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Thinking Outside The Booth

By Bryan Weaver
May 01, 2004

When creating a marketing plan, the topic of exhibiting at trade shows invariably comes up. If your firm determines that a trade show will be a beneficial part of the marketing mix, it must be seamlessly integrated into the firm's marketing and sales plan rather than it being treated as an isolated event. This is not to say that the big show cannot be the crowning event of the year or as a kick-off for new promotions. Make the trade show part of a Master Plan.

Go With a Purpose

The purpose of exhibiting at a trade show is much more than setting up a temporary storefront to hawk your goods and services to the masses. In reality, there just isn't enough time at a trade show to really exploit all of the possible opportunities. A trade show compresses numerous marketing and sales events into a span of two or three intense days. In the short lifespan of a show, you have a chance to get in some quality networking, new client introduction meetings, client appreciation events, speaking engagements as a seminar presenter, educational events as an attendee and a little competitive spying. All of this in an environment ripe for some world class schmoozing. The negative side of all this is that it requires a lot of time and money, so getting the best bang for the buck is dependent on good planning and diligent follow-through. Do not make the mistake of focusing on the “Show” as the only part of your firm's overall marketing program, as there is much to do before and after the actual show.

Get Started Immediately

Before committing to a specific show, do some research to determine if the show really suits your intended marketing goals. If you have never attended that show before, it might be more prudent to pass on committing the marketing funds, and instead devoting the current year to conducting reconnaissance missions to select the best venue for exhibiting. Once the decision has been made, register as early as possible for the show. By starting early, there is more time to manage the upcoming mailing lists, offer speakers for seminars and keynotes, or to be a sponsor for some part of the show. If exhibiting at the show is a last minute decision, chances are good that you will not reap all the benefits of advance planning. The better-late-than-never approach may backfire here.

The Keys to Success: Advance Planning

You should start inviting your potential clients to the show and more specifically, to your booth as soon as possible. Develop a campaign from the list of registered attendees and your customer mailing list to let the customers know where they can find you. You should have several mail-outs scheduled several months in advance, and as time gets closer to the show, you will get updated attendee lists to use for your mail-outs. In the advance mailings, give them a reason to visit your booth (sell the sizzle). As time gets closer, you can send out invitations to special events that you have planned and other enticements to bring the clients to you.

More Than a Trade Show

Make the trade show an event that goes beyond the convention hall floor. Use all the available time to plan activities for clients, industry executives, special interest groups or anyone else that your firm has targeted. Be sure to schedule sponsored events for different client groups. Host a happy hour reception for prospective clients or new contacts, throw party at a local club for current clients as a “thank you” for their business, or plan a dinner for very good clients. Be creative, but be sure to schedule these things after show hours. Keep in mind that many of your target clients may also be exhibiting or attending seminars and will not have the free time until after the exhibits close for the day. Do whatever is appropriate, but be sure to invite your best prospects to your events. Your competitors may be attempting to do similar things, so try to get your invitations out as early as possible. For the most exclusive events, go as far as requiring an RSVP, or have a personal invitation extended by a senior member of the firm. By doing this, you have just told your clients that you think they are important.

The Countdown to Show Time

Make appointments to meet your future clients during the show. If you cannot come up with the names of key decision makers within your target market, you should seriously reassess your readiness at this point and take corrective action. By asking for an appointment, you have elevated your prospective client from a chance encounter on the show floor, to the look and feel of a serious offer to do business. Plan on having the rainmaker of your firm available to do nothing but meet with prospective clients during the show. Be sure his or her schedule is kept flexible to meet with prospective clients for as long as is reasonably necessary. All the booth workers should possess the talent to bring in new clients, and should have contact meetings scheduled in advance of the show.

Training the Experts

Your people are going to be perceived as the “experts” in your firm. This is very important when making a good first impression. While the firm's experts know their area of practice, they may not know how to or even want to deal with the marketing and sales functions of the firm. This is a minor problem that can be overcome by addressing this in advance. You have to educate them on making the most of their trade show time. Make sure these people understand that this is NOT an excuse to party and waste time (which can degenerate to this, if allowed), but a chance to cultivate new clients. Pre-show training for workers (who may actually be very well respected within the firm) may seem like a demeaning and elementary task, but it helps keep the focus on the purpose of spending exorbitant sums of money in a short time.

As the marketing arm, make it a point to impose goals and expectations on these people. After all, this is what you are paid to do, and if the money spent on this endeavor is a bust, you will probably have some explaining to do. Make it clear to everyone in the firm that you will not accept anything less than total cooperation.

On the Show Floor

The booth and booth location are nearly always on the forefront of a show planner's mind. People have turned this into a pseudo-science and where there is one opinion, there almost certainly is an opposing opinion on what is best for you. Location is the most obvious, but not necessarily most important, aspect of exhibiting. Aside from obviously bad locations, you probably will not suffer any ill effects if you have done your pre-and post-show planning. Given that only a few spaces truly are premium spaces, poor location is often the undeserving scapegoat for an exhibitor's poor success rate at a show.

Do scale layouts of even a small booth space to get an idea of how little space you are really working with. If you already have a booth, determine how you plan on transporting the booth. Is it going to be trucked in and set up by the show promoter? Is it going to be part of carry-on luggage? Keep this in mind because some shows prohibit exhibitors from setting up their own booths or carrying in anything larger than a brief case. Know what to expect and plan accordingly.

Assuming that you do not have the biggest booth at the show, you probably don't have a prime position, which is nearly always directly in front of a main entrance or central area. There are pros and cons of being a small booth right next to a large booth.

The good:

a) Everyone will see your booth immediately; and

b) You will get traffic exposure.

The bad:

a) The traffic exposure you get may not be your target client;

b) Cost;

c) Possible limited access.

I have seen small booths get trampled by visitors trying to get to the “big show” at the popular mega booth, making it totally impossible for anyone to visit the unfortunate small exhibitor. It is risky to expect opportunistic marketing schemes to work for you, so don't pay too much of a premium for location. If you have the choice, put yourself directly to the right of the main entrance. Most people will start their show tour by going to the right on the exhibit floor and working their way around counterclockwise.

For the rest of us, we take the 10×10 floor space wherever there is an opening. Avoid spaces too close to the concession stand, the bathrooms or the far reaches of the exhibit hall. Often, all that is available is a space in the middle of a row in a less than prime location; don't worry ' your pre-show activities will pay off no matter where you are located.

Showtime: Making the Most Of It

After the booth is set up and the doors are opened, are you ready for business? Not quite. Take some time to look at the other exhibitors that could qualify as your competition. Look at other booths around you. You will see and feel some very distinct differences between exhibitors. Try to analyze why you get the feelings that you do. Everyone around you has the same size piece of miniscule real estate and yet they all have different personalities. What gets your attention? What do you like or dislike about them. Analyze this information either for use now or for the future. See how you stack up against all the others. Does your signage tell the passersby what your firm is all about? Above all, your signage should be self explanatory and easy to read.

Your available time to size up a show attendee (potential client) is very short, just as the attendee's ability to figure out what your firm offers is equally as short. Your signage/slogan/purpose should be self-evident and should not require an initial explanation. This sounds simple, but is ignored all the time. Your signage should leave no doubt about the service or product represented. That way the 2.5 seconds (literally) the prospect has when passing the booth will either draw him in or confirm that he has no business wasting your time.

If you use visual aids such as a promo video or other visual show, it must be very short; like one minute short. There is nothing wrong with having several video promos on different topics, but they must be short. Save the long corporate video for another time. If you are going to use something like PowerPoint, make your presentations short and easy to access. If you have to fiddle with the computer to get the presentation running, or it takes too long to load the mini video clip you will lose the attention of the visitor.

General Pointers About the Trade Show Floor

  • Layout: The booth (or more realistically, the floor space) should be inviting and easy for a visitor to approach.
  • Attitude: The demeanor of the booth workers should be inviting. Save the interoffice gossip for after hours. The visitor is the reason for being there, and should not be ignored. This happens much more than anyone wants to admit. There should also be enough booth workers to attend to more than one prospect at a time.
  • Qualify: Identify your prospects immediately. After sizing up the visitor with a few key questions that have been planned in advance (to screen them in or out), make your decision. Get rid of them or draw them in. In any event, you must do this quickly if it is busy. Invite them to that reception that you planned if you want to discuss things in more detail.
  • Disengage: Know when to disengage. Don't let a visitor monopolize booth worker's time to the point that the booth worker ends up ignoring other visitors. Learn how to get rid of pests without offending them.

Give-Aways

This is a topic that always seems to get the most attention and the most controversy. Superficially, trade show give-aways appear to have a high importance associated with them. People have agonized over the image that will be subliminally associated with a give-away and the psychology behind it. Too much time is spent on selecting just the “right” give-away when the time could be better utilized by contacting potential clients. The most important thing to remember is that any gratuitous item should be considered as a thank you for visiting, not a bribe to listen to a spiel or to attract the casual visitor with a cool trinket.

Still, no matter what it is you are giving away, even if it is just a company brochure, make a big deal about it, but do so after you have spoken to the potential client, not beforehand. The give-away becomes the 'thank-you” for stopping by, not the bribe to keep them there.

Give-Away Pointers

  • Quality: Have several different quality levels of give-aways. Save the best give-aways for the most important clients, and tell them so. Do not fall into the mentality of trying to be the firm “who has the best give-aways”; that defeats the whole purpose of exhibiting.
  • Value: Create a value to the give-away. The value will of course go beyond the tangible cost of the trinket, and may take the form of appreciation, exclusivity, pride or whatever you craft it into.
  • Bait: Don't go “fishing” with your give-aways. In other words, don't spread the give-aways out on the table as bait expecting to lure in prospects.
  • Unrelated: Don't select give-aways that do nothing for attracting potential clients to your firm. Popcorn machines, bottled water, tons of candy, games of skill (golf, darts, basketball, etc.), and games of chance (wheel of fortune, roulette wheel) all give the show a fun, carnival-like atmosphere. But do they guarantee that they will attract the potential client that you are after?” Probably not. Let someone else provide the popcorn.
  • Durability: Choose give-aways that will stay with the visitor long after the show is over. As cliche as coffee mugs are, they are a good example of something that can be used everyday, will sit on the desk in front of the client and will last for years until broken.

Post-Show Follow-up: Success or Failure is Measured Here

After the show, there should be a load of follow-up work to be done by the staff in the form of collating the booth visitor information, analyzing the success of the mail campaign (how many people brought in the “required” post card), and following through on all the promises of “getting back with information” by the firm's booth workers. This is an excellent opportunity to make further contacts with prospects on an individual basis. If a show offers electronic scanning, use it, as you will be able to get customer data in a useable form.

Exhibiting at a trade show can be fun and lucrative, but it takes a dedicated game plan, proper planning and good follow-up to reap the rewards.



Bryan Weaver Mentor Legal Marketing [email protected]

When creating a marketing plan, the topic of exhibiting at trade shows invariably comes up. If your firm determines that a trade show will be a beneficial part of the marketing mix, it must be seamlessly integrated into the firm's marketing and sales plan rather than it being treated as an isolated event. This is not to say that the big show cannot be the crowning event of the year or as a kick-off for new promotions. Make the trade show part of a Master Plan.

Go With a Purpose

The purpose of exhibiting at a trade show is much more than setting up a temporary storefront to hawk your goods and services to the masses. In reality, there just isn't enough time at a trade show to really exploit all of the possible opportunities. A trade show compresses numerous marketing and sales events into a span of two or three intense days. In the short lifespan of a show, you have a chance to get in some quality networking, new client introduction meetings, client appreciation events, speaking engagements as a seminar presenter, educational events as an attendee and a little competitive spying. All of this in an environment ripe for some world class schmoozing. The negative side of all this is that it requires a lot of time and money, so getting the best bang for the buck is dependent on good planning and diligent follow-through. Do not make the mistake of focusing on the “Show” as the only part of your firm's overall marketing program, as there is much to do before and after the actual show.

Get Started Immediately

Before committing to a specific show, do some research to determine if the show really suits your intended marketing goals. If you have never attended that show before, it might be more prudent to pass on committing the marketing funds, and instead devoting the current year to conducting reconnaissance missions to select the best venue for exhibiting. Once the decision has been made, register as early as possible for the show. By starting early, there is more time to manage the upcoming mailing lists, offer speakers for seminars and keynotes, or to be a sponsor for some part of the show. If exhibiting at the show is a last minute decision, chances are good that you will not reap all the benefits of advance planning. The better-late-than-never approach may backfire here.

The Keys to Success: Advance Planning

You should start inviting your potential clients to the show and more specifically, to your booth as soon as possible. Develop a campaign from the list of registered attendees and your customer mailing list to let the customers know where they can find you. You should have several mail-outs scheduled several months in advance, and as time gets closer to the show, you will get updated attendee lists to use for your mail-outs. In the advance mailings, give them a reason to visit your booth (sell the sizzle). As time gets closer, you can send out invitations to special events that you have planned and other enticements to bring the clients to you.

More Than a Trade Show

Make the trade show an event that goes beyond the convention hall floor. Use all the available time to plan activities for clients, industry executives, special interest groups or anyone else that your firm has targeted. Be sure to schedule sponsored events for different client groups. Host a happy hour reception for prospective clients or new contacts, throw party at a local club for current clients as a “thank you” for their business, or plan a dinner for very good clients. Be creative, but be sure to schedule these things after show hours. Keep in mind that many of your target clients may also be exhibiting or attending seminars and will not have the free time until after the exhibits close for the day. Do whatever is appropriate, but be sure to invite your best prospects to your events. Your competitors may be attempting to do similar things, so try to get your invitations out as early as possible. For the most exclusive events, go as far as requiring an RSVP, or have a personal invitation extended by a senior member of the firm. By doing this, you have just told your clients that you think they are important.

The Countdown to Show Time

Make appointments to meet your future clients during the show. If you cannot come up with the names of key decision makers within your target market, you should seriously reassess your readiness at this point and take corrective action. By asking for an appointment, you have elevated your prospective client from a chance encounter on the show floor, to the look and feel of a serious offer to do business. Plan on having the rainmaker of your firm available to do nothing but meet with prospective clients during the show. Be sure his or her schedule is kept flexible to meet with prospective clients for as long as is reasonably necessary. All the booth workers should possess the talent to bring in new clients, and should have contact meetings scheduled in advance of the show.

Training the Experts

Your people are going to be perceived as the “experts” in your firm. This is very important when making a good first impression. While the firm's experts know their area of practice, they may not know how to or even want to deal with the marketing and sales functions of the firm. This is a minor problem that can be overcome by addressing this in advance. You have to educate them on making the most of their trade show time. Make sure these people understand that this is NOT an excuse to party and waste time (which can degenerate to this, if allowed), but a chance to cultivate new clients. Pre-show training for workers (who may actually be very well respected within the firm) may seem like a demeaning and elementary task, but it helps keep the focus on the purpose of spending exorbitant sums of money in a short time.

As the marketing arm, make it a point to impose goals and expectations on these people. After all, this is what you are paid to do, and if the money spent on this endeavor is a bust, you will probably have some explaining to do. Make it clear to everyone in the firm that you will not accept anything less than total cooperation.

On the Show Floor

The booth and booth location are nearly always on the forefront of a show planner's mind. People have turned this into a pseudo-science and where there is one opinion, there almost certainly is an opposing opinion on what is best for you. Location is the most obvious, but not necessarily most important, aspect of exhibiting. Aside from obviously bad locations, you probably will not suffer any ill effects if you have done your pre-and post-show planning. Given that only a few spaces truly are premium spaces, poor location is often the undeserving scapegoat for an exhibitor's poor success rate at a show.

Do scale layouts of even a small booth space to get an idea of how little space you are really working with. If you already have a booth, determine how you plan on transporting the booth. Is it going to be trucked in and set up by the show promoter? Is it going to be part of carry-on luggage? Keep this in mind because some shows prohibit exhibitors from setting up their own booths or carrying in anything larger than a brief case. Know what to expect and plan accordingly.

Assuming that you do not have the biggest booth at the show, you probably don't have a prime position, which is nearly always directly in front of a main entrance or central area. There are pros and cons of being a small booth right next to a large booth.

The good:

a) Everyone will see your booth immediately; and

b) You will get traffic exposure.

The bad:

a) The traffic exposure you get may not be your target client;

b) Cost;

c) Possible limited access.

I have seen small booths get trampled by visitors trying to get to the “big show” at the popular mega booth, making it totally impossible for anyone to visit the unfortunate small exhibitor. It is risky to expect opportunistic marketing schemes to work for you, so don't pay too much of a premium for location. If you have the choice, put yourself directly to the right of the main entrance. Most people will start their show tour by going to the right on the exhibit floor and working their way around counterclockwise.

For the rest of us, we take the 10×10 floor space wherever there is an opening. Avoid spaces too close to the concession stand, the bathrooms or the far reaches of the exhibit hall. Often, all that is available is a space in the middle of a row in a less than prime location; don't worry ' your pre-show activities will pay off no matter where you are located.

Showtime: Making the Most Of It

After the booth is set up and the doors are opened, are you ready for business? Not quite. Take some time to look at the other exhibitors that could qualify as your competition. Look at other booths around you. You will see and feel some very distinct differences between exhibitors. Try to analyze why you get the feelings that you do. Everyone around you has the same size piece of miniscule real estate and yet they all have different personalities. What gets your attention? What do you like or dislike about them. Analyze this information either for use now or for the future. See how you stack up against all the others. Does your signage tell the passersby what your firm is all about? Above all, your signage should be self explanatory and easy to read.

Your available time to size up a show attendee (potential client) is very short, just as the attendee's ability to figure out what your firm offers is equally as short. Your signage/slogan/purpose should be self-evident and should not require an initial explanation. This sounds simple, but is ignored all the time. Your signage should leave no doubt about the service or product represented. That way the 2.5 seconds (literally) the prospect has when passing the booth will either draw him in or confirm that he has no business wasting your time.

If you use visual aids such as a promo video or other visual show, it must be very short; like one minute short. There is nothing wrong with having several video promos on different topics, but they must be short. Save the long corporate video for another time. If you are going to use something like PowerPoint, make your presentations short and easy to access. If you have to fiddle with the computer to get the presentation running, or it takes too long to load the mini video clip you will lose the attention of the visitor.

General Pointers About the Trade Show Floor

  • Layout: The booth (or more realistically, the floor space) should be inviting and easy for a visitor to approach.
  • Attitude: The demeanor of the booth workers should be inviting. Save the interoffice gossip for after hours. The visitor is the reason for being there, and should not be ignored. This happens much more than anyone wants to admit. There should also be enough booth workers to attend to more than one prospect at a time.
  • Qualify: Identify your prospects immediately. After sizing up the visitor with a few key questions that have been planned in advance (to screen them in or out), make your decision. Get rid of them or draw them in. In any event, you must do this quickly if it is busy. Invite them to that reception that you planned if you want to discuss things in more detail.
  • Disengage: Know when to disengage. Don't let a visitor monopolize booth worker's time to the point that the booth worker ends up ignoring other visitors. Learn how to get rid of pests without offending them.

Give-Aways

This is a topic that always seems to get the most attention and the most controversy. Superficially, trade show give-aways appear to have a high importance associated with them. People have agonized over the image that will be subliminally associated with a give-away and the psychology behind it. Too much time is spent on selecting just the “right” give-away when the time could be better utilized by contacting potential clients. The most important thing to remember is that any gratuitous item should be considered as a thank you for visiting, not a bribe to listen to a spiel or to attract the casual visitor with a cool trinket.

Still, no matter what it is you are giving away, even if it is just a company brochure, make a big deal about it, but do so after you have spoken to the potential client, not beforehand. The give-away becomes the 'thank-you” for stopping by, not the bribe to keep them there.

Give-Away Pointers

  • Quality: Have several different quality levels of give-aways. Save the best give-aways for the most important clients, and tell them so. Do not fall into the mentality of trying to be the firm “who has the best give-aways”; that defeats the whole purpose of exhibiting.
  • Value: Create a value to the give-away. The value will of course go beyond the tangible cost of the trinket, and may take the form of appreciation, exclusivity, pride or whatever you craft it into.
  • Bait: Don't go “fishing” with your give-aways. In other words, don't spread the give-aways out on the table as bait expecting to lure in prospects.
  • Unrelated: Don't select give-aways that do nothing for attracting potential clients to your firm. Popcorn machines, bottled water, tons of candy, games of skill (golf, darts, basketball, etc.), and games of chance (wheel of fortune, roulette wheel) all give the show a fun, carnival-like atmosphere. But do they guarantee that they will attract the potential client that you are after?” Probably not. Let someone else provide the popcorn.
  • Durability: Choose give-aways that will stay with the visitor long after the show is over. As cliche as coffee mugs are, they are a good example of something that can be used everyday, will sit on the desk in front of the client and will last for years until broken.

Post-Show Follow-up: Success or Failure is Measured Here

After the show, there should be a load of follow-up work to be done by the staff in the form of collating the booth visitor information, analyzing the success of the mail campaign (how many people brought in the “required” post card), and following through on all the promises of “getting back with information” by the firm's booth workers. This is an excellent opportunity to make further contacts with prospects on an individual basis. If a show offers electronic scanning, use it, as you will be able to get customer data in a useable form.

Exhibiting at a trade show can be fun and lucrative, but it takes a dedicated game plan, proper planning and good follow-up to reap the rewards.



Bryan Weaver Mentor Legal Marketing [email protected]

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