Eli Logan – Trade Show Management

Corporations often need to exhibit at simultaneous trade shows in different locales and for different reasons. They often have two trade show exhibits in the same city at the same time. Going one step further, a company may even have two separate trade show exhibits at the same trade show.

Oracle is an example of a company exhibiting at two trade shows at the same time in the same city. Why does this happen?

Quite simply, each trade show appearance had a different objective. One trade show exhibit concentrated on new lead generation, while the other trade show display’s focus was on new product launches. Even though these trade shows differed, Oracle’s message needed to be consistent in presenting their corporate brand. Trade show visitors may have a different agenda for attending each trade show, but the corporate message must remain consistent and easily identified with the corporate DNA.

Every aspect of trade show exhibit presence also must match up with company promotional materials, advertising, public relations, online marketing, website and direct mail. Companies lose identity when they dilute their image with mixed messages. Marketing pros say the golden rule is to stay true to your corporate message, reinforce the brand, and let everything else follow suit.

Event Marketer Magazine advises corporate marketers to be wary of delegating trade show activities to their product development staff. Product teams understandably tend to focus on products rather than the corporate message. This can seriously undermine the corporate image agenda.

So, in order to avoid mixed messages, pre show briefings with all the trade show staff team are essential. Then be sure to keep communication channels open and ongoing. Be on guard for any off the wall, wacky surprises that could distort your presentation. Also, have company monitors drop in at the trade show booths on the trade show exhibit hall to assure that the discipline of your corporate exhibiting goals is maintained.

As an example, Event Marketer Magazine sites the experience of DaimlerChrysler. With some 60 national auto shows, DaimlerChrysler works with its eight business units to develop trade show programs for these multi-market trade shows. They then send staffers from zone offices to check on the execution at the trade show. “Although we all have the objective of moving the metal, we also have to maintain the brand consistency,” says director of global event marketing Don Schmid. “That doesn’t always fit into what the dealers want to do.”

The DaimlerChrysler zone staffers leave a show after a few days, and dealers are often tempted to add additional makes and models to the exhibit space. “They might try and move in 15 percent more vehicles, which makes the space look like a parking lot,” says Schmid. “We have to be ready at all times to play sheriff.”

When exhibiting at a trade show, here are a few things to remember about corporate image reinforcement and brand consistency:

Understand the basic objectives of the design your corporate look.

Adhere to the parameters of the corporate image guidebook. All visuals must meet specific guidelines. Be aware not only of the physical specifications of visuals but also how to incorporate them for trade shows with multiple audiences and products. Stay true to your corporate colors and fonts and be conscious of how the name of the company is used.

Be consistent in your brand “mindset” –whether it be upscale, sophisticated, young or old. Not only with the way your trade show exhibit looks, but also with the dress style and comportment of your trade show booth staff.

Be sure everyone who represents your company is knowledgeable about all communication aspects of the company. Be able to articulate the brand in trade show booth graphics, sales pitches, promotional hand outs, email and web messages, even on business cards.

Many brands such as Yahoo! in Sunnyvale, Apple Computer Inc. in Cupertino, eBay in San Jose, Google in Mountain View, Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, Oracle in Redwood City, and Sun Microsystems of Santa Clara have distinctive logos and have a certain “personality” and feel about them.

Although they are all in the high tech industry, each of the brands is noted for their individual character. All have colorful and consistent images. Their brands are distinctive and successful, and their representatives have learned to speak with one voice.

Your company’s brand image will have a much great return on investment if you enforce these
basic disciplines.

To be competitive today, trade show exhibitors not only need to grab attention to their trade show displays inside the exhibit hall but also beyond the exhibit floor.

More and more, creative trade show exhibitors attract crowds to their trade show booth by using nearby venues as a springboard. Attracting attention at neighboring hotels where the trade show visitors are staying or public places where attendees frequent, is a good start. This goes for neighboring restaurants, bus routes, cabs and local night clubs as well.

Increasingly, instead of letting a custom or trade show diplay rental at the expo stand on its own, savvy marketers are adding value by identifying key places outside the trade show to tee up traffic to the trade show display arena.

Event Marketer Magazine spotted three brands that successfully made the tie-in connection to their trade show booth from sites outside the exposition hall.

The first was in Chicago. GE Healthcare launched their campaign, Healthcare Reimagined at the Radiological Society of North America trade show in Chicago in 2005. They were on the lookout for popular locations outside the trade show hall to enhance awareness of their trade show display presence. According to Sean Burke of GE Healthcare’s Diagnostic Imaging and Services, “We were looking for something different that would create word of mouth and buzz.”

The trade show had over 60,000 attendees staying in Chicago. GE came up with the concept of all-white-clad “molecule people” that roamed Chicago sites before and after show hours, in nearby hotels and on the RSNA bus routes, as well as at neighboring restaurants and night clubs.

Wearing branding for GE Healthcare, the all white molecule actors batted around giant inflatable molecule structures and used bubble machines to complete the look and feel of what they wanted to portray. They were able to visually and kinetically capture the health care aspect of GE Diagnostic Imaging. This played directly to the imagery created at their trade show exhibit.

The second was at a consumer oriented show in Washington DC. A month before the Auto Show, Chevrolet started its awareness campaign at sites around the capital city. They set up mini tailgating parties out of the backs of Chevy Silverado Hybrids at construction sites, George Washington University, Home Depot stores and commuter rail stations. Consumers got to drink coffee and play Xbox 360 games. Chevy representatives gave out cards to visitors they could redeem at the trade show for a chance to win a Silverado Hybrid.

Chevy wanted to drive traffic to the trade show display. It worked. The results were measurable and dramatic. Because the scan cards were handed out at dealers and at the tailgate parties, over 20,000 consumers visited the trade show booth or were able to scan their cards with Chevy reps in the convention main lobby. The scan cards brought in 1,900 dealer leads.

The third one was in Las Vegas. That city is a natural for all types of trade show display marketers every hour of the day. At the Specialty Equipment Market Association show in Las Vegas in 2005, Yahoo! wanted to draw attention to a custom auto web site among car enthusiasts. So they decided to customize two Mitsubishis inside their trade show display booth.

To complete their exposure they went outside to showcase their cars on the Las Vegas Strip. Yahoo! hit it big. Knowing that Las Vegas is always wide awake 24/7, they were able to shut down traffic on the Las Vegas Strip at 3 a.m. Even at that time, throngs of people watched their two custom Mitsubishis race down the strip. “We didn’t want to just do a booth and pass things out,” says Bennett Porter Yahoo!’s senior director-buzz marketing. Emulating Frank Sinatra, he continues, “We wanted to do it our way.”

The above are just a few of the examples of how you can use outlying venues to tie into your trade show display.

So let’s say your firm is in the electronics field and you want exposure for your upcoming trade show appearance in the San Francisco Bay Area. With the high tech industry so heavily concentrated in Silicon Valley, California, many of the high tech leaders live there.

There’s Yahoo’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, Apple Computer Inc. based in Cupertino, eBay based in San Jose, and Google headquartered in Mountain View, to name a few. You can focus on Silicon Valley executives and market to them within close access to Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland, and the Santa Clara and San Jose Conference Centers.

The hotels, restaurants, athletic clubs and other popular sites make them targets for high tech trade show tie in messages once the high tech trade show comes to town.

It’s smart to think outside the trade show exhibit hall box to compound your trade show exhibit investment.

Whether you are a one-map operation of a vast corporation (or any business operation that falls between the two), you need to plan your digital marketing process if you are going to have any kind of benefit derived from your marketing efforts. The bigger a business grows the more elaborate and sophisticated the marketing tools become. The thing is that these tools can help anyone but unless you are on the larger side of the business pool, you probably cannot hire twenty people to analyze the global market and present a report telling you exactly where your business is, where the competitors are, what they are doing, what you need to do, how to do it, and how much it will cost for how long.

However, just because it sounds so intimidating does not mean that you can it without further thought. You do not need an army of marketing gurus in order to plan your digital marketing process. All it needs a little common sense and business acumen, both of which can be acquired through education, training, and experience.

The best to go in case you are new to the whole digital marketing game is to do what is known as "micro level planning". Micro planning is a good way to knowing exactly where you are and where you wish to go from here.

Here is how to plan your digital marketing process using micro planning.

Being by asking yourself a simple question: Why are you marketing on the digital anyway? Is it to increase public awareness, to increase sales, just to build a community, or all three? Then you should note down how much of your marketing efforts would be online and how much time you intend to spend on online marketing tasks.

There are many strategies to help you plan your digital marketing process. Make a checklist of the ones that you would like to use including but not limited to Forums, eBooks, Newsletters, Contests, Banners, Articles, and Viral Marketing.

What type of analysis will your marketing be subjected to? What is the return on investment that you expect and how are you going to monitor it? What is your annual digital marketing budget and how will this be divided among the various marketing strategies that you have selected?

Timelines are equally important because they help you to set milestones. Without timelines you are in constant danger or falling behind or getting confused within your plan for digital marketing. Keep a strict note for dates and time all projects.

Have booth staffers prepare questions that they can ask of attendees at the networking event for specific types of referrals. Most people are happy to help and make introductions. Here are a few examples they can use to start with:

• Is there anyone here you can refer me to who needs a ____ type of product (service)?
• I'm hoping to meet with ____, can you point me in the right direction?
• Can you suggest people I can speak with about ____?
• One of my goals for today is to meet someone who does/supplies (____). Do you know of anyone here who fits that description? Can you introduce me?
• NOTE: Add specific phrases for your business to this list and provide to booth staffers.

Never underestimate the importance of your trade show booth staff.

They are your front line ambassadors and the critical links to your overall trade show success. It makes sense that if you want to have a positive experience at your trade show display, you need to pay attention to all the elements of trade show exhibiting. By putting a premium on grooming and training your trade show booth staff, you can rest easy they will be performing at their best.

The first step in your company’s trade show venture, then, is to recognize the importance of the trade show booth personnel. The second step is to invest in the training of your booth people.

To launch this process, make sure you get executive “buy in”. If top management respects and values their trade show team, then face- to- face training skills become effective. Remember the key value of exhibiting at the trade show is to engage real people about real products/services in real time. A typical company representative can often hold meaningful conversations with about 3 or 4 people in a ½ hour at a trade show as opposed to spending an entire day in the conventional field selling process.

Not only are the number of prospect contacts at trade show increased, but the entire sales cycle can also be sped up as well. Trade show display training helps fine tune this process, making it a positive experience for prospects and your staff. What is the logical end benefit? A boost in sales productivity is more likely to follow. On the other hand, untrained booth staff can trigger negative reactions and turn prospects away.

According to Matt Hill, a trade show trainer and president of The Hill Group, in San Jose, California, “The finishing touches of booth staff training usually take place at a pre -show meeting either the night before the trade show begins or early in the morning of the first day of the show. The training covers all those fundamentals that a lot of people don't understand or don’t think to do.”

He says that research shows you must engage the person within 15 to 20 seconds of their presence at your trade show booth or lose them. What attracts people to the trade show booth is a friendly staff in addition to alluring exhibit elements such as sound, motion, and color. Your staff generates excitement by being enthusiastic and helpful. If one staff person cannot respond to a visitor’s inquiry, that staff member is trained to escort the visitor over to another staff person who has the answers and can be of help,” he adds.

Hill has conducted trade show training for many companies for shows around the world and closeby to home at the Henry J Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland, to Moscone Center in San Francisco to Convention Centers in Santa Clara and San Jose. He has trained Silicon Valley companies headquartered in Cupertino, Mipitas, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Jose and beyond to Sacramento and throughout Northern California.

With regard to the nuances of booth staff training, Hill says, "A lot of technical people never thought their jobs involved anything but answering questions or talking to each other. We get them to look at the strategy of the trade show. The basic strategy of going to a trade show is to get face time with people who might become customers. It's really quite that clean and simple.”

Some booth staff behaviors to avoid include: talking to other booth members when they should be engaging prospects, talking rather than listening to booth visitors and making social mistakes that turn customers away such as chewing gum, avoiding eye contact, sitting rather than standing, etc.

Even when training is done properly, keeping the momentum going over 3 days of a trade show is a challenge, so here are some things for the trade show exhibit manager to consider to keep their trade show display staff motivated:

Give them the confidence to successfully understand and manage visitors by using sound training techniques

Give the staff constant feedback during the show. Give them a specific goal and tell them exactly where they are in reaching that goal.

Listen to their feedback – make them feel like an integral part of the show and that they are truly making a difference. Ask them what they like about the booth and what they would change.

Give the trade show display staff a say in what is going on

Give them incentives for a job well done

And provide lots of water to keep them hydrated

A clever incentive offered by Matt Hill is a $2 dollar bill given out when he sees someone doing something right. It is a real morale booster and even the CEO of a company who gets a $2 dollar bill gets a big kick from it. Hill specially orders the bills from the bank and hands them out to booth staff people who are asking the right questions of visitors or who do their work with style, enthusiasm and, of course, good boothmanship.

Almost all products being sold in the market today have already been sold before by their competitors but what makes other products a hit despite their being new in the market? Most entrepreneurs say it is a matter of marketing your products to your target market.

Marketing can be done in various ways depending on the expertise of the marketer. However, one common way to market a new product is through participation in trade shows. Trade shows are held at any time of the year and they do attract buyers and prospective customers.

There are general trade shows but you can choose from niche trade shows depending on your area of business. Companies join trade shows not so much for actual selling but most importantly for showing off their products and for the possibility of getting bulk orders during the trade show.

A company or a sole proprietor planning to join a trade show should take note of the following:

1. Able personnel to man the trade show booth. A trade show is not just an ordinary selling venue but it is a venue where prospective clients abound so make sure that you send your best personnel to man the booth. Some companies take trade shows for granted and allow inept personnel to watch the booth. The people who are put in charge of your trade show booth can make or break your product. A good staff with public relations skill can attract more clients to your products. It is also important to instruct your booth personnel to dress properly depending on the venue of the trade show. Business attire will always be safe.

2. Invite visitors to your booth. The booth personnel must be trained and instructed to invite visitors to the booth. Most visitors walk away from trade show booth when they see the staff busy with their own thing. Tell your staff the main reason why they were assigned to the trade show and that is to get as many visitors to see your products. Booth personnel should be able to answer questions from the visitors because the visitors may already be potential customers. A booth demo will catch the attention of visitors especially if the demo is useful to them.

3. Prepare your brochures, leaflets and business cards and make sure you do not run out of them. Always expect plenty of people to visit trade shows so never be caught without your marketing tools. Imagine if a potential client asks for your brochure or your card and then you cannot give him anything just because you did not prepare for an influx of people. It is better to have plenty of left over marketing materials after the show rather than miss the opportunity of showing off what you have to offer.

4. Keep a visitors’ book. Most companies who join trade shows require visitors who get their free marketing materials to sign up in a guestbook. However, only a few of these companies will communicate with the people who signed in their guestbook. Be creative and use the guestbook as a sourcebook for potential clients. The people who visited your booth and who got your materials are definitely interested in your products or else they will not even glance at your booth. Why not take advantage of their contact information? Mail them a thank you letter along with more information about the product and where they can buy the products.

5. Promote your products but do not be too pushy. Visitors are often turned off by very eager booth personnel who call out to the visitors using their loudest voice. No one would want to visit your booth if your personnel are boisterous. Allow the visitors to go inside your booth and look at the items you have on display but always keep a welcoming smile. Entertain their questions and try to respond to them accordingly. Never shout your words of welcome to the visitors since they might feel defensive all of a sudden and decide against looking at your products.

ave you wondered how people work out the viability of major trade shows? How they calculate what is feasible and what is not? When it is feasible and when it is not? This is where Trade Show Reports enter the equation.

These reports are written by data analysts who forecast the future growth of the market. The information contained in the reports allows for the individualized planning of trade shows that anticipate the needs of invitees.

What information belongs in a Trade Show Report? Let us look at the following points:

Management associations coordinates (phone and address)
Location for trade shows and dates
Statistics of the show – how many square feet, how many stalls/booths, how many companies are expected
What industry segment(s)( took part
Ranking of the events and shows separately and comparatively
Total market size estimate
Benchmarks
Forecasts of market vis-à-vis high ranking products

Data corresponding to the above points will be collected with the help of questionnaires, interviews, and personal discussions. The correct interpretation of data can create a report which will serve as a guide for successfully organizing the next trade show(s).

There are many other trade show reports which cover other aspects, such as:

Analysis of key industries
Possibility of the industry to hire
Whether revenue from exhibitions will rise or fall in the current year
Global, national and regional major growth strategies
Is the cyberspace killing the tradeshows – how much does it matter
Will investment be high in the current year
What growth percentage is expected in the presented this year

Trade show reports are mostly used as guides. But many times they are also used as a follow-up measure as well. There are reports which look particularly at the profile of the customers and try to organize the data captured to draw an accurate picture of the return on investment from the past trade shows, as well as forecast the future trends.

The trade shows reports are invaluable tools to understand how customer behavior, market growth, or recession rates indicate the industries which will grow best, and the demand of products.

It’s undeniable that exhibitors who notify their potential customers of their presence at trade shows experience greater success. Not only is their booth crowded with pre-qualified buyers, exhibitors are able to build on previous sales efforts in an environment that is conducive to deal-making:
Neutral turf:That’s one of the most under-recognized benefits of a trade show space; that it’s neutral territory where both parties can speak and deal openly and comfortably.

An exciting atmosphere: Don’t squander the excitement of the trade show atmosphere by performing the introduction during the show. Make the introduction long before the show begins and let the electric atmosphere of the trade show floor lend itself to closing to the deal instead.
Face-to-face relationship building: While it’s definitely possible to make a sale using the "Send" key, it’s more likely that you’ll begin building a relationship with a hand shake. Meaningful professional relationships create success for those who nurture them. Referrals, repeat business or recommendations are all invaluable assets of maintaining and developing meaningful professional relationships. How better to kick one off than with a hand shake and a personal introduction?

Below are a few tips that can help you create your own effective invites:

Email: Do not put your subject line in ALL CAPS. It’s part of a long list of spam filter magnets.

Direct Mail: Sounds simple, but always address your invite to a specific person. It always helps to follow up by phone right before the show to remind them that you’ll be there and potentially set-up an appointment to speak during the show or at an ancillary event.

Social Media: Connect with your invitees prior to the show and post information about products or services you’ll be featuring in your booth. Your posts will continuously show up in their feed (which gives you top of the mind awareness) and you’ll create excitement about your booth and the show itself.

Trade shows can be an excellent opportunity for you and your business, whether you are an entrepreneur or you’re representing the company you work for. Thousands of people set up trade show booths and trade show displays across the country at a huge variety of industry events. However, many people don’t know how to take advantage of the opportunities a trade show offers. Some plan on simply attending, setting up their trade show booth, and then staying there all day hoping to attract new business. Manning a trade show display is only part of the reason you should be attending a trade show. The other vendors at a trade show can provide you with a wealth of new information and contacts in your industry; all accessible in the same room on the same day—this is the unparalleled attraction of a trade show for your business.

If you plan to attend a trade show, make sure you are not the only person there representing your company, even if you are a small business owner with few employees or a sole proprietorship. You will need at least one person to staff your trade show booth, and another to walk the floor taking in the other trade show displays. If necessary, get your spouse or a good friend to come with you and give them a crash course on how to handle your trade show booth while you check out the other vendors – and only do so when it is slow so you don’t miss important business opportunities. When you make reservations for the hotel you will stay at during the show, try to find a room as close as possible to the actual location—preferably within walking distance. That way, you won’t have to bring anything with you to the venue other than the materials for your trade show display.

Before you attend a trade show, go over the list of vendors who plan to put up trade show booths. Make lists of the vendors you must see, the vendors you would like to see, and those you can live without seeing. You may even be able to schedule appointments with your top priority vendors. Research the companies and determine ahead of time what you would like to find out from each trade show display and what your goals are regarding each vendor: are they competition, or a potential contact? If they are a potential contact, how would they specifically benefit your company? Have questions ready to ask vendors to save yourself time walking the floor. Another good timesaving strategy is to obtain a map and a directory of the trade show when you arrive on location, before the show begins. Use the map to plan your route, and check your prioritized list of vendors against the directory to find out whether any vendors have been added or dropped out.

During the trade show, be active in your quest for information. Don’t feel bad about passing by trade show booths that don’t interest you. Like you, they are attending the trade show to generate new business, and they don’t want to waste time talking to someone who isn’t a potential customer. Visit your targeted trade show displays, engage in a dialogue with the vendors, and ask questions. If the trade show booth offers handouts, samples or other materials, take only those you actually want to find out more about. It can be difficult to tote a loose stack of glossy brochures, catalogues, and bulky product samples around a busy trade show floor. If possible, arm yourself with an empty briefcase or duffel bag to stow materials. Use your time wisely to gather intelligence on your competition and make new industry contacts that will benefit your company.

When the trade show ends, especially if it is a multiple-day event, take the time to make notes and organize the materials you gathered before you leave the event. If you need to mail reports, brochures or other materials to your colleagues, prepare the mailings right away while “who gets what” is still fresh in your mind. Make sure to store your trade show display safely so nothing is damaged and you can find everything you need the following day. When you return from the trade show, remember to follow up with the contacts you have made—and start preparing for next year’s trade show