Questions are powerful. Asking the right questions in the right situation can open doors to more business, to gathering critical information and to getting someone interested in your product or service.
At a tradeshow, questions are your superpower. It’s a busy, chaotic environment and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other exhibitors and booths competing for your visitor’s attention. What are you doing to differentiate yourself from the competition?
You’re asking powerful questions.
Given the situation that time is of the essence, unfortunately you can’t necessarily spend a lot of time with rapport-building questions. A typical sales call may allow you time to ask about how their business is going, what they’re doing this weekend, and to get into details of their company’s short and long-term goals.
But you can ask impactful questions that get people thinking.
Ask about Goals and Objectives: What are you hoping to accomplish in the next 6 to 12 months? The next 2 – 5 years? Or ask about a specific project: what does this particular project mean to the company?
Ask about Problems and Challenges: What’s missing in your challenge to reach Goal A? Is there anything in particular that’s holding you back? What solutions are you considering?
Ask questions that position your company: If you were to work with us, what are you hoping will be different from what you’re currently doing? What does success look like for you in this project, or in how we work together?
A few simple questions will make it clear that you should pursue the situation further, or not. Depending on the circumstances, it may be appropriate to sit down at a private table and hash out all of the details, or it may mean setting up an appointment to follow up.
Asking open-ended questions lets the visitor respond with as much information as they like. Asking too many questions, though, makes you sound like an automaton. In other words, don’t’ overdo it. Sometimes the right response is simply to say “Tell me more” or “How so?”
Just keep in mind that on the tradeshow floor your goal is to qualify and disqualify visitors quickly. Don’t waste time with a non-prospect and don’t spend an inordinate amount of time with a prospect. Make sure you have a proper and agreed-upon follow up sequence in place before he or she leaves the booth.
There are a hundred reasons to exhibit at a tradeshow, and one of the best is to see what your competitors are doing. Everything they have for public consumption is on display and it’s a great thing!
Play spy and learn what you can from their appearance.
Not only are they showing off their new products and services, but their brand and people are all on display as well. If you put together a checklist it’s an easy task to rate those competitors and size them in relation to your company, as well as other competitors.
Prior to the show, create a list of those companies that you want to evaluate. This should be easy enough to do by examining the show website. Once you have your list, determine what you’d like to evaluate.
First, find out if the company did any pre-show marketing. If so, can you quantify or track it?
Next, rank their booth on a scale of 1-5, A-F, or whatever you’d like. Stand back from the booth so you can take it all in. Evaluate things such as:
Overall visual impact
Brand
Graphic messaging
Booth layout and functionability (did I just make that word up?)
Product(s) displayed
Meeting space
Make note of any activity in the booth. Are they doing anything in particular to draw traffic, such as a spinning wheel, special guest, or an interactive and engaging activity? Ask yourself if you think these activities are actually engaging potential customers or if it’s just gathering names and addresses that are ultimately not very useful, such as collecting business cards in a fishbowl for an iPad giveaway or something similar.
Are they giving anything away, such as imprinted pens, buttons, squish balls or flash drives?
Are the staffers branded in any way, such as branded shirts or silkscreened tee’s? Do those branded items clearly represent the brand and are they easily identifiable?
Are they giving away any samples or product materials?
If you are the kind of person that finds it easy to talk to other people (yeah, some of us are and some are not – I get it!), see what kind of corporate intel you can gather by chatting either with one of their employees, or with one of their competitors. This is where you might find out about personnel movement, corporate decisions, new products in the pipeline, or other pertinent information. Tradeshows are often rife with gossip.
Before wrapping up your competitor evaluation, check to see if any of their management is involved in any of the show presentations. If so, make a note of the topic and time and date.
Once the show is over, sit down with marketing and management and share the information. It may be an informal sharing over coffee, or it could be a formal report on what competitors you evaluated and what you learned. In any event, tradeshows are a great place to learn as much as you can about the market – so plan on using that opportunity to its greatest advantage.
Whether you are new to the trade show biz or you have been around the proverbial trade show block a few times; new ideas for capturing and keeping the attention of passersby are always welcome and sought after. So whether you have heard it all, seen it all, or it is all brand new; you can always learn something new and if you truly have the entrepreneur spirit you will always be on the lookout for new and catchy hook ideas.
So, what’s the new, fun, exciting idea? Simple – create an experience. I don’t mean create something that your audience can look at or takeaway. I mean create an actual experience, something they can see, touch, taste, smell, hear, and takeaway. That is the simple answer, here are some ways you can carry that answer out into realty:
Create an Emotional Connection
According to Maya Angelou, American author and poet, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” What does this mean for trade show marketers? Seth Braverman, marketing manager at Xylem Design, said, “The experience for the trade show attendee must be understood chiefly as an emotional experience. The aesthetics and ethos of a brand and a booth all play into this. What the attendee really takes home with them isn’t the knickknacks or the schwag. It’s the emotional connection they make with a brand and a product.”
Help trade show attendees make emotional connections with some of the following ideas:
Hand/Scalp/Back Massages
A company that sells lotions, oils, and other personal care items can create an emotional – and physical – connection with trade show attendees by offering free 3-5 minute hand/scalp/back massages. Getting attendees to sit for a few minutes gives you the perfect opportunity to talk about the products you are using and why they are so amazing.
Tell a Story
Most people are affected and remember things more clearly when a moment is associated with an emotion. Tell a personal story, talk about how your business got started, and discuss how you moved up in the world. Whatever story you tell, make sure it invokes some kind of emotion for your listeners.
Create an Atmosphere
What kind of atmosphere does your business exude? Enhance the experience for trade show attendees by adding things like smells, sounds, and sights that match the overall feeling of your business. – Have a more relaxed business? Use candles, soft music, and calming scents like lavender. – have a more upbeat and modern business? Use sleek and clean displays and include new technology in your booth.
Utilize Media
You should be prepared – before the trade show – by signing up for social media platforms and putting together a marketing plan. You can utilize trade show attendees by inviting them to your booth and offering special giveaways and incentives through social networks. This is a great way for you to get more followers, make connections, and add value to a potential customer. Here are some other ways you can utilize media in your trade show exhibit:
Video
Does your company have a ‘welcome to our business’ video? Get a laptop or a T.V. to play this video in your exhibit. Sometimes people prefer to watch the videos and ask questions after it is over instead of walking up and talking to a complete stranger.
QR Codes
Use QR codes in the business cards or flyers that you hand out at the trade show and make sure they lead to something of value to a potential customer.
Music
Make your exhibit more atmospheric by using background music.
Display Your Products
So how do you create a more interactive experience at a trade show? Braverman answered, “Display your actual products/services as much as possible. People are there in-person to meet the brand and the product in-person. Allowing as fluid an introduction to your product as possible is paramount. For the small role we, as display designers and makers, play in the trade show booth, the focus is on creating a display that gets out of the way of the products. The goal is to quietly communicate the excellence of the product, and this is achieved through proper design, lighting, and high quality construction.” In other words, when a trade show attendee stands in front of your booth and is unable to tell what your products are, or what your company does – you have failed.
Snacks, Drinks, and Contests
You can’t create a true trade show experience without providing something the client can participate in or walk away with. Include things like snacks, drinks, flyers, and contests in order to draw in attendees and to keep them happy.
Madison Resare is a content creator at Xylem Design (xylemdesign.com) who enjoys writing about trade shows, marketing, and social media.
Looking at your trade show strategy, you may already be doing a lot of things right: a perfectly designed booth, a well-trained staff, high foot traffic, and the ability to build great rapport with customers and prospects.
You may also be part of the shrinking majority of trade show exhibitors still writing orders on paper. If this is the case, it’s likely that you’re still not getting the most out of your trade shows.
For anyone who’s ever attended a trade show, it quickly becomes apparent that they can be extremely hectic. In a sea of competition, both vendors and buyers are looking to maximize their time on the floor. Customers often have a long list of booths to visit, while exhibitors need to work quickly in order to see as many buyers as possible.
In this environment, the slow, tedious process of writing orders on paper can result in lost business due to queuing, distracted buyers, and smaller orders. More and more wholesale brands are realizing that this inefficiency is hurting business, and that the solution can be found in technology.
Sales order management software, for instance, allows brands to store product information, images, customer details, order history, and sales reports on a mobile device. Orders can be written with just a few taps and swipes, and sales reps see more customers on the trade show floor. Read on to learn how technology can expedite your customer interactions at trade shows and yield big results.
Building the Case For Technology At Trade Shows:
You Aren’t Slowed Down by Product Catalogs and Samples
Any sales rep knows that flipping through a paper catalog and sifting through a pile of samples isn’t the optimal way to sell. It’s a time-consuming process, and it can be overwhelming for the buyer.
Technology can expedite this process in significant ways. Imagine that your entire catalog is available digitally on an iPad and organized in easy-to-navigate categories. You can browse the catalog with just a few swipes, zoom in on high-resolution product images, and add products to an order with a quick tap.
If the customer sees a physical product that they like in your display, you can scan the barcode to add it to the order. Think about how much faster (not to mention cooler) this experience will be for the customer.
You Have Existing Customer Information Readily Available
If you’re writing a lot of business at trade shows with existing customers, having their information available on your digital order-writing interface is invaluable. No one likes to go through the tedium of answering questions like “What’s your shipping address?” and “Can I get your phone number?” for the umpteenth time.
By having access to contact details, shipping and payment preferences, and order history during your face-to-face meeting, you can just pull up their record, check out their past orders and preferred products, and start writing the new order.
If you’re meeting with a new customer or prospect, you can just type in the details, or snap a photo of their business card for later.
You Can Duplicate Past Orders in Seconds
For a customer that simply needs to place a reorder, you can use order management technology to just pull up the past order and duplicate it. You can use the saved time to share new items from your line, and hopefully increase that order size before it’s processed.
You’ll Have Accurate Inventory Information
Accurate, up-to-date inventory information is extremely valuable on the trade show floor. Customers may ask about inventory availability, and calling your back office to confirm quantities before placing an order can slow down the process.
Order management software can give reps access to inventory information in real time. Having a reality check on your inventory numbers can also allow you to sell more strategically. If you’re low on inventory for certain items, you can notify the buyer (and avoid unpleasant surprises later) or simply steer them in a different direction.
You Can Automatically Apply Customer-Specific Discounts
Remembering customer specific pricing can be a major thorn in a sales rep’s side. In the craziness of a busy show, having to remember those details can be a nightmare.
With sales order management software and mobile order writing, vendors can store those customer-specific discounts, so that there’s no need to do anything more than choose products. The correct pricing will be automatically applied. If you’re negotiating with customers in real time, one-time discounts can also be added.
Ultimately, what all of these features add up to is major time savings—for both you and your customers. It’s time that can be used to have more high quality conversations with buyers, and to ultimately increase your return on investment at each and every show you attend.
Author Bio:
Sarah Leung is Content Marketing Specialist at Handshake, where she creates high-impact sales, marketing, and technology-related content for wholesale brands. When she’s not writing, she’s talking with sales reps, sales managers, and other industry professionals to source new topics of interest and further understand how Handshake has helped them increase sales and build their businesses.
Earlier this month I attended Natural Products Expo West at the Anaheim Convention Center. Yes, it’s a big show with a few thousand exhibitors, and over 70,000 attendees. And it continues to grow.
I spoke with literally a few hundred exhibitors, and almost all of them said the show was ‘great,’ ‘excellent,’ ‘busy’ and so forth. I say ‘almost’ because there were a few exhibitors who felt they weren’t getting all they could or should. One exhibitor said that he felt ‘stuck out in left field of Dodger Stadium!’ and wished his small 10-foot booth could have been in a busier hall.
A very lonely booth?
I get it. As a first or second time exhibitor at a big show, stuck in left field of Dodger Stadium, wondering where the crowd is – that’s a tough place to be.
Is there an answer to this dilemma? Depends. If you’re a first or second time exhibitor who didn’t have much money to spend, you might end up out in left field, away from the madding crowd. So even though attendance at the show was up it might not do much for you.
If you anticipate that you’ll be in this situation, here are the steps I’d suggest you take in order to alleviate a crowd shortage.
Promote, promote, promote.
Pre-show marketing is more important than ever if your booth location will prevent a bulk of the audience from casually running into your booth. This can come in many shapes and sizes (and should), but at the minimum, spend some time letting your current clients know where you are.
Email: If the show offers access to an email list of attendees, think about renting the list for a one-time email blast. If you have an internal list, make sure they know about your booth location and product or service offerings.
Prizes: In your promotional material, offer prizes or free samples to visitors. Consider offering a premium giveaway for the few that respond to a small promotion, or to those targeted distributors or potential clients.
Social media: Whether it’s done internally by one of your staffers, or you hire an agency, keep the chatter going about what’s going on in your booth, and what specials or attractions you have.
In-booth guests: Is there some tie-in with a notable author or other figure in your industry? Perhaps that means an author who’s looking to promote a new book, or a speaker who’s willing to chat and sign autographs in your booth for an hour for a fee.
Unfortunately, many exhibitors that get a poor location come away feeling that the show really didn’t do well for them, even though attendance was up and most exhibitors grabbed a lot of leads. Yet when asked what they did to promote their appearance, they don’t have much of an answer.
Having a poor, less-trafficked location can be a show killer, but it also means that the success falls upon you much more to make the best of it. The audience is there. It’s up to you to let as many of them know as possible.
After 62,219 steps, a couple of achy legs and a few foot blisters in four days of Expo West, it came to me: “Tradeshows ain’t for wimps!” Certainly not if you’re walking the floor, nor if you’re an exhibitor who’s shepherding a booth (and staff) from the home office location to the show floor, through day(s) of set-up, three days of visitors, then dismantling and shipping it back. Thanks to Fitbit’s tracking device that’s 28.96 miles, give or take…
Tradeshows ain’t for wimps. I know it, and every year I say the same thing: I should have gone into training for this about six weeks ago.
Depending on whom you listen to and believe and what rumors are flying, this year’s Expo West, held at the Anaheim Convention Center, drew around 80,000 visitors, a one-third boost from last year. Or, as one exhibitor confided, a New Hope rep told her that the total attendance (attendees and exhibitors) was north of 110,000 and growth was so substantial that they were looking to demand some more space and concessions from the convention center, or within a few years it could be ‘Sayonara, Anaheim, hello Las Vegas!’
Like I said, rumors.
Flash Drives: @Tradeshowguy Exhibitor Toolkit
The @tradeshowguy Exhibitor Toolkit
My calling card this year wasn’t a card; it was a flashdrive that contained a lotta stuff to help exhibitors. I took six dozen and they all found a home, except for the one that stayed in the bottom of my backpack. I loved that they were quite well-received by those I offered them to: “You’re showing me how to bring home more leads, get more PR and have a better-trained booth staff? I’ve been waiting for this!” Did you get one? Would you like one? It’s available now online: download your toolkit here.
Social Media
As always, I keep abreast of happenings on the show floor via Twitter, and, increasingly, via Instagram. It’s easy to post photos to either, but from the Instagram platform, you can also post directly to Facebook and Twitter, so that makes it an easy choice to start there. Loads of exhibitors and attendees are hanging out on both platforms, and it’s easy to follow them by tracking the hashtags #expowest and #expowest2015. Hey, I got some freebies this way, and also entered a few contests that I previously would not have run across. (Hey NutraSumma, call me when I win that mountain bike, okay?)
Booth Awards
This year’s show was, as usual, quite the extravaganza. And the booths (and attendees) ranged from ghastly to elegant to stunning. Let’s hand out a few awards, shall we?
Coolest Interactive
While there were certainly a lot of companies looking to find ways to get visitors to interact with their booth, the So Delicious booth found a nice way to get people involved by ‘sharing the love’ with chalk on a large chalkboard at the back of their booth.
Most Unsubtle Header
Boomchickapop decided to go all in. I can hear the discussion now: “Hey, let’s take the name of the product, make it as big as possible and add a lot of PINK! Whaddaya say, gang?” Well, it works. It gets you to stop, take a look and see what they’re all about.
Most Iconic Cut-Outs
A year or two ago, the new Pope was featured in a cut-out. I didn’t see him this year, but I did see Will Ferrell, The Queen of England and Dr. Thayer. I probably missed some others.
Big Ass Colorful Graphic
Natrol’s booth sat up front at the entrance to the hall, and to grab people’s attention, they installed a graphic that must have measured about 8’ x 30’. Big. Colorful. And not the only one. The booth had big ass graphics on all sides, so you couldn’t miss ‘em.
Biggest Coconuts
A large pair of coconuts on the back wall of Zico’s booth caught my eye and drew me in for a taste of chilled juice blend.
Biggest Boobs
A tough battle between Bamboobies (the girls with the pink hair) and the giant walking boobs of milkmakers, who were promoting their product with the hashtag #hoorayforboobies, and I think the boobs from milkmakers won out.
Best Stairway to Heaven (or at least the second floor)
Nature’s Path showed up with a clever booth that showed a layered look from the floor to the 16 foot level, including a stairway up the middle to a private meeting area.
Busiest Graphic Backwall
Not always a good award to win because people don’t often stop to read the whole damn thing; nonetheless, this one from Powercrunch was arresting.
Best Iconic Brand Knockoff
While Beyond Meat will never be mistaken for McDonald’s, they did work hard to pull the look and feel of Mickey D’s into their booth to show how their meatless product compares. Nicely done!
Most Elegant Look
Simplicity and function are their own reward. This was accomplished by the designers of the new booth for Portland’s Pacifica.
I look forward to Expo West every year; this was my 13th consecutive year at the Anaheim gathering. It’s had astonishing growth in that time (and it was big back then!), and it appears to be anticipating even more growth in the next half-decade. The Natural Products Industry has done well of late with healthy and intriguing products, dramatic competition and an increasing market for those products.
Our company, Communication One Exhibits, has about a dozen current and former clients at Expo West this year, and we’d love to add more. Want a booth for your next show? Click here. We love making you look good, whether it’s at Expo West or any other show.
When it comes to your Exhibiting Toolkit, I don’t mean the screwdrivers, masking and duct tape and scissors (although those and other items will come in handy), but what about the various bits and pieces that will help draw visitors to your booth and capture more leads?
Let’s create a short but incomplete list of some of the necessary tools you should consider having in your toolkit.
A Damn Good Plan
A Well-Trained Booth Staff
A Booth That Represents Your Company Brand at a Glance
Lead Capture Mechanism
Follow-up Plan
Let’s break these down a little more:
A Damn Good Plan should include what you’re going to do 6 months before the show, 3 months ahead, 2 months, a month, etc. It includes your pre-show marketing schedule, the booth details (making sure to review the booth ahead of the show with plenty of time to do any minor repairs), electrical grid if needed, shipping dates, booth staff schedules.
A Well-Trained Booth Staff is a crew that is pleasant, friendly, knowledgeable, friendly (did I say friendly?), willing to work long hours, flexible and trained. Trained in what? Booth etiquette, how to interact with visitors for maximum efficiency, lead capture knowledge and more. Your staff is your front line in a chaotic environment. If there are any weak links in this chain it will eventually show.
Photo by Tradeshowguy Tim Patterson
A Booth That Represents Your Company Brand at a Glance: this often means a custom booth, but it certainly doesn’t have to. There are a lot of tradeshow booths that can be customized to fit your brand sensibilities. They also have to function well, meaning there has to be proper storage, product display and meeting areas to accommodate your company exhibiting goals.
Lead Capture Mechanism: Whether you’re writin’ those leads down on paper, or capturing them in electronic form, all of the leads should have maximum information required to confirm the next step, and nothing more. Name and address, phone number and email are often the top of the list, but ask if all of those items are absolutely necessary. What’s as important is agreeing on the next step, whether it’s a follow up call, meeting or simply sending more information. Agree on what the next step is, and when it will take place.
Follow Up Plan: How are the leads getting to the sales team back in the office for follow up? Are they being transmitted electronically back to the team each night? Are they being transported in your briefcase? Whatever the method, make sure not to leave them for someone else. Too many leads wind up in Neverland. Sticking them in an envelope and then tucking that envelope into the booth crates often mean that the next time you see them is 11 months later when you open up the crates to prepare for next year’s show! Beyond that, your sales team should be prepared to receive and follow up on the leads in a timely manner.
No doubt you can add to this list, but these are the basics. Leave any item here aside at your own risk!
This is a guest post by Ruthie Abraham of The Brand Builders.
Regardless of whether you’ve worked at dozens of trade shows around the country or whether you’re headed to your first show, coming up with a compelling way to get people to stop and see what you have to offer is always one of the greatest challenges at a show. A standard greeting normally isn’t enough to engage someone, so you need to develop a catchy opener.. Pre-plan your opener. It can be catchy, intriguing, flattering, startling, weird, clever or some combination of these, but we recommend having a few on hand and testing your pre-planned lines to see how initial attendees react. If you get a good response on one, you can continue to use it for the rest of the show and at your next exhibition.
Here, we break down 10 ways to get the conversation started in a compelling way and connect with a quality lead:
Be upfront. Give me two minutes of your time to find out about how you can ___.
Lead them. What is your department doing to lower your total cost of _____.
Establish common ground. What do you think of our show so far?
Take an indirect approach.Can I ask your opinion on something?
Get physical with a hands-on demonstration of product. Help me out with this!
Show you care about client needs by asking them what problems they face. Which part of our service or product is most relevant to your needs?
Draw them in with an offer, challenge or contest. Have you entered our raffle to win a free _____?
Be presumptive. I see you looking at our services. Are there any features you have questions on that I can explain to you?
Ask them to think about an industry problem (that your product solves). Hey! Do you know the statistic of _____?
Make it open-ended. How are you familiar with our product or services?
Ruthie Abraham is the founder & President of The Brand Builders – a B2B marketing agency focused on helping companies drive results, return and revenue from their online marketing. Their B2B Marketing Blog is a resource for executives and professionals to learn about lead generation, content marketing, strategic sales, social media, trade show marketing and more.
Tradeshow visitors ask themselves some version of this question: What’s in it for me? They’re asking it when they see your pre-show marketing inviting you to their booth. They ask it when they see your booth from a distance. They ask themselves the question when they stroll up to the booth, knowing they have three more appointments before the day is done and they want to stop by six other booths on their list and are also thinking about dinner with that new client.
Your question is this: how well are you answering that question in your visitor’s mind? Are you even thinking about that question, or are your marketing efforts focused on what’s best for you?
In marketing this often comes down to showing and explaining the benefits of your products of service, instead of the features. It may also mean showing what other companies have benefitted from your products. For example, if Joe’s Snack Shack claims that by using your products they were able to increase sales by 25%, there’s a good chance that your visitor might imagine their company having the same results.
Your pre-show marketing might take the approach that instead of bragging about a new product, you might say something like ‘Joe’s Snack Shack tested our new sales program and showed a 25% increase in sales in the third quarter thanks to our program. Come by our booth for a demo in person. Call to arrange an appointment.’
In the 80s, when I started going to seminars to expand my knowledge, I would often hear the speaker talk about WII-FM. After I got what he was talking about I smiled a little, but after that it became somewhat trite.
It’s not. The acronym “WII-FM” may be a bit old, but the idea is as valid today as it was back then, when we really listened to FM radio.
Tradeshow colleague Ken Newman’s Magnet Productions just released their newest demo reel. Since all they do is draw mobs of crowds to tradeshow booths, this is probably something that you should see. As Andy Saks of Spark Presentations said in his Facebook post mentioning the reel, “thanks to the lovely and talented Ken Newman and his company Magnet Productions for including some clips of me in Magnet’s new trade show talent demo reel. This was all recorded at the VMworld trade show in San Francisco in August when I was presenting for Magnet’s client Citrix (I do not have that much gray hair though, that’s all CG).”
