Fourth in a five-part series. Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
Looking to build more business? Your customers have plenty of problems for you to solve if you position yourself as the expert. The key is to get out of the product selling business and into the problem-solving business. Problem solvers are always in demand.
In the past three issues, this series has explored techniques to help you become an expert in delivering employee engagement programs, wellness programs and loyalty programs. This installment will focus on how you can be the expert on trade-show marketing to get your clients the most bang for their buck and make them memorable long after the show floor has gone dark.
Today’s companies are spending more and more of their marketing budgets on trade-show marketing and they need to show a positive return on this investment. Trade shows are one of the most valued and utilized marketing strategies in the United States, receiving the greatest share of the business-to-business marketing budget. Annual spending on trade-show marketing is more than $24 billion, and just over 10 percent of promotional products sales in 2013 were for trade-show programs, according to PPAI research.
Face-To-Face Interaction
Trade-show marketing derives much of its success from the personal aspect of the marketing tactic. Both exhibitors and attendees cite face-to-face personal interaction as an important reason to exhibit and attend shows. As more and more business is conducted virtually, through email, web conference and telephone, 48 percent of event attendees say face-to-face interactions are more valuable today than two years ago. Your clients may be spending more than 21percent of their marketing budget on this strategy. It can be an excellent area for distributors to specialize in and to become well-versed in the language and art of effective trade-show marketing.
Multiple Benefits
Trade shows provide marketers with unique sales opportunities that can generate new leads; provide a chance to check out the competition, do some networking and get some publicity; and build relationships with the right buyers. A marketer can accomplish at one trade show what might take weeks or months to accomplish through direct sales efforts. Closing a lead generated at a trade show costs 62 percent less than closing one that originates in the field, according to the Center for Exhibit Industry Research (CEIR). The same research study estimates that an organization saves $943 by meeting a prospect at a trade show versus in the field.
Trade shows are highly valued in helping to:
Reinforce brand awareness
Build and expand brand messages
Introduce new products or services
Target specific business segments
Promote existing products and services
Clarify The Show Objectives
Your customers have to choose the right shows for their industry, market niche and segments they are attempting to reach. To make the best decisions, they should be asking their customers to find out what trade shows they attend since those are the ones where they will likely find similar prospects. Your customers should also pay attention to the shows where their competition is exhibiting.
To make the best recommendations to your customers, it is critical to know their trade show objectives. Help them clarify their objectives by asking them about what is most important.
Write sales orders
If writing orders is a key objective, perhaps you can suggest a gift-with-purchase that becomes a show special and incentive for the booth visitor to buy now. You may also recommend sales incentives for the booth staff for sales made at the show.
Research the competition
If researching the competition is an objective, hire a mystery shopper to visit competitors’ exhibits, pick up literature and take notes on what they are offering.
Increase their visibility within the industry
If your clients want to make their presence known in their industry, recommend a larger trade-show booth and show them the wide variety of trade-show signage and graphics you can offer.
Generate publicity and press mentions
Suggest your clients send news releases describing their participation in the show and the new products or services they will introduce while there. Send notes to local radio and television stations to pitch a story. Your clients should also make several one-minute video clips depicting the show’s excitement, and post them regularly on their social media channels.
Spot new trends
Tell your client to challenge everyone working the show to walk the floor and submit a list of the three top trends that they’ve spotted in their industry.
Generate leads for future sales
Recommend that your client offer a great promotional product related to the story they are telling in their booth and offer it to show attendees who will answer a short (not more than five questions) survey. Use the name and address capture along with the data to start the sales cycle with these new prospects.
Generate excitement for their new products
If new product introductions are the focus and objective for the show, make sure that they are prominently displayed with a strong benefit message to the user. Create a show special for the new products being introduced.
Build rapport with current customers
Offer a special, upscale promotional product with a high perceived value for current customers who visit the booth. Also, consider a special evening out or client entertainment offer as well to build and grow an existing relationship.
Build their mailing list with quality and qualified names.
Rather than giving away inexpensive items to everyone who walks by the booth, suggest nicer items that are only given to those who stop and provide their follow-up information and answer a question or two to assure that they are genuine prospects.
What Goes Into An Effective Trade Show Exhibit?
The goals and plans for the exhibit should be carefully developed and then communicated to those staffing the booth and those responsible for show follow-up.
Trade-show marketing should focus on two or three key ideas or messages. Graphics, pre-show promotion, literature, giveaways and advertising should all be integrated to communicate these clear messages. Suggest your client complete the branding through the use of color-coordinated apparel for those working the show.
Recommend that your client touch all five senses to attract their best prospects. The exhibit itself should encourage people to not only see what’s new, but to touch, feel, hear and taste. Review their booth plan and make recommendations of how they can make it more interactive and engaging. Promotional food such as logoed cookies, logo-imprinted wrapped candies and mints in decorated tins can add several sensory touch points.
Brainstorm promotional products that the client’s trade-show prospects will find clever, amusing and want to display, talk about or even brag about during and after the show. Help your client’s exhibit go viral by thinking creatively and finding products that are truly buzzworthy. From a practical standpoint, you might also suggest a journal with an insert page that contains all of the pertinent information about the show, the logistics, the company’s key communication messages, the objectives and recommendations for success.
Promoting Your Client’s Trade Show Presence
Research indicates that three-quarters of show attendees know what exhibits they want to see before they even get to the show, so pre-show promotion is another important service you can provide your customers.
Recommend a creative direct mail piece your clients can send to pre-registered attendees and to key prospects and customers. The mailer should reinforce the theme and main message points and the chosen colors, and include the booth number and contact information. A very effective tactic is to send a Match and Win offer. In this promotion, the show attendee brings the mailer to the show to receive a gift and get a chance to win a higher-value prize. Another effective promotion to guarantee booth visits is called Complete a Set. You select a high-end item such as an expensive packaged writing instrument, pair of gloves or pair of sandals and mail the pen package or single glove or sandal. The show attendee then brings the item to your client’s booth to complete the set.
A month or two before the show, your client should personally call and set up meetings with key customers and prospects. Key buyers’ schedules fill up quickly, so it’s important to get on their calendar. It’s also important to reconfirm the meetings a week or so before the show.
It’s important that your clients focus on quality conversations with key prospects and top customers. For this reason, make sure that you’ve suggested a couple different levels of gifts for prospects who spend time at the booth. Personalization is a great way to make their key buyers feel special. The promotional products industry is full of incredibly fun, valuable and highly coveted items that become even more special when they include the name of the prospect or customer. The personalized item will never go to waste, either. If the intended recipient does not come to the booth, the salesperson has the perfect reason to call him or her immediately after the show.
Post-Show Promotion
Your ability to solve problems doesn’t stop with the show. Research from CEIR shows 80 percent of show leads aren’t followed up. The best way for you to help your customers solve this problem is to help them plan a follow-up strategy at the beginning of the planning process.
Follow-up should be priority; this is where the return on investment comes from. Lead follow-up should take precedence over nearly everything else. Too often, catching up on what was missed while they were out of the office puts the critical follow-up on hold until the leads turn cold. Here’s how you can help with that.
Create a post-show mailing before the show. It should relate to the theme and messaging used in the pre-show mailing and in the booth, and ideally it should be a promotional product or contain one.
Remind them of what they saw at the exhibit and give them a reason to engage one more time. This is an ideal time to suggest a follow-up premium that can be offered with a follow-up sales call or action that moves them further along the sales cycle.
Resources For Trade Show Knowledge
Trade-show giveaways and direct mail are two of the biggest uses of promotional products. Successful trade-show marketing incorporates both. You will find that many of your existing suppliers have a great deal of expertise in this area that they would love to share. Our industry also has a number of suppliers who specialize in trade show exhibit components which allow you to provide everything from pop-up displays, floor graphics, retractable banners, table covers, table-top displays, prize wheels and all of the things your clients need to have a successful exhibit. [Find a list by searching product keywords in PPAI’s UPIC directory at www.upic.org.] Contact these suppliers and tell them you want to become a trade-show specialist. Set an appointment to meet with them at a trade show and spend some time learning what works and tips for effective selling.
Online, you’ll find the Trade Show News Network (www.tsnn.com) has every kind of information you can imagine about trade shows. It lists the main venues around the U.S., ranks the Top 250 shows in the U.S. and Top 50 shows in Canada annually as well. You can even subscribe to the newsletter to receive tips, insights, opinions and trends in shows.
Most of the research cited in this article comes from Center for Exhibition Industry Research (www.ceir.org). This is a great resource to explore if you want to appear really smart to your clients when discussing their trade-show marketing strategies and effectiveness.
You may also partner with some of the full-service exhibit companies in your local area. These companies design, sell, store, refurbish, ship and set-up exhibits for companies. Their expertise is often in the area of the logistics of trade shows. You can bring the marketing expertise and provide some powerful synergy by offering the services of show promotion, direct mail campaigns and show giveaways that ensure the highest return on trade-show marketing investment.
You’ll be helping clients and become more valuable and indispensable when you choose to become an expert trade show marketer. It will require additional study and learning on your part, but it can pay big dividends.
Paul A. Kiewiet, MAS+, is an industry speaker, writer and consultant, and the executive director of the Michigan Promotional Professionals Association. He is a former chairman of PPAI and was inducted into the PPAI Hall of Fame at this year’s PPAI Expo in Las Vegas.
Next month: This series continues as Kiewiet explores techniques to help you turn strangers into friends, friends into customers and customers into raving fans.
>>Hillary Feder, MAS, president, Hillary’s LLC, shares this trade show case study:
Client Industry Sector: Testing lab
Goal: To set meetings with qualified prospects during the trade show
Results from previous years: No more than 10 prospects had signed up in previous years
Strategy: A trade show micro plan was developed that included pre-show, at show and post-show activity. Because of space constraints, this case study discusses only the pre-show activity. It began by creating two campaign messages:
No. 1: Sometimes it only takes one piece to pull it all together.
No. 2: Medallion Labs is your missing piece.
Implementation: About 80 prospects in the “A” group got a four-inch-tall canister fully branded on the outside with message No. 1. Sent as a self mailer, it got attention as very lumpy mail. Inside the canister was a puzzle with a magnetic back (which would be important later) with art and message No. 2. One piece of the puzzle was left out of the canister and the puzzle asked recipients to make an appointment to get their missing piece.
Prospects in the “B” and “C” lists (about 500) received a lenticular postcard with the same messages but with no missing piece. The message was also tailored a bit to account for this difference. The mailings were sent four weeks prior to the show. About 10 days later the client began a calling campaign, using a prepared script, to all prospects on the “A” list who had not responded and to as many “B” prospects as they could reach. About a week later the client sent an email blast to those they had not heard from with the same message.
Prospects who responded promptly received an email confirmation of their scheduled appointment and a reminder five days before the trade show started. At the show, the client’s booth displayed a magnetic whiteboard with the campaign art across the top. The puzzle pieces that were left out of the canister were on the white board. This did two things:
It made the puzzle pieces available for those who made appointments.
People on the trade-show floor stopped to learn more.
This very simple piece stood out in a trade show designed for geeky scientist folks.
Results: From this effort, 29 scheduled appointments were made before the trade show, and numerous prospects reached out to say they couldn’t meet at the show but did set up virtual conference meetings or physical meetings outside of the trade show. The client was thrilled.
Supplier Harvey Mackler, MAS, at supplier Gempire/GWI, shares a successful trade-show idea also using puzzle pieces:
“Many years ago I created a puzzle set of logoed pushpins. The overall puzzle formed the logo of the show. Then I mailed one piece to targeted guests, inviting them to get the entire limited-edition set. Of course, the mailed piece had the show dates on it, so when they used it in their cubicles, it was a constant reminder. And the entire set is a functioning set of pushpins.
It was a great show-traffic tool, and we won an award that year for best trade-show traffic builder.”
Three Ideas To Build A Better Show
These three effective trade-show traffic-builders are provided by Mary Dobsch, MAS, at supplier The Chest:
An international contractor company that specializes in building restaurants and was exhibiting at the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago wanted a unique mailer that made it clear what they did. The MB-100 Mail Bag, measuring 5-½ x 7-½ inches and secured with a drawstring tie, was selected. The bag was screen printed with the client’s customer copy, and The Chest inserted an oversized, customer-supplied LEGO® and a custom-printed card. The Chest then mailed each bag to recipients on the mailing list provided by the distributor. The printed card invited the recipient to the international contractor’s booth at the show and included a reminder to bring the LEGO. As show attendees brought in the LEGOs, they built a structure out of them in the booth. It was a successful tool to reinforce what the company does.
It’s A Puzzle
The National Association of Home Builders wanted to promote its certification program at the National Home Builders Show. They joined with six companies on the Remodelers Strategic Partner Council and split the cost of the promotion. The product selected was the PZ-600 Tray Puzzle Traffic Builder. As attendees registered at the show, they were given the tray with the details of the promotion printed on the back. Individual puzzle pieces were divided up and given to each company for distribution at their booths. The incentive was that the first 50 attendees who completed the puzzle and delivered it to the Remodelers Council booth were allowed to take the “PREP” (a certification test) at no charge (a $195 savings). As a result, traffic at the six participating exhibitor’s booths was strong and, in addition to the 50 who won a free test, 107 builders/remodelers signed up for the test.
Cook Up A Winning Campaign
Jack in the Box was exhibiting at a large trade show along with many other fast-food restaurants. The theme of the show was baseball and there were famous baseball players on hand to give autographs. The fast-food innovator, known for its quirky marketing approach, chose The Chest’s MB-100 cotton bag and imprinted it with the copy: “I learned to use one of these ’cause the players kept signing my head.” ―Jack
Each bag included a baseball with the Jack in the Box head on it and a Sharpie pen. These were handed out to the attendees to collect the players’ autographs. Jack in the Box was very happy with the reception of the product and felt the promotion was “very successful.”