Best tradeshow marketing tips and case studies. Call 800-654-6946.
Best tradeshow marketing tips and case studies. Call 800-654-6946.

Blog

Setting Up a Virtual Tradeshow Website

Setting up a virtual tradeshow website for your tradeshow appearance is as easy as setting up a new website. Mainly because that’s exactly what it is. While I’ve seen a number of ways to do it, having a blog platform for your virtual tradeshow gives you the most control and flexibility.

There are some platforms that allow you to set up an virtual ‘booth’ which looks graphically much like a booth, replete with branding, graphics, aisles, floor sections and more. The trouble is, it looks like a website from 1998.

With a WordPress blog platform, you can customize it to no end and maintain total control over the process, look and feel and content.

So why set up a blog that’s specific to a single show appearance? Because you can funnel lots of eyeballs there, and once those eyeballs arrive, you can drive them to other useful things, such as opting into email lists, downloading branded white papers, ‘liking’ your Facebook page or more.

A well-built site that’s specific to a show will be packed with content. Some of that content would optimally be posted before the show to prep the world to the site. While this would be very useful for search engines, it is also a prime opportunity to invite your current clients and newsletter subscribers to check it out. Once the show is underway, have a plan to post videos, articles, interviews, photos and more on the site. Make it a place for people to find general information about the show, and specific information about your products and services and company.

Even though you have the virtual tradeshow website, don’t forget about Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. Use those outlets to inform the wider population by the use of hashtags (Twitter), keywords (YouTube and Flickr) and ongoing conversation (Facebook). Those social media platforms will help raise awareness and drive traffic to your main site, even though much of the content is the same.

Two recent examples of the use of virtual tradeshow websites come to mind: the site set up for Osram Opto Semiconductor for Lightfair and the site put up by Griffin Technologies for their appearance at CES in 2010. Both were quite successful, and should be used as models for how to set up your own virtual tradeshow website.

So, the short list:

  • Set up a blog that focuses on one event
  • Register a domain and create a name for the blog that describes your company and appearance at the show
  • Create some content before the show, mainly teaser material
  • Post obsessively during the show: videos, articles, photos, interviews, product reviews, testimonials, booth guest schedules, demo schedules, etc.
  • Post much of the same material to Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, using keywords, show and company hashtags, links back to your site.

After the show, continue to post updated material or video and information from the show for at least a couple of months. It’ll help keep the site high in the search engines. Plus, if you can keep material dripping onto the site for the rest of the year until the next show, it’s a great set-up for the next year.

Your payback for your time and energy will be much more visibility and a unique record of all the materials you took and archived at the show.

Creative Commons License

 photo credit: Devanny

Posting Video from the Tradeshow Floor

It can’t be the easiest thing to post video from a tradeshow floor, there amongst the chaos and cacophony of exhibitors and attendees.

However, if you make a plan to get some video out during the show, you’ll surely benefit from it!

So to make a plan, make sure you have the pieces you’ll need:

  • YouTube or Facebook account
  • Video camera: Flip or Kodak; Smartphone with video capabilities or similar
  • Online access, either via a laptop with direct ‘net access or w-fi, or your Smartphone
  • Ability to edit video (or at least be able to shoot short videos that are ready-to-upload immediately upon shooting)
  • A list of types of videos you’d like to shoot

Once you have the first four items – the technical ability to shoot, edit and upload video – your next step is to create the shortlist of types of videos you’d like to shoot.

Some of those that you might consider include:

  • Testimonials
  • Product demonstrations
  • Guest appearances in your booth (authors, tech guys, creative folks who don’t normally see the light of day!)
  • Brief discussions with company reps (CEO, Marketing folks, etc) that discuss pertinent topics taking place at the show

Once you create the list, you are ready for the show. To implement your plan, put someone in charge. Create a schedule, which may include dates and times for product demos, guests, etc. If you can schedule testimonials with your raving clients, do so. Other testimonials may just grow out of random visits from clients or customers. Look for opportunities to put them in front of the camera. If you have room in your booth, leave the camera up on a tripod and ask if they have a few minutes to discuss your product and how it works for them.

dscf9037

If you can follow this type of shooting schedule and compile several raw videos during the show, chances are you can find a few per day to upload to your YouTube channel or to Facebook (or both). Hopefully, you’ll have a lot of videos that will give you plenty of material that you can edit and release over the next several months, hopefully right up to the promotion of next year’s appearance at the same show.

You’ll benefit from posting video in numerous ways: showing non-attendees what’s going on by including them in your show; showing off the various people who do attend (people love the attention); increasing brand awareness, showing how a product works to someone who might not have otherwise ever seen in, which might create a new customer; putting a face on company employees who might otherwise remain nameless and faceless, which makes your company more attractive to people who like to know the kinds of people they’re considering purchasing from, and much more. No doubt you could add to this list of reasons why shooting video at your tradeshow is beneficial – in fact, feel free to do so!

Creative Commons License

 photo credit: hr.icio

Art of Negotiating: Knowing When to Shut Up

The best rental car deal I ever got happened when I shut my mouth.

I was at the rental counter at the airport in LA waiting for the clerk to get my car keys – I’d reserved an economy car – when he finally got through poking around on his keyboard and announced, “I’m sorry. We’re out of economy cars. Would you like to upgrade?”

I waited a beat or two and considered. It would cost only an extra few dollars a day. But I said “No” mainly to see what he would offer me.

After a minute or two of continued keyboard hacking, he finally said, “I can offer you a Mitsubishi Eclipse for the price of the economy car. But I must warn you – it’s a convertible. Is that okay?”

Yeah, um, sure.

I didn’t consider the size of my (large) suitcase or the size of the (small) trunk. When I got out to the car, I discovered the suitcase didn’t actually fit into the trunk. But I was able to push the passenger’s seat forward and fit my suitcase into the back seat area, which was very small, but larger than the trunk. At that point I didn’t even think about putting the top down to toss my suitcase in, but…whatever.

So for the 4 days in March I was in LA it was around 80 degrees and I drove around with the top down most of the time.

The Getty Museum in Los Angeles
The Getty Museum in Los Angeles

I ended up driving around much more than I normally would have. I headed up the freeway to the Getty Museum. I ended up at the beach one day.

The Eclipse probably would have cost me twice as much had I reserved it, but I ended up with it because I shut up. By not taking the first deal, by keeping my mouth shut, I got a better deal.

This often works in the busy, chaotic environment of a tradeshow where hundreds of exhibitors are clamoring for your attention, and ultimately your business. And often it’s an excellent way to get people’s business. If you’re an exhibitor, don’t you feel pressured to throw more into the deal to close the sale? If you’re a buyer, do you jump at the first offer, even if it’s good, or do you bite your tongue so you can wait to see what else is on the table?

What extra value can you offer your visitors to help move them to sign on the dotted line? It needn’t be something that costs you a lot – as long as it has a high perceived value it may be enough to move the deal forward.

The Eclipse that I got for the economy price probably didn’t cost the rental car company much extra at all – but it was a high perceived value – which will take me back to that rental car company again.

Podcast: Mike Vincent Interview

Recently I posted a video call “QR Codes FAIL” on my YouTube/tradeshowmarketing channel and here on the blog. It was meant to show that QR Codes don’t always work as intended.

Mike Vincent of FanFareMobile.com chimed in with a comment about using SMS codes, since they’re so much easier.

Since my knowledge of SMS codes is limited, I hooked up with Mike to discuss the issue…and out of that came this podcast.

Find Fanfaremobile.com here.

LinkedIn for Event Promotion and Marketing

Even if you’re not using LinkedIn to its full extent – and who of us really are? – no doubt you recognize the enormous potential that LinkedIn holds especially for those of us in the event industry.

A number of recent blog posts point out the benefits of using LinkedIn when you’re looking to bring more people to an event or conference, or draw visitors to your tradeshow booth.

Earlier this year, LinkedIn made it easy for web masters to integrate their LinkedIn groups into their websites. They did this by opening up its API to groups. What’s an API? Check Julius Solaris’ very informative post here. Basically, it allows you to make tons of connections to like-minded professionals through LinkedIn – but you do it by putting that outpost onto your website. At this point, I’m not seeing a lot of plug-in widgets, but I get the impression they will soon become plentiful. If you run a WordPress blog (like this one), there are a couple of LinkedIn plugins that allow you to display a LinkedIn badge or a share button. Check this article on WikiHow to find out more about connecting LinkedIn with your WordPress blog.

And then here’s a discussion on LinkedIn about what social media tools are best used to draw people to events. Lots of different answers as you might expect.

There are a lot of ways you can use LinkedIn to promote your business or event, as seen in this post from the Social Media Examiner, one of my favorite blogs on using social media.

LinkedIn pen

You can sync your Twitter account with LinkedIn so any tweet lands on LinkedIn, or make it so that only those with the #LI hashtag are posted on LinkedIn. Messages don’t get lost as much on LinkedIn as they can on Twitter, which is important especially when you’re out promoting your event appearance. By syncing Twitter with LinkedIn, you’re getting more coverage for the same effort.

The LinkedIn Events App is seen as a powerful event promotions tool, allowing people to find your event and RSVP, too.

LinkedIn allows you to see if your connections are attending specific events (if you pay attention). Just by visiting the event RSVP page you can find people who might be worthwhile to connect with. Reach out to them, mention that you’ll be at the event and try to find a way to connect in person. If you have a first-level connection or are in the same group, you can reach out through LinkedIn email. If you’re a2nd or 3rd degree connection and have no group connection, use InMailTM.

Another great way to use LinkedIn for events is to find new connections and strengthen current connections. Again, here’s a terrific tutorial from the Social Media Examiner.

Making connections is what it’s all about: finding areas to connect on, reaching out, offering help, asking advice, be a resource – it’s all there on LinkedIn. If you’re not there, get there. If you’re already there, I suspect that you can really ramp up your connectivity efforts via LinkedIn if you just spend a little time on it.

Creative Commons License

 photo credit: TheSeafarer

Social Media Event Marketing U.com freebies now!

Social Media is a Two-Way Street

Or maybe it’s a two-way freeway with traffic going a hundred miles an hour, depending on the size of your community.

Watch out for traffic when you go for your morning swim.

If you’re promoting an event through social media, the most important thing to realize is that all communication is now two-way. The second most important thing is that when promoting an event make sure you have an actual event that is worth of that conversation.

That means bringing interesting, compelling and valuable content to the table. Are your speakers engaging? Do they have a good reputation in your community? Do they have good content that your audience is hungry for?

Often, the best way to find out what topics are at the top-of-mind for your audience is to ask them directly. Which is where social media comes in. Using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn you can follow the topics of conversation to find out what pushes buttons, and ask questions to clarify and uncover more topics. By creating quick surveys you can narrow down the interest to more finite topics.

And of course, ask for feedback. People are more than happy to give honest feedback. As much as we connect on social media, there is a barrier between one person and another which allows them to offer feedback that is often more honest than if they were sitting across the lunch table from you (of course, that depends on the individual). When comments come, be prepared to respond quickly – there’s nothing worse in social media than waiting too long to respond. Social media is ‘real-time’ and if you’re not engaging in real-time, you can be assured that your community IS communicating in real-time. If someone posts a negative comment on your Facebook page, don’t respond negatively or defensively back to them. And never delete a negative comment unless it contains profanity or is entirely inappropriate. Deleting comments makes people think you have something to hide or that you have a thin skin – neither of which will endear you to your community.

The best thing about social media is that you have access to current thinking on all of the topics that are important to you and your company. And sometimes that’s the worst thing, too! But take those negative comments with a grain of salt and realize that in a sense you’re getting free research that will help you correct deficiencies in your products or services.

Creative Commons License

 photo credit: dougtone

Podcast: RegOnline.com’s Eric Olson Interviewed

“Active Network is the leader in online registration software and event management software to all industries.” At least, that’s the claim in their website. As far as I can see, that claim is not only substantial, but after looking thoroughly at least one of their tools, it’s substantiated.

Recently I had the opportunity to view their online registration product, RegOnline.com, up close at a demo in Portland. It was an hour-long look under the hood of an adept tool that is used to handle all of the various complexities of event registration – and handle it well and without fuss.

RegOnline.com seemed interesting enough to warrant a little deeper digging, so I hooked up with General Manager Eric Olson for a podcast interview to discuss the service in more detail.

Active Network

RegOnline.com

Fastest-Growing Tech Companies Still Using Tradeshow Marketing

Lead411 recently released its list of fastest-growing tech companies in the US – the Technology 200 – which is based not on total sales, but on sales growth between 2008 and 2010.

The list itself is a peek inside the growing technology sector, with companies involved in everything from search engine optimization, software, hardware, internet, media, advertising, e-commerce and much more included.

But what struck me was how important tradeshow marketing still is to the 200 companies on the list. Yup, in the new and improved faster-and-faster world of social media and technology, these tech companies are still working hard to market their companies the old-fashioned way: face-to-face at a tradeshow or conference.

Twenty-five percent of those surveyed spent over half their marketing budget on  tradeshow marketing, and 71 percent of the companies surveyed spent at least some of their budget on tradeshow marketing.

Yes, they’re still using social media (63% of those surveyed), but face-to-face is obviously considered to be a very valuable tool in their marketing efforts.

Tom Blue, the founder and owner of Lead411, made mention of the fact that many of the companies on the list are not household names – companies such as Zillow, Crowdflower, SEO Slingshot, Motion Soft, Yodel and others. But they’re still moving ahead strongly and growing quickly.

Download the complete graphic here and find the whole list here.

Lead411.com’s website.

 

 

Freebies from Social Media Event Marketing U

Creating and Using #Hashtags Effectively

If you’ve been on Twitter a bit but still are confused about how hashtags are, and can, be used, hopefully we can take a bit of the mystery out of hashtags and give you some good ways to use them in conjunction with your event and tradeshow marketing.

First, what exactly is a hashtag?

Simply put, it’s the ‘pound’ or ‘number’ sign with a word or phrase after it: #jumpstart. This makes it easily trackable and searchable on Twitter or other platforms such as Hootsuite.com. You can use it with a two or three word phrase, but make sure there is no space between the words, like this: #tweetmetoday

Tweeting at Tradeshows

Use it when you tweet about a specific or general topic, such as #eventprofs when your tweet is related to the event profession. If you are tweeting about a specific event, use a hashtag that would commonly be used for that event, such as #expowest for the Natural Products Expo West show, held every March in Anaheim.

So if you’re tweeting out about your booth, just make sure to include that particular hashtag: “Hey, join us at booth 3029 at #expowest and check out the new eco-friendly shoes!”

That way, anyone who is tracking the show hashtag will be able to find it (Twitter will show search results starting with the most recent).

If you’re tweeting about something you or your company is doing at the show after hours, such as a client dinner, you might consider using the hashtag so that anyone following along can see how you’re involved: “Having a great dinner with the cool people from Bagga Riddim here at Joe’s Pizza! #expowest”

Whether you want to tell the world that you’re meeting a client is up to you, but in my mind in most cases there is nothing wrong with it. In fact it could be seen as good branding. Not only are you getting your name out there again, you’re getting it out there in connection with a client and a location. If you use Foursquare to check in, the location will be mentioned, so all you have to do it include the hashtag in the tweet.

Getting Twitter Involvement on Webinars

Let’s say the show is still a couple of months away, and you’re planning a webinar to promote your appearance (see this week’s earlier post about using webinars to promote tradeshows). You’ve got a new product to promote; you have one of the company management or marketing people on board to be a guest on the webinar. At the beginning of the webinar, include a slide that invites people to offer their comments on twitter. My suggestion is to use two hashtags: one that references the show and one that references your company:

 

 

This invites people to watch the webinar and relay their comments to their Twitter followers. Anyone who happens to be searching for that particular hashtag at that time will likely run across your webinar, which exposes you to even more people. Before the webinar you can promote it through your normal channels, but be sure to let your Facebook and Twitter followers know about it, too, and include links to the registration page.

Of course this same tactic can be used during your live presentation at the tradeshow or conference if you’re a speaker or presenter. The upside is that it can really help engage people, learn new things from them, take questions and promote interactivity. The downside is that if the presentation is going badly, you have no control over the conversation and may see some negative or snarky comments show up.

Twitter Chats

Another way to use Twitter is to hold a chat about a specific topic or subject. There are popular Twitter chats held regularly that discuss everything from marketing to industrial metal production. All you have to do is promote it through your normal channels, and through your Twitter account:

Join us for a chat about how to use drums to heal your soul: Thursday at noon ET; follow hashtag #baggariddim

If you have a guest on the chat, set up a handful of questions before hand that she’s familiar with. When the time arrives, welcome everyone to the chat and include the hashtag. People will follow along on the chat by simply searching for the hashtag in the Twitter search box. Invite anyone to submit questions and comments as the chat goes on. Schedule the chat with specific start and stop times (noon – 1pm, for instance), and stick to it. After the chat is over, archive the posts so that you can reference then in the future if need be.

Twitter is an extremely useful and flexible tool for instant communication anywhere, anytime. From the show floor, from your office, from the subway. It doesn’t matter, all a person needs is internet access and they’re on board.

What ideas can you come up with to use Twitter to effectively promote your tradeshow appearance or new product?

Freebies at SocialMediaEventMarketingU.com

© Copyright 2016 | Oregon Blue Rock, LLC
Tradeshow Guy Blog by Tim Patterson

Call 800-654-6946 for Prompt Service
Copyrighted.com Registered & Protected <br /> QA4E-AZFW-VWIR-5NYJ