Trade show leads come in all varieties, from very hot to mildly lukewarm, and then those who require nurturing.  Are you one of those exhibitors who lumps them all together and sends out emails with general information and no personalization?  Or, worst case – no follow up at all?

If you are interested in enhancing this critical component of your event marketing strategy, please consider attending a TSNN webinar on this topic.  The title is Getting More Leads & Making Them Count. It will be held on May 24th at 1 – 2 PM EST.  Mike Thimmesch and I have been brainstorming and preparing for this content rich session.  We will cover the following:

• How to Pick the Right Shows, the Best Exhibit Design & the Correct Booth Staff
• Pre Show, Post Show (and during the show) Promotional Efforts that Work
• How to Differentiate a Top Qualified Lead from the Rest (and Close a Sale)
• How to Overcome the Most Common Obstacles to Lead Follow Up
• How to get Sales Buy-in to Actually Follow-up on Trade Show Leads

Mike and I plan to have an interactive dialogue with each other as we discuss each topic.  And we want to make sure we cover your questions.  If there is anything in particular that you want to see discuss, reach out to me and let me know.  We might have it covered, or we can add an answer to your question in our presentation.

I promise it will be amazing content that you can use immediately!  Just click here for the registration form.

Joyce McKee

The National Restaurant Association (NRA) wrapped up a stellar show in Chicago, as always.  I saw a post about the show and it had the words “ROI” in the title and that pulled me into it.  I want to see how the writer was defining ROI and its impact.

The author is Karen Post, the Branding Diva.® She was one of the thousands who attended NRA and was using her time to conduct research, as well as, make contacts.  Smart businesswoman!  I have said in the past, the trade show floor is a giant research lab.  Not only do you see how the companies present themselves, you can hear the pitches, have conversations to determine which way the market trends are going.  It is well worth the time, effort and expense, but it needs follow up and follow through to reap the real rewards.

The title of her post: Increase trade show ROI – 12 tips to take home more

Here is her great content:

This past weekend I attended the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago. This show hosts over 100,000 attendees from over 100 countries.  The mix included suppliers, restaurateurs, the media and entrepreneurs, like myself, hoping to tap into this lucrative 600 billion market. For the past year I’ve been building restaurantbrandingroadmap, an e-learning product, a web site and business that serves up marketing and branding help to this niche market of independent restaurateurs. I hope to launch the first product within the next 60 days. To date I have built a membership model website and a robust blog.  At the same time I’ve been aggressively building a base of future buyers and fans via twitter, Facebook and my opt-in community. Part of my growth strategy is to get into the minds of my market, so I can better deliver on their unmet needs and to build a network of restaurant product and service providers that I can partner with to accelerate the project and monetize my efforts.

Attending any large trade show is a significant investment for a small company. To attend this show, I will spend about $3,000. before time costs. This covers travel expenses for two, show attendance fees, special business cards I printed that promote the restaurant product and an online subscription to watch the Tampa Bay Rays TV on my laptop so I don’t miss a game

A show this size can be overwhelming without a good game plan. So Lauren (My Chief Problem Solver) and I came up with ours to ensure a healthy ROI at the show.

1.) Before you go, set your accountable goals and your action plan to achieve them.

• For us it meant taking home 500 new contacts.
• Discover at least 10 promo partners.
• Make 5 media contacts.
• Identify at least 50 resources for content.
• Learn at least 20 new marketing ideas.

2.) Print something that you can hand out that speaks to why you are at the show.
For us, in addition to our Brain Tattoo Branding Business cards, we printed special cards that included our restaurant product, site and social media addresses.

3.) Identify targeted companies you want to meet and schedule your day.

4.) If you go with a colleague like I did, don’t hang out together all the time. Don’t sit next to each other at a session or on the shuttle. You can cover twice as much ground if you both go different ways.

5.) Don’t wait to get home to sort out your hot new contacts and ideas. Take action while stuff is fresh on your mind. Organize your thoughts and leads, contact your new friends in social media right away. The next morning we already had traction from our new contacts on our site and social media accounts.

6.) Take pictures and keep good notes of your journey, the people you meet and new resources. These pics will not only give you follow up material for your new contacts, they can be seeded in social media and in your blog.

7.) Stay focused on who you want to meet. This show had over 1800 exhibits, only about 20% mattered to me concerning business goals. Don’t forget your mission.

8.) Look professional, but dress comfortably. I usually wear my red glasses and some creative jacket or outfit. This seems to be a magnet for conversation and strangers get the vibe I’m a creative thinker.

9.) If you say you are going to follow up with someone after the show, do it! This is part of your brand. Keeping your promises.

10.) Stay at a cool hotel. The likelihood of meeting cool people will increase. We stayed at the Sax. I love this place, it’s hip, has good energy and is in the heart of lots of interesting and fun places. The House of Blues is next door.

11) Bring a ton of business cards, if there are 100,000 people at the show you you can easily burn through 1,000 cards.

12) Make sure you have downloaded all the apps to help you be productive.
-For us this was a QR scanner on your smart phone., so you can bookmark cool things. Many booths used this digital tool.
-Instagram to take and share photos.
-The NRAshow app to view the schedule and map layout quickly.

If you are interested in restaurant or hospitality branding, do check out my other blog. There will lots of great new posts concerning this exciting industry.

Brand on!

Back to Joyce – I  reached out to Karen and had a remarkable conversation with this powerhouse.  I asked her about the goals she had set for herself, and they have all been accomplished!  Now there is further work to be done to harness the full potential of her contacts.  She was planning her follow up tactics while she was at the show since it was fresh on her mind.  Another smart move, since some of us can easily forget things.

I would say of her – she came, she saw and she conquered NRA.  I wish for her the very best on her new site, Restaurant Branding Roadmap. On that blog she shares some of her discoveries at NRA.  Go check it out.

She has earned a thumbs up, as far as I am concerned.

Enjoy.

Everyday, I have conversations with individuals who have solved problems for their clients.  Their solutions have transformed a business process by making it easier, faster or better.  However, only a handful of companies are providing their customers and prospects with pertinent content in the selling cycle about their services or product.

Let me define “pertinent content” for you.  Content is information that showcases via case studies, white papers, etc. how a company offering eliminated a business problem. It moves the prospect to the next stage in the sales funnel. They take action based upon that content such as:

• call for more information
• share it with colleagues who are a part of the decision process
• ask for a demonstration
• schedule a meeting

In today’s digital world, your prospects are well informed before they hit your radar screen.  They have been on your website, searched out information on your problem solving abilities via social media outlets, etc.  The digital landscape has shortened their learning curve about you.

What content are you serving them?

Do you offer a smorgasbord of tasty information or do they find plain, boring propaganda?  The content they are looking for is packaged in white papers, case studies, webinars, podcasts, videos, data sheets, etc.  However, you have not taken the effort to create it.  The vast solution knowledge is stuck in your head and you have used excuses like, I do not have time or resources to translate this vital information.  I would call you a content hoarder.  Someone who is sitting on mountains of relevant solutions, but is choosing not to share them with the world.  I would ask you – by keeping this information hidden, who are you serving?

Content forms desired by your prospects

If your prospects were to tell you what type of content they desire, would that help you?  Well, they have.

The report, The Eccolo Media 2011 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report, is a content marketer’s roadmap on what material should be produced to capture the attention of a prospect.  Even though it was targeted for technology purchases, implications can be drawn for any market segment I believe.

Let’s take a look at what the survey audience deem very or extremely important.  Also, notice the increases from 2010 to 2011.

How are your prospects finding your digital assets?

From the Eccolo Media report, they share this information:

In our follow-on survey this year, we asked specific questions about consumption of corporate Web content. Not surprisingly, 100 percent of the respondents indicated they had read company Web content in the past six months to evaluate a technology purchase. When asked how they found the Web content, the vast majority — 77 percent — depended on search engine results. Meanwhile, 46 percent linked from a vendor email or newsletter; 34 percent followed a link or reference from a colleague, and 19 percent discovered Web content by way of social media.

Start Creating Content!

It is time to pull together your resources, whether they are in-house or an outside firm, and brainstorm what is possible for the remaining calendar year.  Use the Eccolo Media report as a basis for this effort which has excellent information, statistics and recommendations which every company should review

Depending on your budget, you can start small with some case studies or a brief white paper.  It is important that you start.  Start getting your content mojo going and watch the positive results happen.

Feel free to contact me at joycemckee [at] letstalktradeshows [dot] com and we can talk about how to get started.

TSNN’s free webinar series continues, and on Tuesday, May 24th 1pm – 2pm EDT, Michael Thimmesch, Director of Lead Generation and Industry Relations, for Skyline and I will be discussing the important issue of trade show leads.

The following is the description of our webinar:

The #1 metric used to evaluate trade show success is the number of leads generated, according to CEIR.

But are all trade show leads equal?

Is that really true that trade show leads are rarely followed-up?

Come Learn from two experts in the field of Exhibit Marketing and Lead Generation as they share proven methods for trade show lead success. As an Exhibitor you will gain extensive knowledge on drilling down into the important sales, marketing and lead generation process. You will walk away with a valuable checklist along with some fresh ideas. As a Trade Show Organizer you will have a toolkit to hand your Exhibitors, including ways they can overcome the most common sales obstacles – thus securing their investment and ensuring a return to your next event.

Michael and I crafted these learning points for our presentation:

• How to Pick the Right Shows, the Best Exhibit Design & the Correct Booth Staff
• Pre Show, Post Show (and during the show) Promotional Efforts that Work
• How to Differentiate a Top Qualified Lead from the Rest (and Close a Sale)
• How to Overcome the Most Common Obstacles to Lead Follow Up
• How to get Sales Buy-in to Actually Follow-up on Trade Show Leads

Join Us

It will be a very informative session, I promise.  To register, please click here.

Last month, Stephanie S. Selesnick, President, International Trade Information sat down with Rick Quinn for one of The Pulse Network’s webinar 3.0 series.  The title of this webinar was: 10 Attendee Marketing Tips in 20 Minutes.

Listen in to this great content!

What other tips would you add?

The Pulse Network is loaded with great content.  I recommend that you check them out regularly.

I hope you enjoyed this!

Joyce

One of my passions – numbers.  No, I am not an accountant, but I am a researcher who feasts on statistics.  My  inquisitive mind is constant evaluating, what are these numbers telling us?  The next question I ask is – so what?  How can the figures be applied to change, enhance or discontinue a marketing program?  Over the span of my consulting life, which seem like a gazillion years, I have been tasked with determining the ROI on many marketing programs, such as:

• trade shows
• private events
• seminars
• executive briefings centers
• permanent exhibit facilities: the former INFOMART

Let’s concentrate on trade show ROI for today.  I know there is a growing trend is assess the return on various marketing programs and that is good news.  Can exhibit marketing demonstrate its effectiveness?  Well, maybe…

Trade shows have merit and can prove it, if the marketing person knows how.  Unfortunately, that knowledge base, as well as time, is limited in many companies.  Most marketing folks are great with the planning and logistics, however fall short in assessing ROI.  They know conceptually how it should look, but drilling down and doing it seems too complex and out of their reach.  When this scenario happens, my clients turn to me for help in providing unbiased assistance with determining the results from their trade shows.

Let the Numbers Fight For You

Provided is a general number you can use to calculate trade show ROI using the 2009 Oxford Economic Institute research on overall business travel.  In the research they had various categories for travel and one trip type was for trade shows.  In the graph below, please look at the percent of the travel budget associated with trade shows and then on the ROI figure.

Using the mid-point range of this statistic, you can say for every dollar spent on a trade show, a company can calculate a $5.00 return.  As an example, if a company spent $10,000 for a trade show, their return would be $50,000.

However, your numbers could be higher than this.  An example, Skip Cox from Exhibit Surveys provided me with a number, using the ROI Tool Kit.  The exhibitor had a 10 x 10 booth at a technology show several years ago, and could show a  12:1 return. That is an impressive number.

What are Your Numbers?

Is management requesting numbers from your trade show program?  Is this something you have avoided or sidestepped? Well, I might have a solution for you.  If you are in need of assistance with calculating the ROI of a trade show, take a look at my ROI Analysis Package.  Or contact me, and we can brainstorm the best approach to provide senior management the correct data to prove the value and worth of exhibiting.  I have other numbers up my sleeve I will share with you!!

The topic for yesterday’s #expochat revolved around a show’s first timers and how to create a WOW experience, so that they would return the next year.

Exhibit Surveys let’s us know that first timers comprise 36% of a show’s audience.  In their recently released numbers from 2011, they show:

• First Timer Attendees 36% – up 4% from 2010
• Previous Show Attendees  36% – down 2% from 2010
• Attend No Other Shows 45% – down 1% from 2010

One of the questions posed during the chat: how many first timers actually return?  That is a figure Exhibit Surveys does not track.  Those returning to a show would be a part of the “previous show attendee” number.

How to Attract First Timers to a Show?

This was a question for the group and Stephanie Selesnick had a terrific response – have the exhibitors invite them to the show.  I couldn’t agree more.  A gazillion years ago, I conducted some research and found that an exhibitor invitation was the #1 reason an attendee came to the show.  Reaching out to prospects and customers with an invitation to come see you at a show sends a clear message that you are a player in the industry.

Keep in mind that you should have a couple different invitations, one for your customers and then one for the prospects.

Once Traci Browne has published the highlights for our #expochat, I will update this post with that link.