on Facebook or Google+?

Every bit of the pre-show invitations and post-show follow-up should adhere to the line of building brand equity.

The sum of all of these efforts is the final impression that your visitor receives from your show appearance. How many pieces are you missing? How many are complete?

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!

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