Trade Show Exhibit Advice

By: Karin Roberts

Background. This client came to us because they had decided to exhibit at a new trade show event and therefore requested a new custom exhibit design and event strategy that would help drive increased brand awareness and capture the attention of the architectural community. The goal of participating in this event was to clearly articulate the company’s message as the number one supplier of all glass.

The Solution. After conducting some research on the target market and some of the competitors in this space – “Where glass becomes architecture. We turn ordinary glass into extraordinary buildings” became the new high powered message used in both the custom exhibit strategy and the event strategy. For the custom exhibit, we decided to use a more artistic display featuring bright eye-catching visuals and imagery which would appeal to this audiences taste and would entice them to see what this client had to offer. A light show was added to the booth that highlighted glass used in commercial building contracts. A dynamic exhibit that clearly articulates messages and captivates interest certainly was effective at increasing overall brand awareness. However, the client needed to take additional steps to secure quality leads. As an incentive to draw attendees to the booth, an event strategy was implemented and it was recommended that the client offer a drawing to win a new Tablet PC. To enter the drawing the attendee needed to complete a survey card which asked a few key questions designed to qualify the prospect. The client obtained 255 leads from the top 1000 architectural firms, which was far above their pre-show objective of 50 firms.

The Results. The results of this integrated program were phenomenal. The booth traffic was enormous and was predominantly due to the exhibit itself, graphics, and the draw or a giveaway. The client obtained 255 leads which was a 325% improvement from their last show. These leads were entered into a database and contacted by sales representatives and literature was sent out as a follow-up measure. The client stated that based on the survey card results, the exhibit itself attracted 21% of the target audience.

What was learned. It is extremely important to conduct an analysis of your target market at each show you attend. Every market has different pain points and issues that will attract them to your exhibit – you just need to determine what they are – and create them within your booth space. They say if you build it they will come, I do not agree. But if you build it with market intelligence your chances of a qualified lead coming into your exhibit space is greatly enhanced. Try it. You will like it.

By: Barry Siskind

My kids think I’m a Luddite. I am from the world where the value of face-to-face marketing was one I understood. Now I live in a world where people communicate with their thumbs. However lately I’ve seen that faces and thumbs can live in harmony.

I will admit that thumbs can connect to the world instantly. They can communicate to large numbers of people in real time, even at the cost of good grammar and spelling. Faces still have the advantage of being able to stare eyeball to eyeball with a client even if it is only one at a time. So in a world where it is faster and considerably less expensive to connect with a text, can one justify the cost of face-to-face?

A report I read recently prepared by the Harvard Business Review called, “Managing Across Distance in Today’s Economic Climate” focused on the issue of the high cost of business value versus the benefits.

The report described four key areas where face to face trumps technology:

• Developing new clients. 95% of respondents said that face-to-face was crucial for building strong and long-term client relationships.

• Negotiating: When negotiating major contracts and agreements, 82% said that face-to-face meetings are the most effective tool in their arsenal.

• Maintaining relationships:  It’s relatively easy to hide feelings, concerns and priorities behind technology. Any one who deals with people face-to- face on a regular basis will attest to their ability to pick up on signals that often reveal the real story behind the words.

• Cultural barriers: Try texting a partner on the other side of the world and see if the real message was understood the first time. I am not just talking about language but the nuances of your message which may or may not be recognized. The value of face-to-face is to be able to read the non-verbal acceptance of what you are saying and be able to clarify if necessary.

So there are advantages to face-to-face. However, with the high cost of business travel in a shaky economy do these advantages justify the cost?

In this same report 60% of sales and marketing people said that cutbacks in their business travel would hurt business, while 36% of finance people said cutbacks  would have no impact on the business.  So now we have the age old conflict between those who solicit business and those who pay for it.

The solution is to make a strong enough case for face-to-face and to provide new metrics for measuring return. Here are three things to consider:

• Combine business travel with other activities.  A major event like a trade show or conference is a magnet for buyers and sellers. By combining your exhibit investment to include time for individual sales calls, meetings and presentations, you can amortize the cost and increase the value of the investment to your corporation.

• Establish a singular budget. Often the exhibition budget is a marketing activity while sales calls are sales. When you combine both activities under one budget line you create a corporate expenditure that has a higher probability of measurable success.

• Establish multiple metrics. In the past, corporations measured success by focusing on one or two metrics. In our new world this list of metrics should be expanded. For example you may use your trade show to gather quality leads, a sales meeting to close a sale and an on-site presentation to advance the sales cycle. Three activities needing three individual metrics with the results of the three being attributed to the overall success of the exhibition program.

The battle of thumbs and faces has only just begun.  Perhaps in the future one will totally replace the other – but that’s not the case now.  Before you let the finance people decimate your face-to-face budget perhaps its time to sit down with them and have a serious conversation.

Reference: . http://hkg.grants.ba.com/harvard-business-review.pdf

By: Barry Siskind

In a recent issue of Trade Show Executive, I read an interesting article about Magic Stick, the winner of the TSE 2009 Innovation Award. Magic Stick is a small gadget, about the size of a computer memory stick that you carry with you. When you see someone also carrying a Magic Stick you can electronically exchange contact information. You each aim, push a button and voila you are networked.

Welcome to the age of High-Tec social networking whose first victims may very well be the handshake and a business card.

Twitter, Facebook, Web 2.0, SecondLife, LinkedIn, Flickr, LibraryThing, Ning, Jaiku, EventPeeps, are here to stay. There is nothing we can do about it nor should we for fear of being labeled Luddites. We should embrace social networking as a positive technology to help us build our personal networks.

This discussion is reminiscent of a time – a decade ago – when the world was a twitter (oops) about something called a virtual trade show and how this heralded the death of face-to-face marketing as we knew it. What happened to virtual exhibitions was that they became an integral part of larger face-to-face events providing year round exposure to products, services and education. What was feared to be an enemy became a powerful ally. The same, I am guessing, will happen to social networking sites.

Face to face marketing needs all the help it can get to maximize its potential and if technology can help, then all the better. But technology cannot replace the power of meeting a vendor or customer and talking about issues eye-ball to eye-ball. Meeting face to face is how we form opinions of people and the institutions that employ them. When we can integrate the technology to enhance our interpersonal contacts then we become winners in this brand new – very old game of networking. Here are a few thoughts as you go about building a productive and profitable network.

• Networks are not mailing lists – Social scientists tell us that each of us has approximately 200 people in our network. When you misuse the technology and build lists that include thousands of contacts you are clearly misusing the tool.

• Find your six degrees of separation – Each of your 200 people also has a network of two hundred, each of their two hundred has two hundred as well. If you take 200 to the sixth power the number is slightly more than six billion which coincidentally includes everyone on the planet. Learning how to tap into these sub-networks opens you to unlimited potential. If you look carefully you can find anyone you want to contact through your six degrees of separation.

• Don’t abuse your network – this is so easy when you simply use your network for commercial purposes. The people in your network are folks you have made a personal contact with. They have families, worries and dreams. When you can treat your network as an extension of yourself and treat these people as individuals you cannot lose.

• Stay in touch – there’s not much point meeting someone at a trade fair, exchanging information and not staying in touch. Treat your network as a living breathing thing that needs attention or it will simply wilt and die.

• Make it a 24/7 habit – don’t just built your network in times of need. You should be constantly looking for opportunities to expand your sphere of influence.

• Give something back – If your network is a living entity then it needs food to survive. The food you provide is in your willingness to give back. This means being constantly on the lookout to offer advice, contacts or a friendly word to your 200 people.

Social networking is quickly finding its place in the face-to-face marketing world. When you combine the power of your interpersonal skills to build your network and then integrate technology to record the experience and maintain contact you have a winning combination.