Closed Loop Selling through Trade Shows

Sometimes getting the data from your event can be a trial. If you’re in a larger company the sales you generated from your time on the show floor might not be known for weeks, maybe even months. When you have to present the ROI your show brought and whether the whole exercise is worth your bosses’ time again next year, just use these simple ways to calculate your results confidently.

1. Sort your leads by quality

You might generate 200 or 300 leads over the course of an event, but how many of those are likely to be translated into sales? Until the sales team get a hold of these contacts you’ll never know. Unless, that is, you qualify your leads. Train your staff to sort every lead into a category based on the following criteria:

1. “A” leads are the decision makers with the budget, the authority, the need and a short time to make their purchase. These guys are looking to buy and looking to buy now.
2. “B” leads have the authority and the need, but not the budget or the other way around. Either way, they’re lacking everything you need for a quick, big sale.
3. “C” leads have the authority but nothing else.

Sorting your leads enables you to see at a glance the potential results of your trade show performance.

2. Measure leads per staff member

You might already have an idea of who your star performers are but think again – how can you be sure that your outgoing hotshot salesperson wasn’t just chatting with colleagues or slacking off? To find out for sure which of your staffers were the most effective, make sure they write their initials or similar on every filled in lead card to give you an idea of how many they generated.

This tip requires some foresight – make sure early on at your show that your staff are writing their names down unless you want to become an amateur handwriting analyst.

3. Make sure you have complete leads

It’s no good have hundreds of leads if they don’t have enough information on them for your sales team back at the office. Take the time to teach your floor staff that they need to write down key details, like what the client said they were looking for and what they were promised. This way each and every lead has a better chance of turning into an actual sale.

4. Calculate the value of your promotions

Promotions are your secret weapon on the battlefield that is the trade floor. Promotions are key to getting clients to step away from the aisle and into your booth – so calculating their worth is vital to success. If you’re offering a holiday that takes up 20 per cent of your budget but gains you 50-60 per cent in lead sales, then it’s more than worth sinking the money into it.

Figure out which promotions are worth repeating, which can be used in groups and which should be one-time winners. As well as that, try to analyse which leads were generated by which promotion in order to pinpoint the most successful.

Ah yes, Twitter. How does one master the 140 character tweet? For some businesses it’s more like, “what’s the point of Twitter?” What to tweet, who does the tweeting and when? All great questions and they need to be thought about and planned for before standing on the trade show floor with people walking by.

Trade show marketing can be a challenge in and of itself with people walking up to your booth, people engaged in conversation, people participating in contests, and visitors are looking for tradeshow giveaway items without adding more stress to the team by adding social media to the day.

Related Article: Booth Bingo: Increase Your Trade Show ROI Odds

So Why Tweet?

More and more business professionals can be found to have a Twitter profile. Even more companies have their own Twitter accounts. Being able to connect with potential customers, deepen relationships with existing customers and develop friendships with people who become your brand evangelists who share anything and everything your company has or does is the ultimate social “word of tweet marketing”. Twitter really should be your best friend at a trade show.

Here are a few tips and strategies to help you and your business maximize your time, increase your exposure and visitors to your booth at the trade show via Twitter.

Plan Tweets In Advance

Using Buffer, or Hootsuite, you can schedule out tweets at regular intervals during your time on the trade show floor. Have a contest or a giveaway? Plan out tweets to remind people of it and/or when it ends with your contest hashtag (you did think of that right?) to increase more exposure for your business. Planning out tweets in advance can take the pressure off to get it all done.

Related Article: 4 Tips for Maximizing Your Trade Show Exhibition After The Show

There Can Be Only One

Decide who is going to be the social media point person for your team. Do you have a social media person on your team at the show? That would be ideal as you don’t want to have your top salesperson distracted by their phone when they should be connecting with people are visiting. If you don’t have a social media coworker at the show, the person chosen does have to be socially savvy with their phone or tablet to implement the following:

Tap into the Trade Show Event’s Hashtag

Nearly all trade shows and expos have a hashtag associated with their event. All tweets during the event should include the event’s hashtag.

• Tweet your booth number so attendees and people in the media can stop by your booth.
• Tweet pictures of your team at the show with your products, pictures of your booth and/or with people who are attending the show who have visited your booth.
• Tweet pictures of your giveaway swag.
• Tweet facts about your product and/or service that you’re presenting at the show.
• Tweet pictures of your contest prizes.
• Tweet pictures of cool things you’ve seen at the show.
• Tweet interesting facts you heard from a keynote speaker.
• Tweet a short video clip of a testimonial from a happy customer.

Don’t forget to ENGAGE on Twitter too!

Reply to people who’ve tweet back at you. Retweet (RT) something someone else has shared at the show you found to be of interest. Retweet what is being tweeted by the trade show event marketer. Retweet other exhibitors. It’s always good to support the community there exhibiting as well.

Implementing a few of these ideas on what to tweet can help draw more visitors to your trade show booth, connect with people interested in your product or services and increase your brand visibility. Twitter can be a valuable asset to your tradeshow marketing plan.

What other ways have you or your business used Twitter that has been successful in driving traffic to your booth?

Deciding what materials and strategies go into a trade show exhibition is an exhausting but essential process for any company set on making a great impression on attendees and fellow exhibitors. Putting together a haphazard presentation that does not really represent the company won't go toward that business's objectives, which could include everything from converting browsers into buyers to simply getting a product name out into the world at large. The opposite of that troublesome approach involves thinking hard about what needs to come along.

More with Less
According to Exhibitor Online contributor Candy Adams, one way to get more value out of a show may be bringing less – that is, less printed items. She explained that when these do get handed out to attendees, they may just end up discarded. When they don't, it's the company that will have to pulp them, but the result is basically the same. Brochures and the like aren't relevant for long, so making them and shipping them to a show can be a huge waste.

Adams suggested that leaders embrace new methods of information distribution, switching to email-only for their post-event communications and maybe replacing printed brochures with flash drives. In the case of the latter, the drive with the company name becomes a value-added hand-out, something the clients will carry home with them and use. That means they are also taking possession of company information and not tossing it, as they might with a print-out.

The Right Attitude
As for the interactive elements present in these highly digital booths, TSNN blogger Lisa Apolinski recently gave somehints on their design. She explained that a demo should not be particularly difficult to complete or confusing, as that may convince visitors that the company or product is not for them. If the process is too simple, however, individuals may breeze through it and leave the booth before learning enough about the business. Thus, Apolinski urged balance.

Tradeshow exhibitors have something in common with the rest of humanity: We’ll do what is easy, but avoid what those things we find to be or perceive as difficult. It doesn’t really matter what sphere we’re talking about: human nature dictates that more often than not, we seek out the smoother path, the gentler grade, the easier climb.

So in order to appeal to human nature and improve your tradeshow performance, I offer you this: Eight Effortless Exercises you can do with your team. Nothing here is particularly difficult, yet all are devastatingly effective. If your team can implement what they learn during these exercises on the tradeshow floor, I can guarantee that you’ll be very pleased with the result.

1. Go Over the Goals

Booth staffers function best when they have full knowledge of what as an organization, you’re trying, to achieve at the show. A show where you’re launching a new product and want to raise brand awareness is, in some ways, a fundamentally different exercise than a show where you’re simply attempting to reinforce existing relationships and move as much product as possible. Meet with your team and spell out exactly what you hope to accomplish. This is a good time to let them know what you expect on an individual as well as an organizational level.

2. Play Trivial Pursuit

How well does your team know your products and services? How about your company’s structure, organization, and public image? You might be surprised. Test your team with a friendly game modeled after Trivial Pursuit™ or Jeopardy™. Instead of random trivia questions, use questions centered on your products and services. Make sure these questions range from the everyday — detailing features and benefits — to the relatively off-topic — are your products manufactured in the country? If not, where, and under what conditions? This exercise will reinforce product knowledge and help your team be prepared for whatever questions come their way.

3. Body Language Bingo

This is a fun exercise. Snap pictures (or use pictures you already have) at a tradeshow and industry event. You want images of people slouching, eating, ignoring attendees, chatting with peers, and otherwise behaving badly at shows. (I wouldn’t recommend using pictures of your own people, in the interest of company harmony, but that’s up to you!)

Create little bingo cards detailing the bad behaviors, and distribute them to your team. Display the images on a screen and have them identify problem behaviors. Again, this will reinforce to your team what they shouldn’t be doing. For a little fun, give the first person to call “Bingo” a prize.

4. Sew Their Pockets Shut

Ok, you don’t really want to sew their pants pocket shut — but consider distributing double sided sticky tape that your staffers can use to close their pockets. This will encourage them to keep their hands out of their pockets, a behavior that tradeshow attendees consistently identify as unattractive and off-putting.

Remember to play fair. Give your booth staffers something productive to do with their hands to overcome the natural tendency to fidget. Often, having something official to do with their hands relieves a lot of anxiety.

5. The Name Game

Relationship building is easier and more effective when you use the other person’s name. Study after study has shown that people universally respond positively to hearing their own name, as long as it doesn’t seem affected and forced.

Do role playing exercises focused on learning the other person’s name and working it naturally into conversation. To make it more realistic, have both parties wear fake ‘show badges’ with a name that’s not their own.

6. Do the Demo

Before the show, have your team members actually practice the demo you expect them to perform during the show. This gives them time to familiarize themselves with the equipment — critical, as many salespeople generally aren’t ‘hands on’ with the merchandise — and become comfortable demonstrating it.

7. Teach the Technology

If you’re using card scanners or other lead gathering technology, schedule a time to actually teach your team how to use it. You want your team to be proficient with the equipment and not spend valuable, limited show time trying to figure out how to work the scanner.

8. Finesse Follow Up

Maximize the return you realize on the show by following up on every lead. Delegate responsibilities before the show and introduce an element of accountability: simply by letting your team know what they’re expected to do and when they’re expected to do it, you’ll see a marked increase in return.

You see? That wasn’t so hard! These effortless exercises don’t require much in the way of equipment or money, just a little time. Considering the impact that enhanced tradeshow performance can have on your bottom line, isn’t it worth it?

After spending umpteen hours and dollars on attractive booths and flashy giveaways, many IT vendors are abandoning trade shows or questioning their value. While these events can do wonders for brand awareness and lead generation, they also can consume large amounts of time and money with little return.The problem isn’t the events themselves; it’s how some exhibitors approach them.The “Field of Dreams” approach — “If you build it, they will come” — doesn’t cut it for trade shows. Merely having a display and handouts will bring people, but not necessarily your best prospects, or even attendees with any interest in your products or services. They may only want to pick up your swag and enter a drawing.A strategic approach with steps before, during and after the event can help you get the most out of your investment. You’ll land more face-to-face meetings with targeted prospects and shorten sales cycles. Here are ways to do just that:Before the showPromote your presence. List the show name and your booth number on your website’s events page. Add it to your corporate signature. Share it via social media (use a Twitter hashtag for the show). Mention it on your blog. Include it in your customer newsletter.Target your ideal audience. Build a targeted list of potential attendees, using your own database, the attendee list from the show organizer, or a list from a provider of IT sales intelligence. Then deliver a message (via e-mail, direct mail and/or voicemail) that speaks to your audience’s pain points and offers a compelling reason to visit with you. Develop separate messages for current and prospective customers.Schedule meetings. Send any hot prospects an e-mail from the CEO or a strategic direct mail piece. Set up meetings in advance. Make meetings short (10 to 20 minutes), and consider throwing in drinks or coffee.During the showApproach serious decision makers. Understand and only connect with your potential buyers. Our buyer is the person dressed in a suit and not carrying a bag or briefcase because serious buyers aren’t out to collect giveaways or gather vendors’ brochures.Ask a qualifying question. Formulate and pose a question to identify people in your target audience. For example, salespeople with my company ask, “Does your company sell to IT people?” If the answer is yes, engage in conversation. If not, wish the person well and politely move on to a better prospect.Email prospects during the show.For example, you might write something like this:“John,I noticed a few folks from xxx (John’s company) at the xxx (name of trade show) — are you here as well?If so, I thought it would be ideal timing for us to get 15 minutes between sessions — I’ve been wanting to share with you how we are working with xxx (company in John’s industry) to manage its unstructured data.There’s a break between 11:00 and 11:45 — can we meet?Best regards,(Your name and contact information)”After the showYou came. You met. You conquered the trade show. But your job isn’t over. Now the real work — and payoff — begins. Your post-event sales strategy should include the following:Clean up your lead data. Capture and add information not on attendees’ badges. Make sure that your booth staff takes notes on key prospects, using an on-site qualification process or a post-show review. Delete duplicates of people who stopped by multiple times for a free T-shirt. Complete missing information or verify contact information using a sales-intelligence database.Make your first touch immediate. Follow up with qualified leads as soon as possible after the show closes. Your communications may differ based on priorities, but the minimum should be a short thank-you email saying you’ll be in touch. Include an image of the booth or similar creative to jog memories.Increase your reach. Explore opportunities to leverage trade show interactions. If you met with a junior employee of a targeted company, use sales intelligence tools to identify an appropriate or additional decision maker with the organization.Continue to engage with your leads. Whether your long-term strategy includes a drip campaign or telemarketing or both, continue to nurture the leads from the show to maximize the potential return from exhibiting. Consider setting up alerts and triggers for your prospects, using a sales intelligence solution, to glean timely information. These tips will go a long way toward making your next trade show participation more effective. You’ll discover how essential trade shows can be for marketers and sales people.

Trade shows are exciting on multiple levels! First, they are usually located in a fun location (we’re jealous of our clients attending upcoming events in Las Vegas and New Orleans!) Second, they provide a great opportunity to network with individuals in your industry and reach your target audience directly. Need advice on how to improve your ROI on trade shows? We have compiled a list of marketing techniques to put into practice before, during and after the show. READ MORE!Pre-show:Share to the world that you are attending this event. Post the news on your website and social media accounts. Pitch a press release to the media, announcing your involvement and what attendees should expect to find at your booth. Share information about the event out in an e-newsletter sent to all your contacts. Get the word out about your booth and evoke excitement around it!Advertise show-exclusive specials to entice your audience to stop by your booth. Such promotions can help you meet your trade show goals – whatever they may be! Through a trade-show exclusive promotion, you can establish qualified leads, generate sales revenue and facilitate awareness. It will incentivize attendees to take action on your product – to learn more about it and ultimately purchase your product! For example, Iowa-based SMK Sprayers decided their goal was to target distributors at the upcoming Las Vegas trade show, World Of Concrete. In order to sell more to distributors they already have as well as to gain new distributors, they are offering a 15% discount to those who purchase directly at their trade show booth.Be certain to plan well-ahead and order promotional products to hand out at the show! For more info about how to get a great ROI on those profitable little trinkets, contact MaryAnne at Primary Source!Screen Shot 2015-01-27 at 6.42.21 PMShowtime:Craft your message and make it count. More often than not, a percentage of your trade show audience will have never heard of your brand or product. Trade shows provide a creative way to differentiate your company from competitors (which may also be participating in that particular trade show). What makes you different? Capitalize on your unique selling point in a visual way – by letting attendees experience your products and services first hand. Bring your message to life by creating a bright and interactive booth. Give your audience a reason to stop at your booth, whether it is to play a game that has to do with your product or the chance to win a TV!Focus on building relationships. As much as you may like your shiny display to speak for itself, the average attendee will not remember every aspect of your booth after the show. The number one thing attendees will remember about your company’s exhibit is not the exhibit itself, rather the staff. By manning your booth with dynamic staff members who encompass your company’s culture and connect with you target audience is key. The glitz and excitement of a trade show often wears off for attendees within a week. Listen to those you talk to, ask them questions about their life and business to find common interests, not just to make a sale. Trade shows are a great opportunity to learn more about your target audience, and find more ways to connect with them.Post-show:Share content generated during the trade show. Share videos, pictures, testimonials and exciting news that happened at the trade show on your website and social media right after the event. Treat your website and social media accounts as a medium to encompass the trade show experience to viewers who could not attend. What should you include? Share pictures of attendees testing out your product, followed by a 30 second video clip of your salespeople having a conversation with the individual about how they liked the product and how they foresaw themselves using it. Announce the winner of a prize that was raffled off at the event. Try to capture the same excitement felt at the show!Follow up with the leads you’ve gained with additional content. Attendees have given you their contact information (whether they wanted more information on your product or just wanted to win the prize)… use it! Follow up by thanking them for taking time out of the busy event to stop by your booth. Send them surveys asking them what they thought of your booth to learn what to improve upon – offer a discount to those who take time to fill out the survey. Add them to your database of contacts to send e-newsletters to, and personally follow up with individuals that expressed questions about your products at the show.With these tips, you will not only be able to generate awareness at the trade show, but create hype beforehand about the event, foster sales during the show, and cultivate relationships with your target audience that will last long after the show is done. Be sure to keep track of the events success, to make adjustments for next year.

A report by Conventions 2020 on the future of meetings, events, exhibitions and conferences looked at the incentives for attending events and found that 76% of respondents cited the quality of networking as the single biggest factor that would encourage them to attend events. The networking factor beat out content, interaction and use of technology to take the number one motivating spot. In addition, the average person carries 2.9 electronic devices including smartphones, laptops, and tablets. Those are powerful tools that meeting planners should use to enhance networking events in order to achieve the greatest ROI for their attendees.

56% of people are using some form of social media. Using social networks as a first step to face-to-face networking is becoming more and more common. Being active on social media during an event can help attendees with their personal branding, expand their network to more like-minded people, and get more out of the entire conference experience in general. In order to assist in this process a planner must create an official event hashtag. Twitter allows you to close the gap between colleagues and contacts by encouraging attendees to connect with other participants before, during and after the conference, laying the groundwork for proper networking.

It’s important to make sure your hashtag is unique to your event and make sure you share it with your attendees in your marketing to prevent them from using multiple hashtags. Adopting multiple hashtags actually shows a 17% drop in engagement. So don’t get hashtag crazy. Using one or two should be enough to get your attendees talking to one another.Hashtagify is a free search engine to search potential hashtags, discover related hashtags, as well as influencers and usage patterns.

Companies like #Tagboard and Storify allow you to curate all the social media interactions using your event’s hashtag. Creating a live consolidation of social media activity for your attendees makes it easier for them to connect to one another. You can also easily customize the look and feel to make your content more engaging and fit your brand’s unique style, then embed the material into your event’s website. This enables your attendees to look back at the content directly on your website and connect to somebody they may not have had the opportunity to meet in person.

You do want to provide your social media users a forum to meet face-to-face. Hosting a tweet-up, an event for people on Twitter to meet in-person, is a great way to engage your attendees and show them that you care about their desire to network. If you don’t organize one, they will.

Speaking of meeting in person, networking at a conference is all about beginning a dialogue, not making a presentation. Having the ability to tailor the conversation based on the person you are meeting is vital. Location-based apps have been trying to solve this problem for years.

Washington, DC based startup SocialRadar is a proximity-based networking app that aims to share who is around you, how are you connected to them, and what have they been up to. What makes SocialRadar unique is its capability to provide your conference, or event it’s own branded page. Your attendees will be able to view other conference attendee’s profiles including common interests, social media posts, who may be a common connection, or if they’re already connected.

In addition to creating a unique page for your event, you can add 5 short questions your attendees may answer that further add to the networking experience, such as “what topics are you interested in?” or “what is your job function?” While proximity-based networking apps, like Weave or Highlight, have struggled to take off in the past few years, SocialRadar may be the first app that marries location-based data with social media profiles at your events and conferences.

These are just a few unique ways to assist your attendees in the networking process. Keep in mind that different demographics may not be familiar with networking using technology, and it’s always a good idea to offer tips and tricks, or even a webinar to train your attendees prior to the convention. Showing your attendees that you care about their networking will keep them coming back for more.

Do you measure the return on investment of your search marketing? What about your email marketing? Every marketer understands the value of measuring their campaigns for return on investment, particularly online.

Step offline, however, and the importance of measuring your campaign’s return on investment seems to become less important. According to the results of our recent survey, almost 50% of trade show exhibitors don’t measure their ROI at all.

It’s a worrying statistic, particularly when you consider the cost of exhibiting your business at a trade show. Trade shows can produce incredible amounts of revenue for your business, but these results are often missed due to a lack of attention.

In this guide, we aim to do two things. The first is to buck the trend of ignoring the importance of measuring a trade show’s ROI. The second is to show how simply it can be to work out exactly how much profit each trade show you attend produces.

Why measuring your trade show ROI is important

Launching a campaign on Adwords or Facebook Ads without any way of tracking your results is something that even the greenest of online marketers knows not to do. Offline, however, it’s often the standard behaviour.

Trade shows, which cost significantly more in terms of fixed costs than the average online marketing campaign, are all too often subject to a belief that ROI simply isn’t possible to measure.

Diarmuid Beary, co-owner of Display Wizard, explains:

“It’s crucial for businesses to have a good understanding of the return on their marketing spend in order to sensibly assign budgets for the following year.

The fact that so many companies are unable to measure the ROI of a huge opportunity like trade show marketing could lead to marketing spend being placed in the wrong areas, which directly impacts the performance of the business as a whole.”

Without measuring your trade show ROI, it’s impossible to know whether you’re generating any profit at all from your marketing. Of our survey participants that track their trade show ROI, 39% found that they turned a significant profit.

Measuring the ROI of your trade show is surprisingly easy

Among online marketers, there’s a widely held belief that measuring the return on investment of offline marketing is challenging at best and impossible at worst. With the right tools and techniques, however, measuring trade show ROI is simple.

Below, we’ve put together a five-step process for you to use before, during and after your company’s next trade show to determine its goals, track your results and work out your short-term and long-term ROI:

Step 1: Define your goals before the event

The key to measuring ROI is having clearly defined metrics for success. For digital marketers, these goals are simple: generate a certain amount of sales revenue at a certain marketing budget.

At a trade show, however, things are slightly less concrete by nature. You can’t tell how much a lead is worth until weeks after it’s generated, or how much a contact or meeting is worth for several months.

The key to measuring your trade show ROI is in turning your goals into metric that are easy to quantify. It’s impossible to judge how much a relationship is worth, but it’s easy to track how many leads you’ve generated during the event.

Plan simple, easily measurable goals before the event so that your team has a clear milestone to work towards. Examples of good trade show goals include:

• “Generate 100 leads from C-suite executives at target companies”
• “Close $20,000 worth of supply contracts during the trade show”
• “Get 500 business cards from attendees to call and follow up on”

Step 2: Record leads using your CRM software

Since the value of a trade show lead isn’t immediately measurable, you’ll need to use your CRM software to track your trade show leads over time. Set up a special tag for each trade show you visit and use it to group each event’s batch of leads using:

• Event Tags in Salesforce
• Custom Group Fields in Zoho CRM
• Contact Tags in Highrise

This way, you’ll be able to calculate the total value of each lead throughout the sales process. Since your leads are tagged by event, you’ll also be able to view the average value of each show, as well as the average value-per-lead each show produces.

Step 3: Measure ROI three months after the show

Leads rarely turn into customers right away, although a select few might become customers after the first follow-up call. Before you calculate the value of a specific trade show, give its leads at least three months to mature and progress.

Over the course of three months, your sales team will be able to follow up with the leads you’ve generated at the event. You’ll be able to weed out non-customers and work out, on average, how much each lead is worth in the short to mid term.

Step 4: Measure ROI one year after the show

Not all leads mature in three months. Some of the leads you generate at each trade show might not have an immediate need for your product or service, only to work out that they actually dowant to do business with six months after the show.

Use your three-month ROI estimate as a rough guide to whether or not a trade show has been successful. After a year, you’ll have far more information on how successful the trade show was and will be able to calculate its exact 12-month profitability.

Step 5: Use predictive calculations for future shows

By examining your CRM data, you’ll be able to work out not just how much profit a certain trade show produces, but how much – on average, of course – every lead an event produces is worth.

This allows you to measure future trade show ROI in real terms by giving each lead a rough value. Instead of making your trade show goal “Generate 500 leads”, it could become “Generate $15,000 worth of leads”.

Should you be measuring your trade show ROI?

Trade shows are like any other form of marketing: the more closely you measure and monitor each event’s results, the better your results will become in the future.

If your business is part of the near-50% that doesn’t monitor its trade show ROI, it’s time to start doing so. Use our simple five-step system above to start measuring the return on investment each trade show your business attends produces.

Most of us know that once we walk into a retail store, there’s a good chance our every move is being videotaped and analyzed to gain insight into where we go, what we’re looking at and ultimately, what we’re buying.

But what you maybe not be aware of is that a growing number of trade show producers and convention centers are now using videotape to analyze attendee behavior and exhibitor effectiveness – and it’s extremely helpful for trade show ROI, too.

Chicago’s McCormick Place convention center, for example, has 80 cameras permanently installed throughout the facility that can capture and analyze various aspects of trade shows.

Savvy trade show producers and even individual exhibitors are using videotape to produce detailed data about the all-important interaction between attendees and exhibitors. Some show producers such as the National Restaurant Association are offering eye-opening videotape footage analysis as part of their exhibitor package including training programs for those people staffing exhibits at their shows.

According to Ethnometrics, a videotape analysis firm that works with convention centers, show producers and exhibitors, there is a lot of room for improvement at the typical trade show exhibit. The firm’s research revealed that exhibitors actually interact with only one in four buyers who enter their trade show booth.

Ethnometrics, which was acquired recently by GES Exposition Services, says videotape analysis can help exhibitors boost their trade show ROI in a number of ways including:

• Traffic measurement. How many attendees actually entered the booth during a specific timeframe? When compared against traffic patterns at other exhibits and spaces on the trade show floor, this data can help determine if the location and booth design are attracting attention.
• Timing analysis. Once they enter the booth, how much time did attendees spend engaging with the booth and staff? This data can be used to determine if the layout of the booth is conducive to engaging buyers once they enter the booth.
• Tracking analysis. It’s now possible to get a demographic profile of booth attendees that can be broken down by age, ethnicity, job title and more. Some show producers also are using radio frequency identification tags to track attendee engagement and traffic.
• Efficiency analysis. Once attracted to the booth and engaged by staff, how many attendees are moving through the decision or purchase process?

During a multi-day trade show, videotape-based data captured on one day can even be used to adjust booth design or staff behavior on the next day for immediate performance improvement. Even minor adjustments such as moving furniture around the booth to improve traffic flow can make a meaningful impact. Or, perhaps your staff needs to step further out onto the perimeter of the booth to engage more potential buyers as they approach.

As you develop your marketing strategies, make sure you ask your show producers what tools they offer to help you track and analyze show traffic patterns and attendee behavior. It could provide a substantial boost to your trade show ROI.

The techniques I’m about to share with you are focused on your personal success at business events. These techniques are effective for all participants, from speakers, to forum leaders, to exhibit representatives, and especially event attendees. If you are hoping to get the most out of business trade-shows, conventions, seminars, and networking events, this article is for you.

When it comes to business trade-shows, conventions and events, I have bad news and good news. First the bad, Tweeting event hash-tags and Facebook posts will get noticed by few people beyond the event’s marketing team. Now the good news, so few people do it right that if you get it right you will stand out above the rest and get greater return on your investment of time and resources. Read this article carefully to learn how to get results.

Once you know how to combine LinkedIn and the business event, you have unleashed powerful networking potential. - Doug Ales
Business is LinkedIn’s focus and LinkedIn’s strength is professional networking. That’s why when I teach people how to succeed with LinkedIn; I tell them “If business comes from relationships, relationships should be your business.”

How easy is it to miss the modern steps of event success? Very easy! Before you read any further, please take a moment to view this video. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

So, how did you do? You don’t need to tell me, but be honest with yourself. I missed what was right in front of me in the above video, just like I missed the way LinkedIn caused a change in the way to get the greatest return from business trade-shows, conventions and other events.

Trade-shows and conventions continue to feature exhibit floors, product reveals, keynote speakers, breakout meetings, networking events and panel discussions. However, LinkedIn has had a tremendous effect on many aspects of marketing and sales, perhaps none more than the business to business staple, the business event. LinkedIn is the champion of business relationship building. Once you know how to combine LinkedIn and the business event, you have unleashed powerful potential. Not using LinkedIn as part of your event strategy is like missing the giant gorilla in the above video.

So, what are the 3 LinkedIn techniques to improve your event results?

The 3 LinkedIn techniques to improve your event results;

Step 1) Before you go: Review the event agenda, then search LinkedIn for event speakers, panel members, planners, booth representatives, and other participants. Send them personalized LinkedIn connection invitations, specifically mentioning your plan to attend their seminar, discussion panel, or exhibit booth.

Once you have connected on LinkedIn, after you have sent them a non-selling welcome message, include their tagged, hot-linked name in LinkedIn status updates as you mention the show. Using this technique will have your new connection remembering, recognizing, and welcoming you when you see them at the event.

Example of a LinkedIn connection tagged, hot-linked status update

To tag hot-link a 1st degree LinkedIn connection in a status update, start typing a connections name until you see their name listed on the drop-down box below your status update then click on their name. By tag hot-linking their name in your status update, your connection will receive a notification flag. Using this technique, I often see the person commenting or liking the status update, which spreads your update to their connections home page feed. Your connection sees your support and their network sees your update. Its a double win.

Step 2) When you are at the event: Use your phone to gather photos & demonstration videos. Just a few tips: Take a photo of the person’s business card after you take a photo of them to help you later identify who is who. Consider bringing additional phone batteries or a external USB power-pack, external microphone, or smart phone mini-tripod and photo release agreements depending upon your companies policies. When taking video with a Smartphone, hold the camera horizontal, not vertical, put the phone in airplane mode to avoid interruptions, lock in the focus by double tapping the person or item on your Smartphone screen. Be sure to get photos that include outside the venue, high above the exhibit floor, demonstrations, speakers, busy walkways, and personal interviews.

Network, network, & network. When people ask me how to network, I tell them my three tips to networking are;

Be interested not interesting
Don't ask what they do, ask why they do what they do
Ask them to describe their ideal business lead
Special thanks to Cody Muenster for teaching me these three tips. Did you notice how Cody's name is a tagged hot-link?

Bonus idea; if you have the technical ability, post a LinkedIn status update with photo and related connection as a tag hot-link wile you are at the event.

Step 3) After you return home: In addition to sending personalized connection requests to people you met at the event, write a LinkedIn profile recommendation for the event members you enjoyed meeting the most. I know it can be hard to write recommendations. If you are having writers block, simply enter their name into endorser.org and let their software write a recommendation for you. Start with this auto-generated recommendation, and then personalize it by mentioning the event, topic, and personal details. Use skill endorsing, messaging, and home page status updates to stay in contact with new strategic connections. Now start sharing your stories, photos, videos and show experience, as you tag hot-link the people that are now in your expanded LinkedIn network.

Conclusion: To increase your results at trade-shows, conventions, and other business events, use LinkedIn. Connect to event participants before the event, then promote their event involvement through LinkedIn status updates with your new connection tag hot-linked in your update. At the event, gather photos, videos, interviews, and network. After the event, expand your LinkedIn network, write recommendations and share event content through status updates, and make sure you once again tag hot-link your new connections in these updates. Using these three techniques, your network will grow in size and strength.

If you’re like most B2B marketers you still find that tradeshows are in your marketing plan. Even though it’s against your better judgement, you know that there’s been a shift in buyer behaviour, you know that trade shows are costly and often don’t deliver an ROI....  but your sales team insist “All our competitors will be there!  If we’re not there we don’t exist.”Sound familiar?

So how can you align this old-school marketing activity to the new buyer behaviour?  Can you think differently about your trade show marketing programs?  Can you provide educational and entertaining content that connects with your customers on an emotional level, while standing on a stand?

The way to do this is to integrate your traditional marketing programs with more modern inbound marketing strategies and ideas.

Here are just some ways to ensure that your tradeshow is the best it can be.

• Be remarkable

The trade show floor is a busy, noisy place.  And for the most part, everyone is doing the same thing.  They have the same standard booth, with their company name and logo in the pre-assigned area.  They have a few brochures, posters, cheap branded giveaways and a rolling PowerPoint presentation with the features of the product... Yawn... How are you going to stand out? The biggest stand in the best location is one way, but what about some other creative ideas?  Do you really need the booth structure?  Where would people want to congregate?  Can you be there instead?  I once turned a tradeshow booth into a café.  It was quite an idea in the 90s.. before coffe carts were ubiquitious.  The booth location was in an out of the way area, but with a great view overlooking the trade show floor. By making it a destination, and providing free coffee, we had people seeking us out and hanging around our stand for much longer than your typical 3m x 3m booth.

The Hubspot team also knows how to be remarkable at tradeshows.  At at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference a few years ago they made all their staff wear bright orange track suits – a cruel and unusual punishment I know, but they stood out, no matter where they went, they were clearly identifiable Hubspotters. They also gave away free marketing assessments using their Marketing Grader tool.  Which was not only educational and engaging but marketing genius... lead capture and qualification all in one.

I’ve done many different things at tradeshows from serving up Krispy Kremes donuts at break time, celebrating St Patrick's Day with green beer to creating great, limited-edition trade-show giveaways that not everyone can get - first-in, first-served!  

Hubspot’s unicorns are a terrific idea that sets them apart from the standard pens & stress balls.  The unicorns are a hit as they’re cute and people will give them to their kids.  Things that the kids will love are always popular.  The goal is to make your stand the buzzing, place to be.

What could you do to be remarkable?

• Communicate

Have educational content available on the stand and have engaging people have helpful and curious conversations, not sales conversations on the stand.  If you can, send your consulting team along, as well as the sales team.  Offer advice and valuable information. Provide an interesting piece of content that can be downloaded via an iPad on the stand and emailed immediately to the attendees inboxes.  This gives them something tangible in exchange for their contact details - and provides something to read in the dull sessions.
Identify your prospects needs and build content from there. 

Offering free giveaways for throwing your card in a goldfish bowl is so old school.

• Be there

We've all done stands where the team on the stand are actively ignoring anyone who comes by.  That's just a complete waste of your time.  No playing on phones on the stand!  You are there to actively engage with people, not check your emails.  Make sure that you coach your stand team with some engaging conversations starters.. and if possible pick the more outgoing members of staff to be on the stand.  Perhaps run a competition internally for who registers the most content downloads on the stand.  Standing on a stand can be boring, but it's you can also make it fun... buzzword bingo anyone??

• Follow Up

Make sure that you follow up the conversations that you have on the stand on the same day or at least back in your hotel room after each session.  Reach out and connect with them on LinkedIn.  Remind them of the conversation you had.

Ensure that you have a post-show follow-up campaign set-up and ready to go immediately after the trade show.  Perhaps a special offer only for tradeshow attendees, or a copy of the presentation given by your speaker.

 

These are just a couple of ways to make your tradeshow more effective, and more fun.  What's your favourite way to be remarkable at an event, so you're not just remembered for the colour of your balloons.

Industrial B2B marketers measure time by their own special calendar. There’s “trade show season” and then there’s “the rest of the year.” For three months every autumn, many of our clients’ workloads double, and they can be reached only early in the morning or late in the evening as they try to catch up on the day’s work from their hotel rooms in Las Vegas, Chicago, Orlando, or wherever else the circuit takes them.

In the digital age, when it’s so easy for companies to connect and do business with one another, you might expect that trade shows would become an expensive and time-consuming dinosaur tactic of the past. Not so. Trade shows have fought hard to maintain relevancy by continuously reinventing the experience and ensuring strong ROI for their exhibitors year after year. So no, trade shows aren’t going extinct anytime soon. They will continue to play a major role in annual sales activity, particularly in the industrial and manufacturing categories, and can even set the tone for a new product’s success.

Every year, as summer comes to an end, Crowley Webb starts to help many of our industrial B2B clients prepare for the year’s upcoming shows. Our goal is to help them create exciting, differentiating experiences for their customers, and to use every dollar in their budget to its fullest potential. ROI for trade shows – once a pretty subjective matter – has become highly measureable, thanks to the ability to match up leads captured and booth traffic data with future sales data.

Aside from the obvious – careful lead tracking, thoughtful booth layout, and engaging product displays – we’ve gathered a few best practices for exhibitors to maximize their investment and their brand’s visibility at trade shows.

1. Get out of your booth.
Too many brand marketers spend 100 percent of their time at the show in their booths – and understandably so. But getting out of the booth can pay dividends for both the brand and for an individual’s professional growth. Most trade shows have a strong educational program that attendees can take advantage of. Consider applying to be one of the speakers. Pick a topic that you’re really comfortable with and that you believe will benefit your audience. Your company will absolutely support you as you’re getting extra publicity for the brand and positioning its employees as experts in the field. Be sure to invite people to attend the session when meeting prospects in the booth and consider sending out special invitations to your current and prospective customers.

2. Get your customers out of your booth.
Many brands use trade shows as an opportunity to wine, dine, and get some face time with customers they don’t get to see in person often. Trade show organizers offer opportunities to do this right at the event with after-hours cocktails in the booth or company-sponsored happy hours in breakout rooms. But those types of events can be costly and, furthermore, who wants to spend more time on the trade show floor after a full day under fluorescent lights? Not you. And probably not your customers either.

Take advantage of being in a new city and invite your customers to an intimate dinner or cocktail party at a trendy, local spot. Create a relaxing, social atmosphere unlike the high-pressure sales environment of the trade show where you can really connect with your customers and enjoy each other’s company. Your customers will undoubtedly appreciate the extra effort and the break from the daily grind of the show, and the evening will likely be even more meaningful to your long-term partnership than the time spent in the booth.

3. Pre– and post-show are just as important.
We get it – no marketer wants even one more thing on his or her plate when trying to get ready for a trade show. However, there is a ton of pre-show resources that can make a huge difference in booth traffic and can generate solid leads. Identifying what tools the trade show offers exhibitors – such as direct mail lists of attendees and fellow exhibitors – can impact a company’s trade show marketing strategy greatly and ensure that dollars are being spent connecting with the right potential customers. Be sure to include pre-show tactics like direct mail, email, show-themed industry publications, and targeted digital advertising in your trade show marketing mix. This helps warm customers up and get them excited about visiting your booth in person.

Don’t forget how to connect with potential customers who can’t make the show. Use social media outlets like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram to give your audience a chance to participate without having to leave their offices.

Following a show, a prompt and personalized follow-up should never be skipped. After a few long days, it’s easy to let that list of leads gather dust while you wait for calls to come in from people who visited your booth. Use your lead-tracking software to tailor post-show messaging for customers and include a call-to-action with a clear next step. Consider offering a valuable promotion to potential customers that you met at the show, like a free productivity assessment or a discount on a trial order.

And there you have it. These tips, oh and a pair of comfortable shoes, should get you through this year’s trade show season nicely.

There are many benefits to participating in trade shows, even in the Internet age we live in. Obtaining high quality leads, increasing brand awareness, and physical presence in front of prospects are just a few of these rewards. However, none of these benefits are attainable without a diligent amount of strategy and effort planned in advance of the show. If your business has never participated in a trade show and is interested in exploring opportunities – or if you’ve attended shows for decades and are simply looking for a better return on the investment – here are some best practices to maximize your trade show presence.

Pre-Show

• Do your research. Before you consider sponsoring or exhibiting at a trade show, you need to research your opportunities and attend a few shows prior to registering as an exhibitor. Trade shows are a major production, and understanding what exactly they entail requires in-person attendance. Take note of the audience and what seems to draw a crowd. Are their TV displays, presentations, or contests? These observations will help in planning your own booth and participation.
• Consider sponsorship opportunities. Elevate your trade show participation by considering thought leadership sponsorship and speaking opportunities. Be seen as a thought leader and take advantage of your most readily available resource, in-house experts, to promote your brand and credibility in front of other influential decision makers. Panel discussions and small group breakout sessions are just a few possibilities. Get in touch with the show coordinators in advance to learn more.
• Reach out to attendees. Prior to the show, request a list of attendees and begin prospecting by researching the list on LinkedIn. Take these efforts to the next level by executing a LinkedIn InMail campaign and inviting your strongest prospects to a VIP breakfast or event. At TribalVision, we also encourage building excitement through contests, swag items, and free show tickets if a prospect pre-orders.
• Promote your exhibit. Prior to the show, promote your booth by posting on your blog and social media to create buzz. Save product or service launches for the show so clients and prospects anticipate the reveal at the event. This tactic also allows your marketing team to submit a newsworthy press release to publications which will spearhead both show and product promotion efforts.

At Show

• Schedule meetings. Don’t wait for a potential customer to visit your booth. Begin prospecting before the show and plan prospect appointments. Encourage your team to set their own prospect meetings and goals in advance of the show, and make sure everyone brings specific samples or literature for those individuals – the extra touch won’t go unnoticed.
• Create buzz. Use a great video or how-to presentation to create buzz and draw attention to your booth. Create an experience for attendees by providing memorable interactions that go above and beyond your competition. Product demonstrations, contests, and samples are just a few tactics to keep in mind.
• Monitor your booth staff. Take advantage of the early mornings by checking in with your team. Everyone should have a responsibility and can take a divide-and-conquer approach. Some members should be responsible for upselling current customers, while others should be responsible for new sales. Continue to remind the team of their roles, and talking points. Some sales teams fall into the trap of thinking that the show is like a vacation. Curb these attitudes by reminding your team of their sales goals and rewards for turning leads into prospects and prospects into accounts.

Post Show

• Plan your follow-up. Do not make the mistake of letting the leads go cold by waiting too long to reach out. Input your leads and prospects into your CRM system right away. Divide your team to tackle large promising prospects and even the smaller leads. At TribalVision we recommend taking your outreach to the next level by engaging large prospects via direct mail, email campaigns, or multi-touch point campaigns. For example, one TribalVision client followed up with leather iPad cases, handwritten notes, and a webinar invitation. Integrated marketing at its finest!
• Debrief your staff. Take time to get feedback from your team and begin planning for the next year. Bring all good and bad experiences to the table. What was successful? What should be reconsidered? Even consider conducting an internal survey. Your booth, successful lead generation, and future shows will depend on this feedback.

It’s certainly quite a feat to pull off a successful show, especially on a large scale, and the improvements above may not all be feasible for you before your next show. However, if you can commit to adopting these practices, your trade show experience will be smooth and on track to generate worthwhile qualified leads.

- See more at: http://tribalvision.com/best-practices-trade-show-success/#sthash.vXmB2IFE.dpuf

Heading out to a big tradeshow soon? Better have a few apps at the ready. Tradeshows are known for being great places to network and build new client relationships in person, so many people head out to the big shows without thinking about the apps that are on their mobile phones. However, with the right apps installed, you’ll be able to sell more products, connect with more people, and get a better performance out of your tradeshow experience.

For Networking: Business Card Apps

I was as sad as anyone else to learn that Bump, the app that allowed users to literally bump phones together to transfer contact information, shut down this January. Admittedly, Bump never really got off the ground, but the concept was brilliant: instead of sharing business cards, you can just tap your phones together, the digital equivalent of a handshake.

However, there are still a number of great business card apps out there, and you need to have at least one downloaded and ready to go so you can quickly collect, categorize, and organize all of the business cards you receive during the trade show. Check out ComputerWorld’s latest list of the best business card apps, and get ready to make those connections.

For Lead Collecting: Badge Scanner Apps

Sure, you could collect potential client and business connection information in the same place you collect the names and contact information of new leads. However, it’s much easier to keep all of that data in two different places. Use a business card app to grab info for anyone with whom you want to network or work with later, and use a convention mobile app designed specifically for lead tracking to handle the collection of your leads.

These lead apps are great. Look for one that includes a badge scanning feature; if a person is interested in your product, simply scan their badge and add their name to a lead collection list. It’s a much more efficient method than having a pen-and-paper sign-up sheet on a clipboard, and you don’t have to sit down afterwards and try to decipher people’s terrible handwriting.

For Payment Processing: Credit Card Scanner Apps

No matter which side you fall on the PayPal vs. Square debate, you’re going to need a credit card scanner app before you head down into your tradeshow booth to start selling products. Even five years ago, we had to choose between carrying around a bulky, carbon-copy credit card processor or announcing that we were taking cash payments only. Now anyone can accept payments at any time, as long as they have the right credit card scanner app.

Of course, the problem with many tradeshows and conventions is that they take place in the one part of the hotel that doesn’t get cell reception. (I don’t know why that is. Hotels seem to be some of the worst places for cell service, hands down.) If you can’t use your 3G or 4G network, you may be dependent on paying through the nose for hotel WiFi, which in turn will either be throttled or overwhelmed by the sheer number of users trying to check their email at the same time. Consider buying a portable MiFi device so you’ll have a functional, private internet hotspot wherever you go.

These aren’t the only apps that can help you at the next big tradeshow, but they’re three of the most important. You need an app to help you network, an app to help you collect leads, and an app to help you collect payments. The app that gives you the best happy hour specials within five miles of your convention hotel is optional!

Research has long suggested that the majority of leads generated by trade shows never receive follow-up by company representatives. A 2010 study concluded that fewer than 70 percent of exhibitors have any formalized plan or process in place for how leads are followed up after the show. In an era of automated lead nurturing, the situation may be improving somewhat, but simply having the technology with which to blast every trade show lead the same, tired email message instantly upon your return to the office doesn’t mean you should.

Here are 10 tips for designing an effective trade show follow-up campaign. Note: these strategies assume that hot leads – those prospects who specifically requested follow-up or were otherwise graded as “high priority” on the show floor, get prompt response directly from sales. A follow-up campaign is one designed to address the other 90 percent of show leads, including show attendees who never made it to your booth, and to ensure that no other potentially qualified leads fall through the cracks.

1. Prompt response to show leads is critical. Have the campaign designed and ready to launch so that response emails can go out immediately upon leads entering the system. A prompt, professional, tailored response is a great way to make your company stand out from the competition who may take days or weeks to respond.

2. Most trade show leads are routinely ignored by sales. The best use of a follow-up campaign is to qualify leads by offering a range of options for further engagement. Any response (e.g. a white paper download, a demo request) can help uncover hot leads that might otherwise be missed, or at the very least can help sales prioritize which leads merit being called first.

3. Using the same follow-up email to every show is the surest way to get your message ignored. Be sure to always identify the specific show, by name, in the subject line and in the first paragraph, at minimum.

4. Make your call to action specific. Never say “to learn more” or “for more information.” Instead, provide the prospect specific, tangible options for engaging with your company: “download our free white paper,” “request a personal demo,” “watch our 3-minute overview video.”

5. Follow-up emails are a great place to remind the prospect of announcements you made at the show. But don’t overdo it. The last thing a prospect wants to read is a re-hashed press release. Make sure that your email is designed to drive action, not just spread the gospel about your new product.

6. Usually, marketing best practice dictates that an email focus on one offer and one call to action. Trade show follow-up emails are the exception to that rule. For example, if the only option you provide attendees is to request a demo, you’ll only hear from a small subset of leads, albeit those most sales-ready. Provide 2-3 options that appeal to a range of prospects at various stages of the selling cycle, for example: request a demo, download a white paper, subscribe to our newsletter.

7. Personalize each email with the name of the assigned rep (or SDR) for that prospect, and include the rep’s phone number and personal email at the end of the email. Someone who’s attended a tradeshow may be ready to contact sales directly. Make it easy to do so.

8. Including a photo of your booth, crowded with eager, interested prospects, can help remind attendees who your company is amongst the hundreds they talked to at the show. Just keep the photo relatively small so that it doesn’t force more valuable selling copy down the page.

9. One core email template can do double duty and cover both show leads (those prospects who registered at your booth) and also any larger list of show attendees (provided to you as an exhibitor). Design, key message and calls to action can be the same; just change the introduction and any other associated language from “thank for your visiting our booth” to “sorry we missed you.”

10. Have a specific, tailored plan for ongoing nurturing to follow your initial follow-up email. Don’t just dump show leads into your marketing database or sign them up for your monthly newsletter indiscriminately. At the very least, point leads into an email track tailored for their specific product interest or vertical market. Consider a triggered program of 2-3 emails in the days following the show (offering varying types of informational content) so that prospects don’t wait weeks until they next hear from you.

It’s time to update your content strategies again!  The Content Marketing Institute has issued its fifth study of content across all forms of B2B (and B2C) marketing. There are a lot of great tips for making the most of your trade show booth promotions. Key to the trade show industry is the fact that the survey was about online content. Yet, they found that businesses agreed that in-person events were still one of their most effective marketing strategies.  It seems more and more companies are finding ways to bridge their content strategies into in-person events. Content marketing, it seems, has leapt off of the Internet and into the real world.  So let’s talk about CMI’s findings, and how they can relate to your trade show strategies.

Get The Most From Your Expo Promotion With Good Content Strategies

First, You NEED A Written Content Strategy This is the key point CMI is hammering home, and we feel it needs repeating:  By far, the companies reporting the most success with content marketing of all types were those who had an actual written content strategy that is also followed. Companies that only had a verbal strategy did all right, but not as well as those with documentation.  And it’s probably no surprise that those who reported having no strategy also reported the worst results. In our view, this should include at the least:

• A detailed description of the customer(s) being targeted
• A list of types of content and channels being used
• Straightforward descriptions of the tone and general content of the materials
• Style guides to ensure consistency
• Set goals to achieve, preferably based on benchmarks from last year
• Delegated responsibilities and a reporting hierarchy
• And financial processes to track/measure ROI.

By and large, simply making such a plan and sticking to it would probably do more to improve your returns on trade show marketing than anything else.   Content marketing really cannot be done ad-hoc while still showing definite returns.  You need a plan with a focused vision of what your content is supposed to achieve, and how it’s going to achieve it.

More Is Better (But You Probably Knew That)

It’s obvious enough that in all forms of marketing, there’s going to be a boundary point between spending enough and spending too little to be effective.  The new study helps clarify where that line is when it comes to content. When asked what percentage of their marketing budget is spent on content marketing, the overall average of all respondents was 28%.  That, by itself, says a lot about just how important content has become to modern marketing.

What’s telling, however, is that the most effective marketers also spent the most.  Those who saw the best results, and the highest returns, were those spending an average of 37% of their budget on content marketing. Conversely, those with the worst performance were allocating 16% of their budget or less.

In other words, when you’re planning your budget for your next trade show, be certain to allocate money for any content marketing that will be related to it.  Remember this includes effectively ANY media the public might see, from flyers to video productions to games.  Good budgeting will also help you show the ROI later on.

More Content Is Better Too

Another trend noted in the study is that businesses are publishing more content, more often.  16% publish new content online daily, and another 26% publish multiple times a week.   On top of that, 70% of respondents said they’re creating “more” or “significantly more” content than they were the year before.

So it’s no surprise that more than 50%, across all categories, said they were challenged finding enough content! There’s a sort of arms race going on here, one which is probably not healthy in the long term but may be unavoidable in the short term.  Because customers are already being bombarded by thousands of commercial messages a day – really – there’s a rush to create even more content in hopes of being seen. The attention-deficit nature of the Internet contributes to this.  Novelty is highly valued, even from day to day.

In terms of your trade show marketing, we suggest a slow ramp-up of material releases in the month or two prior to the show, then pull out all the stops once the show itself is underway.  There is probably no such thing as too little content marketing during a show.   That’s when the spotlight is on you, and you’ll get the most bang for your buck.

Everyone’s Social…  But They’re Not Sure Why

Here’s an interesting one to ponder.  The single most common content marketing tactic used was social media – 92% of respondents utilize it.  Yet, when asked to rate overall effectiveness of various strategies, social media didn’t even crack the top ten.  The study didn’t explore this in depth. Our guess is that most companies simply don’t have a concrete way of tracking social media effectiveness, since it’s a rather abstract form of outreach.

There may also be a genuine “Well, everyone’s doing it” factor at work here as well. The numbers were clear, however, on which services were most popular.  Of the 92% using social, 94% of those are on LinkedIn.  Twitter came in at 88%, Facebook at 84%, and YouTube at 72%.  Google+ rounded off the top five at 64%.  The average number of services used by any respondent was six.

So here’s a recommendation for social marketing for your trade shows:

1. Social media is terrific for trade show marketing, so even if you can’t find a good way to measure its impact concretely, make the most of it.
2. LinkedIn is perfect for pre-show networking and building buzz, and Facebook and G+ are also good in that role.
3. During the show, we recommend relying on visual social media outlets: YouTube, Slideshare, Pinterest, and possibly Instagram if you have younger audiences.
4. (Instagram is continuing to grow steadily in usage among <35s and may become a lotmore relevant to content marketing in the next couple years.)

Paid Placement Is Growing In Usage

One new section in this year’s study involves the use of paid content marketing methods.  As it turns out, 80% of companies are usingsome form of paid content advertising.  The number one choice was Search Engine Marketing, with >50% both using it and seeing it as effective.

However, for trade shows, SEO doesn’t help much directly.  Promoted posts on social networks and ads on social sites are going to be much better for getting word out about an exposition, and these are generally seen as effective as well.

To Promote Your Trade Show Appearance, Think Content!

That’s what it boils down to.  The content marketing game is getting bigger by the day, and it’s coming to be embraced by the vast majority of businesses in nearly every industry.  Since content can easily be repurposed and moved from online to offline uses at will, it’s a solid investment in a form of outreach that’s easily portable.

According to Regalix Research’s “State of B2B Event Marketing” report, 91 percent of B2B marketers still invest in event marketing, with 79 percent believing that physical events yield better ROI when compared with other elements of the overall marketing mix.

Event marketing can be defined as strategic marketing and advertising specialization that provides customers and prospects with an interactive experience of a company, according to Regalix Research. About 73 percent of respondents said that conferences were the most commonly conducted marketing event. Furthermore 64 percent see their event marketing budgets increasing within the next 12 months.

“B2B event marketing continues to be viewed as a critical thrust area in a company’s overall marketing mix,” wrote the authors of the report. “Of the executives surveyed, only 4 percent say events are not significant. As many as 57 percent of marketers find event marketing extremely significant in accelerating lead generation and growing the sales pipeline.”

About 76 percent of marketers have a calendar that features at least one even per quarter. Nearly 44 percent of respondents said that they conduct at least 10 events per year.

“A variety of physical events are popular,” wrote the authors. “Possible reasons include higher ROI, higher immediacy, and the opportunity for nondirective, face-to-face marketer-customer and customer-customer interaction and experience-sharing.”

Boosting Tradeshow ROI

Marketech and Skyline teamed up to create a white paper based on what trade show attendees consider to be best practices. “What Attendees Tell Us About Best Practices” looked at responses from 3,341 trade show visitors to find out what grabbed their attention.

Researchers found that 53 percent of trade show visitors come to learn if exhibitors have any new products or services, while 32 percent said that they come to obtain product information. Approximately 11 percent said that they come to see a product demonstration, while 10 percent say that they visit to speak to a representative.

“We have noticed in all of our studies over the past six years that there is a correlation between learning and inclination to buy, prescribe, recommend or influence after visiting an exhibit where there was new learning,” wrote the authors of the white paper.

Do you know the return on investment of your last radio marketing campaign? How about print media? While it’s easy to track the profitability of your marketing efforts online, accurately tracking your offline marketing ROI is tough.

With the right tools and techniques, measuring your trade show ROI is simple

Nowhere is this truer than at trade shows. Although many businesses are fully aware that their trade show marketing is profitable, we recently surveyed businesses and marketing managers and found that almost 50% don’t measure the ROI of their trade show activity.

Although it’s more difficult to track trade show ROI than it is to measure the ROI of a display advertising or social media marketing campaign, it’s still very possible with the right tools, techniques and metrics.

4 steps to measure your ROI for your Trade Show

In this guide, we’ll share a simple four-step strategy that you can use to assess your next trade show’s return on investment and profitability in both the short term and the long term.

STEP 1. Before the , define your marketing goals and metrics

How do you measure your marketing campaigns? Online, most marketers use cost-per-acquisition or net profit as a measure of whether or not a campaign has been a success. Offline, however, the metrics used to measure success are far less specific.

Far too many businesses go into a trade show with vague, unspecific goals. They set their goal as 'generate more leads' or 'connect with new prospects' instead of going in with a concrete, easily measurable goal.

• Before you exhibit at your next trade show, define your metrics. Is your goal to make sales at the event? If so, use new deals as your key metric. Is your goal to meet more people and generate sales leads? If so, count using new names and phone numbers.
• Once you’ve determined your metrics, work out your goals. Marketing goals should be concrete and easy to measure. They need to be answerable with 'yes' or 'no' and leave absolutely no room for discussion or debate.

 'Have we reached our target of 250 new sales leads?' is it a marketing goal that can be answered with 'yes' or 'no'. 'Have we connected with our target audience?' is not – it’s too open-ended to receive a concrete answer.

Defining your metrics and setting a concrete, closed-ended question to assess your performance makes tracking success or failure simple. Before each event you take part in, you should know how to measure success and where the goalposts are.

•  Work out a simple, easily measurable metric that you can use to judge your success in the short term.
• Set yourself a clear goal before the event that you can easily measure. Good goals are concrete and answerable with a 'yes' or a 'no'.
• Never go into a trade show (or any marketing campaign) with a goal that’s open-ended and difficult to quantify.

STEP 2. Tag your trade show leads to make tracking progress simple

Not all leads are equally valuable. Even the warmest of trade show leads might lose interest after the event, while leads that seemed cool and disinterested may become more interested in your product or service as time goes on.

Since leads can grow or decline in value during the sales process, it’s important that you tag your leads as coming from a specific trade show so that you can track their performance not just at the event, but in the weeks that follow.

Tagging leads is simple, especially if you use a CRM application like Salesforce, Zoho CRM or Highrise. Salesforce includes an 'event tag' feature that makes adding a lead source simple; in Zoho or Highrise you’ll need to use the 'referrer' field.

Since leads can vary hugely in value, you should return to your CRM every month to assess their value. Some leads will take off immediately and start producing revenue right from the start, while others may need months to mature and warm up.

• Create a unique tag in your CRM software so that you can measure leads from each event and assess their long-term value
• Record your revenue from each lead in your CRM software to establish an 'average customer value' for future trade shows
• Monitor your leads every month to see if their value has increased over time as more leads mature and interact with your company

STEP 3. Over time, establish an 'average customer value' for trade shows

Your company’s first trade show is always the toughest to measure. Since you have no past data of how trade show leads can perform, it can be tough to know if warm leads are worth tens, hundreds or thousands of pounds in revenue.
After you’ve exhibited at several trade shows and measured the performance of the leads in your CRM, however, you’ll be able to establish an 'average customer value' metric that tells you exactly how much each lead is likely to be worth.

Average customer value isn’t a perfect metric – many of your customers won’t live up to expectations and others will exceed them – but it’s a simple measure of what you can expect from the leads you generate at future trade shows.

Once you understand your average customer value, you’ll be able to predict the ROI of future trade shows immediately after the event, instead of waiting for months to see which leads pan out and how much revenue they produce.

• By measuring the revenue produced by leads from previous trade shows, you can work out how much each lead is worth on average
• Not all leads will live up to your revenue expectations, while others might be worth significantly more than you anticipated
• Your average customer value metric will become more accurate over time, as you generate more leads and track their long-term spending

STEP 4. Keep monitoring your trade show leads to improve your metrics

Every trade show is different. Even the same event can vary hugely in performance from one year to the next, making it essential that you continue measuring your ROI even after you’ve established an accurate customer value from several trade shows.

The best marketers are constantly improving their metrics and tracking their trade show ROI. Let your past statistics guide your strategy, but never stop measuring the profits you generate from each trade show or event individually.

As time goes on, you’ll begin to spot differences between events that, on the surface, look identical. Some will produce an excellent ROI, while others may barely produce any profit at all for your business. The more you measure, the more profitable your trade shows will become. Tag and track every event, no matter how big or small, and you’ll always know exactly how much (or how little) each trade show you take part in produces for your business.

• The more data you track over time, the more accurate your success metrics will become and the better your ROI will be
• Over time, you’ll begin to discover differences in ROI and customer value between similar trade shows and events
• The most effective trade show marketers monitor every trade show’s ROI over a period of years toaccurately track customer value

STEP 5. How profitable was your last trade show?

Although tracking the ROI of your trade shows is far tougher than monitoring your online marketing metrics, it’s still worth doing. The closer you monitor your trade show ROI, the greater your understanding will be of each event’s value.

How profitable was your last trade show? Start measuring your trade show ROI and you’ll know exactly how much each event, each lead and each customer is worth for your business, giving you a greater understanding of each trade show’s true value.

Now that you’ve empowered yourself with the knowledge and tools you need to achieve high conversion event marketing, it’s time to put your skills into practice. After your next event, feel the reward of your hard work by using metrics to measure the success of each element involved in our crash course. Today, we’re providing you with the metrics you need to see the results of your

redesigned attractors, identifiers,enticers and sell paths.

Part 1: Measuring How Well You Attracted the Right People/Qualified Leads to Your Event
Since you’ve attracted quality leads to your events with a focused and engaging attractor, to measure the success of your attractor over time we recommend using the following metrics.

Qualified Lead Ratio
Were the right people at your event space?

 

 Number of Qualified Leads
____________________________________________________

Number of Visitors

 

Low results on this metric? Revisit the tips from our Three Ways to Attract Quality Event or Trade Show Leads blog.

Visitor Ratio
How well did you do at attracting people in general?

 

 Number of Visitors
____________________________________________________

Number of Attendees at the Overall Event

 

Less than thrilling results on this metric indicates you could use some appeal at your event booth, which we covered in Three Ideas for Using Experiential Marketing to Increasing Event Traffic.

Part 1: Conclusion
If you’re seeing a difference in your event attendance, then you’ve successfully followed the steps to designing a successful event attractor.

Remember that building brand awareness requires additional experiential marketing tactics than those we’ve outlined in this guide – these metrics are used to measure the success of collecting qualified leads/visitor traffic.

High conversion event marketing is designed to help you convert hot leads, so it is important to never lose sight of focusing and targeting your attractor at your target market even while you are finding ways to make your events more engaging and appealing to attendees.

Part 2: Measure the Success of Your Lead Capture System
Part two of our crash course has provided you with tips and best practices for creating dynamic lead capture surveys, as well as using data collection tools to create a lead capture system that creates a user-friendly experience, collects cleaner data and enhances your ability to convert trade show or event attendees to leads.

What’s next? Measure your success. After your next event, use the following metrics to calculate how many visitors you converted to leads, survey completion rate and email bounce rate.

Visitor to Lead Rate
How many of your event space visitors became leads through a conversion point? A higher rate indicates you deployed your identifiers successfully.

Number of Leads Collected

________________________________________

Number of Visitors

Survey Completion Rate
Do visitors start your lead capture surveys and stop mid-way through? Use a lead capture technology that supports tracking when a survey is started, but not completed. This provides you with valuable information as it gives you insight into whether or not your survey needs to be revised.

A 100% completion rate is your ideal goal – numbers lower than this may indicate a survey is too long, too difficult to fill out or that attendees felt that the reward of completing the survey wasn’t worth their time and effort.

Number of Forms Completed

________________________________________

Number of Forms Started

Bounce Rate
When you send follow-up emails after your event, do some of them bounce back? Measuring your bounce rate indicates whether people felt compelled to offer a real email address and how easy your information capture set-up was.

 

Number of Post-Show Email Bounces

________________________________________

Number of Post-Show Emails Sent

Part 2: Conclusion
If you calculated a high visitor to lead rate, a high survey completion rate, and a low bounce rate, then you are successfully using your identifiers to optimize lead conversion.

If your results did not meet your expectations, rethink what elements of your identifiers you can improve on. Would a sales-facilitated conversion point work better than a self-serve conversion point? Should you be using a mixture of direct and indirect insights? Were you surveys too long or were your qualifying questions too broad? These are all important things to factor into your lead capture system as they enhance the appeal of participating and make the experience more user-friendly for attendees.

Part 3: Measure How Well You Nurtured Your Leads
Your event is over and you’re feeling like it was a success. Qualified leads filled your event space and attendees seemed to be responding to all of the engaging content you offered.

As discussed in our crash course, enticers are the third part of our guide to mastering event ROI. Enticers are all about nurturing and informing leads in order to move them through the sales funnel. These persuasive event elements are supposed to make the qualified leads that you attracted to your eventfall in love with your product. This means your goal is to leave your event having collected a high rate of warm and hot leads.

Use the following metrics to calculate hot/warm lead rate as well as how your post-show nurturing is going.

Hot/Warm Lead Rate
Two key indicators of your enticers’ success are the number of warm and hot leads at your event in comparison to overall leads.

Number of Warm Leads
_______________________________________

Number of Leads

If you calculated a low warm lead rate, you’ll want to work on your top and middle of the funnel enticers. This includes improving your broad messaging and educational content like videos, guides and product-relates games, in order to better engage, entertain and inform attendees.

Number of Hot Leads
_______________________________________

Number of Leads

If your hot lead rate is low, this means revamping your bottom of the funnel enticers such as product feature and pricing sheets, case studies, and brochures. These enticers are designed to provide qualified buyers with purchase information in order to persuade them to make a purchase decision. By improving these types of enticers, you will have hot leads one step closer to buying your service/product.

Measuring Engagement
As discussed in section two, using a mixture of direct and indirect insights allows you to see both immediate results regarding attendee buyer readiness as well as a look into consumer behaviour after your event. Depending on what types of identifiers and enticers you use at your event, you may be able to track additional enticer metrics than just hot/warm lead rate. This includes:

• Number of interactions or views
• Average length of time spent with interaction
• Number of social media shares, likes, downloads, followers, hashtags used etc.

Using these metrics will greatly improve your ability to measure the success of your enticers event-to-event and make it easier to adapt your enticers accordingly.

In order to nurture your attendees to move them through the sales funnel, it is also important to follow-up through emails with event attendees after the show. By doing so, you can track the following:

• Email open rate
• Email click through rate
• Email opt-out rate
• Lead conversion rate (how many leads become customers)

Part 3: Conclusion
Achieving high conversion event marketing requires you to utilize every chance you can to engage your attendees. Identifying what kind of enticers leads require to move through the sales funnel, and providing this educational content in various forms will maximize the amount of overall leads, as well as warm and hot leads that you collect at your event. This content should help nurture leads and provide them with the information they need to fall in love with your product or service and eventually become a customer.

Part 4: Measure Your Success Closing Deals
Clear, simple, efficient, painless – that’s the kind of sell path you’ve designed and used at your event.

In part four of our event marketing crash course, we shared our tips for creating a deal closing sell pathand the benefits of using one. You mastered how to make the buying process feel effortless for customers, which in turn enhanced attendee experience and the value of your product/brand. Now that you’re a pro at using your sell path to convert more trade show and event leads to sales, it’s time to measure your success.

Calculate your rate for converting hot and qualified leads to sales, as well as the average time-to-close/purchase.

Hot & Qualified Lead Conversion Rates (HQ Conversion Rate)
Since you designed an event attractor that got the right people attending your event, used identifiers tocapture and segment leads, and then used enticers to nurture attendees to move them through the sales funnel, you should have a higher rate of qualified and hot leads at your event. Measuring your hot & qualified lead conversion rate will indicate how effective your sell path was at getting these kinds of leads to take the finals steps to purchase. 

Number of Sales
__________________________________________

Number of Hot & Qualified Leads

If your HQ conversion rate is low, consider how you can revise your sales process. At what point are you losing leads and why? Understanding this information will help you see what aspect of your sell path is turning people away and adapt it accordingly.

Average Time-To-Close/Purchase
We’ve discussed the importance of using a sell path that requires as little steps/work as possible for customers. The longer the time-to-purchase, the more likely your buyers will lose interest in your product and consider your competitors. Creating a clear sell path that requires minimal next steps for customers will decrease your average time-to-close.

SUM (Days to Close Sale per sale)
__________________________________________

Number of Sales

If your average time-to-close is higher than desired, revisit yesterday’s post on our tips for creating a deal closing sell path. Ask yourself if there are any ways you can streamline the buying process that you didn’t try, or that you can improve on.

Event Success Metrics Template
Keep all of your metrics in one place! Download our Event Success Metrics Template here, and use our customized excel sheet to organize your results.

Part 4: Conclusion
Don’t let event staff get frazzled when attendees want to purchase on site. Have clear, outlined steps in place that staff can easily explain to customers to make the buying process seem easy and appealing. While designing a sell path is often forgotten by marketers, the proof is in the numbers: creating a clear sell path converts more leads to sales. Give yourself the one up from your competitors and have your customers walk away feeling satisfied with their purchase experience, excited about your product and valuing your brand.

Test Yourself!
Do you feel confident in your ability to drive traffic to your next event, increase the amount of qualified leads in attendance, convert them to leads and then to sales?

Test your high conversion event marketing knowledge.

For vendors, trade shows are great place to sell products, increase brand recognition, and network with potential clients However, it is also easy to disappear in a sea of competitors. Use these eleven tips to make your business and your trade show booth stand out in the eyes of potential customers:

1.    Send the best trade show staff.

In business, as in life, how we present ourselves reflects on who we are. Technology has changed how we communicate, but face-to-face interaction is still the most effective way to interact with potential customers. At trade shows, the team members you send are the face of your company, so be sure to send the most knowledgeable, personable and eloquent representatives available. In many ways, they’ll say more about your business than a website or brochure ever could.

2.    Appeal to the eye.

Everyone has seen the standard trade show booth – a solid-colored backdrop with a simple sign and a table with brochures and free pens – and we’ve all walked right on past it to the more aesthetically appealing booth a couple of spots down. Incorporating color, lines and lighting will catch visitors’ eyes and draw them to your booth. Go for cool and streamlined rather than cluttered and overwhelmingly informative. Be simple, yet memorable.

3.    Put a logo on it.

A great logo can boost brand recognition, so be liberal with the placement of your business’ logo. Put it everywhere – on signs, display backgrounds, business cards, and free promotional items. Visitors to your booth who use these items at the trade show or away from it are providing you with free advertising. Take advantage of the free advertising.

4.    Have fun!

Suffering through an endless barrage of spiels and sales pitches can make visitors weary and disinterested. Stand out from the crowd by being the fun booth. Spin-the-wheel games, door prizes, photo booths, and drawings encourage interaction between team members and potential clients while increasing your booth’s memorability. As an added bonus, receive free advertising by having visitors use social media to sign up for games and contests. It’s a win-win situation for everybody.

5.    Give away the best free stuff.

Free giveaways are as common at trade shows as brochures and infographics, so be sure your promotional items stand out. While you don’t have to avoid common items like key chains, karabiners, pens, paperweights, and office supplies, you can also opt for seasonal items, like sunglasses or ice scrapers, and useful gadgets, like mobile chargers or reusable water bottles.

Most importantly, stay relevant. Giving away items that relate to your product or service is an incredibly effective method of boosting brand awareness. Here, relevancy and usefulness trump hip gadgetry. For instance, if your company sells mountain climbing equipment, it might be a good idea to give out karabiners stamped with your company’s logo. They relate to your business and create that connection within visitors’ minds, which is the ultimate goal when giving away promotional items.

6.    Demonstrate your product.

As with any potential customer, visitors at a trade show are more likely to remember an experience than they are to remember a sales pitch. Rather than signing customers up to receive free samples at a later date, cut out the middle man and let them try the product right there at your booth. In doing so, team members are engaging with potential customers while simultaneously allowing the product to speak for itself.

7.    Utilize technology.

Modern technology has created new avenues of communication for businesses and consumers. Touch-screen tablets, virtual tours and online tutorials have made it easier now than ever for companies to educate prospective customers about their products and services. More recently, trade show vendors have used programs like iBeacon to send special offers to surrounding phones via text message. Use technology to initiate and facilitate interactions visitors to your booth.

8.    Talk with your neighbors.

Speaking with everyone at a trade show is nearly impossible. However, it is very likely that your neighboring vendors spoke with people you did not. Exchange business cards with them. There may be some overlap, but you’ll also pick up a few new ones as well. Some leads that are unhelpful to you may be useful to them, and vice-versa. This way, both you and your neighbors benefit from the competition.

9.     Set appointments and respond to requests ASAP.

Your product or service will never be as fresh in the visitors’ mind as it is while they are at your both, so make the most out of the few minutes you have with them. Invest in a business card scanner to bring to trade shows and scan each card the day you receive it. Try to contact the business that same day with further information about your company or, better yet, schedule follow-up appointments within the next few days. This increases the likelihood that visitors will remember your business after the trade show.

10.  Promote, promote, promote.

If you’re going to attend a trade show, you should at least try to make it worth your while. Use social media platforms to advertise any deals or discounts offered at your booth in order to attract people to the trade show. Although not everyone who comes to your booth will buy something, it is quite likely that they’ll buy something from another booth. Likewise, you may benefit from one of your competitors promoting the trade show on their Twitter or Facebook.

11.  Don’t lose money to be there.

This last one is fairly straightforward. Start scouting out leads and making appointments weeks before the trade show in order to get an idea of how much business you’ll be able to do, especially if the location is farther away. To save money on supplies, find a simple yet appealing design and reuse as much of it as you can, and avoid spending too much on promotional items. Plan a budget and stick to it. Make sure the event will be worth your time and money before committing.

If you’ve found yourself returning home from a trade show with little or nothing to show for it, consider using some of these tips next time in order to improve your trade show experience. Seize your piece of the trade show pie. 

- See more at: http://www.tsnn.com/news-blogs/11-ways-improve-your-trade-show-experience#sthash.tBQdaxfO.dpuf

In the face-to-face industry social media is becoming one of the most popular ways to engage attendees at trade shows, events and conferences. Done well social media can be very successful, but done wrong it can be a flop. For that reason, we’ve created a SlideShare of 24 simple tips and best practices to get exhibitors on the right track. Flip through the SlideShare for quick tips, then read below for details.

Want to embed this SlideShare on your own website or blog? Go for it! Simply copy the embed code below.

1. develop a detailed strategy

Because social media is so ingrained in our daily lives as a spur of the moment tool, it’s a common mistake to think that you can use it the same way for marketing. The main key to a successful exhibiting social media program is developing a detailed strategy. Approach it just like you would any other marketing plan. Your strategy should include overall goals and a specific plan of action i.e. what platforms you will use, who will post what and when and how social will be incorporated into your existing exhibiting plan.

2. set concrete goals

Setting concrete goals is the only way to gauge and understand whether or not your campaign was successful post-show. Look at the overall goals from your detailed strategy and determine what outcome would mean success. For example, if your goal is to have more people interact with your brand, your concrete goals may be an increased amount of engagement which can be measured in Retweets, comments, likes and click throughs on the content you share.

3. monitor show hashtags

This should be your starting point in using social media for exhibiting. Most shows now use a unique hashtag(s) to help attendees and exhibitors get connected and start conversations online. Monitoring the hashtag will help you get involved with attendees and get a better understanding of overall sentiment and interests of your future visitors.

4. find where your attendees are engaging the most

The whole point of using social media during the exhibit process is to build a community and interact with the attendees. While a lot of interaction happens on Twitter, at a more visual show (event planning, interior design etc…) attendees may be heavily using a platform like Instagram. Make sure you’re in the right place.

5. choose the right channel

Each social media channel will communicate with an audience differently and be best for posting at different times.

Instagram:

The most visual of all the social media outlets, Instagram is the place you’ll go to share photos and short videos. This is great for sharing visual elements of your booth, product demos and more. Bonus, you can connect your Instagram and Twitter accounts for a double wammy.

Twitter:

If you use Twitter for work or personal life you’ll know that feeds update at lightening speed. For that reason Twitter is the ideal place to share timely, in-the-moment updates of bit-size content pre, during and post show.

Linkedin:

Depending on your industry, Linkedin may be your most powerful tool pre-show. If you are involved in any Linkedin groups, or connected to clients and professionals attending your show you can use Linkedin to get involved and re-connect with those contacts. Not all groups and members of LinkedIn are active, so if your connections and groups are having valuable conversation don’t miss an opportunity to jump in.

Facebook:

Facebook allows for a variety of posts both long and short, but with more stagnant feeds, it’s not the best place for constant updates as you could end up flooding followers’ feeds. Instead focus on longer form posts like quick daily recaps, photo posts or a mass photo album uploads at the end of each day.

6. designate a social media leader

You don’t want your detailed social media strategy to fall to pieces because no one is in charge. Having a leader will be important to implementing your strategy pre and post-show, but this leader will be most valuable on-site. When the show floor opens your booth is going to be hectic, and your sales people will likely be busy with clients. Posting, engaging and monitoring is a full-time job so if you can afford it, bring a team member who is there solely for social media and marketing.

7. encourage the whole team to get involved

While it may be hard for them to post on-site, getting your team involved on social media as individuals will help them make their own connections, while supporting the overall company goals. Encourage team members to use their personal social media accounts to become active members of the show community pre-show and at the show when they can by using the official hashtag.

8. use the show hashtag so attendees can find you

This one is especially important for Tweeting. Using the show Hashtag will help make your Tweets more visible to show attendees, especially those not currently following you. If you don’t use the hashtag, those attendees may never see your Tweets at all.

9. leading up to the show tell everyone you’ll be tweeting and posting

This one is simple. You want people to know you’ll be posting live at the show. In each of your outlets, be sure to give a reminder that you’ll be exhibiting and sharing updates from the show floor. However, keep reminders to a minimum so as not to spam your followers. Give a reminder, then let your content do the talking.

10. stop only promoting your booth number and giveaways

I get it, you want people to know where your booth is and what they will get for stopping by. However when 200 exhibitors are all saying roughly the same thing and only that thing, it’s not just boring, it’s also not beneficial to the attendees following the hashtag. That’s why number 11 is so important…

11. instead try listening to what attendees want

Remember the key goal to exhibiting is giving attendees what they want, and for social media it’s not all that different. When monitoring the hashtag, pay attention to what attendees are wanting and talking about. What issues and topics are they discussing? What are they looking forward to about the show? What information do they need to know? Then…

12. share something valuable

No matter what show attendees are talking about one thing is for sure; they’re seeking to gain value from following the show hashtag. In order to stand out and build social relationships be the brand that’s sharing something of value. Examples?

original content:

Do you have a corporate blog? Do you publish white papers covering important industry topics? Evaluate the content you already have and look for ways to align with the conversations surrounding the show. This will promote your brand while providing content attendees might actually want to read. Additionally, build new content around what attendees are talking about, or even live-blog during the show.

expert insights:

Don’t forget that you’re the expert in the room here. On the show floor you will be the one visitors have questions for. Track the hashtag and look for opportunities to chime in with advice and ideas. However, remember to focus on engaging not selling. Refrain from talking about your product/brand unless someone asks. There’ll be plenty of time for that later.

useful info:

Whether it’s info about an industry topic or practical advice during the show, like alerting attendees to networking opportunities, being useful will make you a trusted resource. Think outside the box to provide information attendees are looking for like show tips for newbies, advice on where to eat in the area or activities for those arriving early or staying later.

industry articles:

This will help you build relationships with attendees and publications! Great ideas for articles to share include: pre-show coverage and informative articles covering “buzz” topics.

13. share valuable content from others

Don’t get too self involved on social media. Show your attendees/followers you appreciate the value they bring to the table by sharing and re-posting their valuable content.

14. don’t sound like a corporate robot

Template messages with no emotion sent over and over again, or used to respond to people over and over are a big no no. Simply put, sound like the human you are.

15. join the conversation surrounding the trade show

Respond and start conversations in addition to posting. Engage with attendees by looking for opportunities to start chatting about what you know best. Get involved in any industry Twitter chats doing pre-show or at-show coverage/topics. Remember to chat like you would at any in-person networking event and get to know people.

16. share on-site photos & videos

Statistics show that tweets with images get 2 times the engagement rate of those without. While on-site share a variety of photos and videos including in-booth products, demos, presentations as well as non-exhibiting images from the trip. To get “artistic” post your photos through Instagram and link up to your Twitter and Facebook accounts.

17. share “best of” notes, quotes & stats from educational sessions

This type of posting is highly beneficial to attendees and non-attendees following the show hashtag. If you’ll be attending educational sessions use the show hashtag to share what you’re learning to help attendees learn too! Some sessions will even encourage Tweeting with a unique hashtag.

18. show your fun side by sharing the non-business part of exhibiting

If you’re attending events, award ceremonies or even team dinners associated with the show share a few photos here and there. Showing your “fun” side will help attendees relate to your brand on a more personal level. Of course remember to keep all posting 100% appropriate. We’d like to think that rule is an easy one to follow, but if you’re worried you might share something inappropriate on the company account it may be best to shut off your phone for the night.

19. create your own unique hashtag

Some exhibitors decide to use a hashtag entirely their own for marketing purposes. This is a great idea but remember to give visitors a reason to use it. Otherwise, it’ll end up being pretty useless. You can incorporate your Hashtag into your exhibiting plan by doing a Twitter contest, hosting a Twitter chat or a social “photo booth” using services like Instaprint or TagPrints. If you go this route make sure your hashtag is highly visible in booth and visitors easily know what to do with it.

20. connect with your leads on social media

This tip may apply more to the tech-savvy industry shows. If you receive a business card that calls out a Twitter or Instagram handle don’t disregard it. Sometimes a social connection could prove more valuable than just a business phone or email.

However for less tech-savvy show, if someone who’s already a Twitter follower or Linkedin connection stops by use social media to casually keep in touch, share valuable content and thank them post-show.

21. host/plan a “tweet up” to meet your followers in person

If you have Twitter followers attending a show, a great way to strengthen those connections is by reaching out and planning a “tweet up.” A tweet up is simply a planned, in-person meet-up of a Twitter group. This isn’t a business dinner, just a social “get to know you.” Meeting up one-on-one is intimidating so make you can gather a decent amount of followers and plan to meet in a casual setting or at a show networking event.

22. engage post-show with more valuable content

We hate to tell you this, but your social media job isn’t over when the show ends. Continue to engage post-show with more valuable content following the tips above. Think of this as the same thing as following up with “leads.” You must work to maintain the new relationship you formed.

23. evaluate strengths & weaknesses post-show

Remember the goals you set? After the show completes and the dust has settled record all your results and compare to your goals to determine success. Then create a list of strengths and weaknesses. Look at all the things you did right and all the areas where you need improvement. Discuss with your whole team and identify how you can improve for next time.

24. continue to nurture & grow your new social community year-round

Now that the show is over, it’s your responsibility to continue interacting to create a community around your brand. Unlike collecting regular leads, your social leads will take more than just a follow up call. Your social media community is not going to convert immediately, and that is OK. Be patient. Be a touch point for your follows all-year round for valuable content, information and expert insights. When your followers are ready to do business, your brand will be top of mind as the industry leader.

Believe it or not, 24 tips just barely scratch the surface of running social media for your exhibit. Great social media marketing takes time, so don’t get discouraged if one technique doesn’t work for your audience. Apply these tips to your overall social media marketing, learn from trial and error and soon you’ll be on your way to building a social community around your brand.