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...Before Starting Trade Shows

Once you’re thrown into the whirlwind world of trade shows, the learning curve is steep. It’s like being thrown into the deep end of the pool – you either sink or you swim. Either way, there’s a lot of flailing! And although there is nothing like hands-on experience to teach you how to maneuver the trade show life, there are a few things I wish I’d known before I started. Here they are:

The Worst of the Worst...How Your Company Can Avoid Them!

You know them. You’ve met them. Maybe you’ve even BEEN them. Bad Booth Staffers. As long as there have been trade shows, there have been booth staffers behaving badly and ruining the company rep. See how many of these you recognize:

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Life Saver Tips for YOUR COMPANY

Have you ever had that sick sinking feeling in your stomach that is telling you that you forgot something?  If so, you are not alone.  When you take a trip, you know the anxiety that can accompany the preparation and last-minute details of leaving the comfort of your office and home. Even experienced travelers can begin to stress out if the minutia of their travel plans isn’t ironed out and solid.

Lead Qualifying Tips for Show Staffers

Generating leads is JOB ONE for most trade show exhibitors, but you want to generate hot qualified leads – the ones that result in business for your sales team. If your booth staff is just collecting business cards and company names, you’ll end up with a lot of dead ends. You will also end up with a sales team that does not want to follow up on the leads.  This is evidenced by the fact that 79% of trade show leads are never followed up on (CEIR) – in large part because the leads that are taken at the show are not qualified enough to “make it worth my time,” as a sales person. Make sure you’re providing your sales team with quality leads by following these helpful tips.

What's the Big Idea?

“When was the last time you had a life-altering bright idea? They don’t come easily, do they? Of course, some people seem to burst with great ideas, their subconscious mind releasing little gems of genius to their conscious mind with little effort. For most of us, however, birthing a great idea takes a little application.

Here it is! The lineup for the not-to-be-missed trade shows of 2019’s first quarter. This lively graphic provides a visual calendar of prominent events in the areas of Healthcare, Manufacturing, Professional Services, Technology, and more.

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See From The Attendee Point of View

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” This is probably never truer than for a company booth at a trade show, where customers get their first impression at a distance and make a split-second decision to approach your booth or pass on by, never having to even meet you.

8 Things to Do First

According to CEIR’s 2018 Marketing Spend Decision Report, trade show exhibitors intend to increase the size of their booths by as much as 20% this year. If you’ve been considering boosting the size of your display, think about the following crucial factors that can determine whether it’s the right time to grow.

Account-based Marketing: A Primer for Trade Show Managers

A disproportionate amount of today’s trade show marketing focuses on lead generation, and statistically speaking, this is the number one reason why companies attend trade shows. However, large sales to strategic accounts typically are rarely decided by a single lead – the opposite tends to be more accurate… they are often determined by an entourage from the purchasing team, and each team member has unique wants (and sometimes demands) that must be addressed. It is always a good idea to be strategic and dive deeper into these business to business accounts, and to try and find more than one advocate on the account to ensure your lead turns into a sale.

Taking this approach is what’s called “account based marketing” (or ABM), in which the target company is treated as its own unique market. Marketing to the account thus involves creating highly customized campaigns that address the business’s collective needs, with messaging targeted and personalized to each various stakeholder whose titles may vary greatly.

Trick Out Your Company with TECH

Don’t blink - 2018 and beyond is here. We’re now seeing self-driving vehicles, AI assistants, self-order smart tech, holodecks,and Domino’s Pizza experimenting with driverless delivery.  For better or worse, we are experiencing tectonic shifts occurring in digital technologies at such a frenetic pace that it can be almost impossible to keep up if you are not keeping an eye on the current trends. Our goal is to take a closer look at a few emerging trends – augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and couple more.  We will break down how this technology is being applied to marketing and brand recognition in the face to face environment of trade shows.

 

Exploring the past, present, and future trends of trade show exhibit design....

Ask seasoned trade show professionals… some may say that exhibit design is not new, it is simply a new application based on historical designs. In the ever-changing industry of trade shows and events, one thing is consistently desired: intriguing design. We wanted to explore the history of design and felt there was no better place to start than with 30-year veteran, Greg Mathieson, a Senior Exhibit Designer at Skyline Exhibits and Scooter Hendon, Skyline Sector 5 Exhibit Designer with multiple industry awards under his belt.

Tips to Ensure Better Traffic at Your Exhibit Space

Try to avoid the far left side of the trade show hall when choosing your exhibit space, and it will likely serve you well. Did you ever hear about the kids who attended Catholic School getting their hands cracked with a ruler for attempting to write with their left hand? We all have probably heard of this practice from family, friends or acquaintances. There is something we can learn from this, and could apply it to trade shows… go figure.

5 Advanced Digital Marketing Campaign Tracking Tools

by Matt Bohar, Senior Database Marketing Specialist, Skyline Exhibits

Virtually every marketer’s website has Google Analytics tracking installed, and if yours doesn’t – may we ask why not?  Performance at trade shows can be greatly improved if exhibitors measure the website engagement they receive from their email blasts and pay-per-click advertising. Such stats aren’t automatically tracked in Google Analytics, so manually enabling campaign tracking can give you rich insights into the effectiveness of your inbound marketing.

All Staffers at Trade Shows Need a Role...

A common myth prevalent in marketing circles at most any company is that the best exhibit staffer is going to be the outgoing sales person who is fun and never has a lack of comments. While reps can be great staffers, there are other personality types and expertise characteristics that can be just as important to round out your perfect team. Below are some key roles exhibit staffer candidates can use to fill those roles at your next Trade Show.

 

I’m not sure how things are over at your company, but I know that I perform my best when I know I am contributing to a bigger cause.  Each of us desires a deeper purpose in what we do.  Often, many of us just need an opportunity to be stimulated into action… wouldn’t be a great if we could provide a few of these opportunities at work?  When we take action to pay it forward, we fulfill some of those deep core desires to make a difference in the world and more specifically, make a difference in the lives of those around us. 

When we foster an atmosphere of encouragement and inspiration, we have a much better opportunity to retain our best people and engage people on a level that makes our work more relevant.

Managing Your Trade Show Booth for an Optimal New Product Launch

You’ve invested a significant portion of your marketing budget into your trade show and all of the associated expenses surrounding your shows. You hope that your shows will perform well enough to deliver a positive return on your investment. The good news is that your success does not hinge on one factor, rather a series of small decisions that create a good return for your company. The ROI of your trade show is directly influenced by your actions and decisions. But that control is a double-edged sword. When it comes to the burden of being responsible for your ROI, both good or bad, and someone has to live with the results.

 

You’ve invested a significant portion of your marketing budget into your trade show and all of the associated expenses surrounding your shows. You hope that your shows will perform well enough to deliver a positive return on your investment. The good news is that your success does not hinge on one factor, rather a series of small decisions that create a good return for your company. The ROI of your trade show is directly influenced by your actions and decisions. But that control is a double-edged sword. When it comes to the burden of being responsible for your ROI, both good or bad, and someone has to live with the results.

Although much of your success remains in your hands, we can offer several bits of advice to help ensure that your ROI on shows is good. These are the tips that veteran exhibitors use to make certain their efforts contribute to their company’s bottom line.

Anyone who has ever been part of the creative process knows firsthand that designing trade show exhibits can prove a challenge in all the best and worst ways. Creatively, business executives love getting the chance to flex their marketing muscles and design trade show exhibits that effectively capture the very essence of their brand. However, achieving that goal can prove a daunting challenge.

Stretching an already tight budget can be a challenge and the trick is to pursue savings that are transparent to the attendees at your exhibit space.  Whether you’re planning your company’s initial launch into trade shows or taking over an exhibit schedule previously handled by another trade show manager, the associated costs can be a little intimidating. If your budget is limited, these 10 tips can help you get the most out of your exhibit dollars:

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You don’t need to go to Las Vegas to gamble, all you have to do is bring something of high value to a trade show. Everyone is faced with the common problem of theft on the show floor. That being said, I wanted to share some of the tricks of the trade that we have employed over time to take preventative action:

Experiential Marketing At Trade Shows

Some things must be felt, seen, tasted, smelled, attempted, or heard in order to be believed.  Through a campaign, we can tell someone what we think or how great our offering is, however there is no replacement for showing someone face to face and allowing them to experience it for themselves.

Experiential marketing allows your skeptical prospects or most dedicated customers to develop an emotional investment in your products or services, literally helping them shape your brand’s evolution. Another by-product of this is shortening the sales cycle because the prospects and clients are becoming more comfortable with who and what they are purchasing.

You will find out shortly that my title is a play on words. The intention isn’t to mislead you about sustainability, but instead to apply the term in another fashion. When you’ve approached the process of designing an exhibit, how much thought do you put into how the style and tone of the space will effect people’s perception of your brand?

Can you recall walking into a cathedral and find that you’ve automatically started to whisper? How about the last time you met with a senior executive for another company; were you able to draw any ideas on how to act from their office? You would automatically adjust your behavior in a five star restaurant differently than you would at the local arcade and pizza place with your kids, right? There is a natural effect that environment has on the way most of us behave (the “most of us” part is because I have some of “those” relatives too).

How 10 Experts Define Marketing

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Trade shows are a serious marketing medium in which we invest billions of dollars. In our quest to achieve business results, we often talk about getting the highest ROI (Return on Investment) or ROO (Return on Objectives).  But what about the greatest ROF (Return on Fun)… more specifically, how do we make the shows fun for ourselves?

Finding the right partner for the installation and dismantling of your trade show booth is no easy task. However, it offers a plethora of benefits such as time saved, less stress, and of course the most important thing, money. After you partner with a team of professionals, you’ll realize that this is only one step for trade show installation in Nashville and beyond.

Do a web search on hiring models for your trade show and you’ll find not just a few articles that decry the practice.  There are a lot of reasons to be cautious in the use of models.  For one thing, having a gaggle of hot models in your exhibit can actually intimidate some people.  That high energy and frankly “intense” atmosphere that is often associated with the proverbial “booth babe” environment is tough for the more reserved people, and can even cause anxiety just by being in the area.

We are excited to announce that our clients, Dominion Dealer Solutions, was selected Best of Show for the National Auto Dealer Association Conference (#NADA2018) held this past weekend in Las Vegas.  Congratulations to team #Dominion!

An alarming statistic is that 79% of Trade Show Leads are never followed up on… how crazy is that?  There are tools that abound to make all of our lives easier when it comes to lead management.  Most exhibitors have replaced the old “business card fishbowls” with badge scanners and software. But far too many exhibitors are still merely collecting as many cold prospects as possible and handing them over to sales. That approach can make the follow-up sales efforts overwhelming. Using the following six lead management steps will ensure your lead generation efforts identify the quality leads.

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We all know that branding has intrinsic value, but how much value can actually ascribe to a “Brand”… more specifically our brand.  This is no small question and one that is challenging to answer.

Consider this simple example pulled from each of our everyday lives. When we visit the drug store or grocery store and we have to choose between the “store brand” version of a product or the branded version positioned right next to it on the shelf.  The dilemma that faces us in that moment is do we compromise on perceived quality and go for the less expensive “store branded” version?  It seems like there would be a lot of us that would pick the less expensive option… Not true. 

In the South, we are raised to be "nice." Nice is always expected, but nice means nothing without sincerity.  Too often nice can be a passive-aggressive behavior where you are smiling and nodding while inside you're really rolling your eyes or looking for an escape route.  What does this have to do with staffing at your trade show booth?  When you're hosting at your booth, you should strive to treat each visitor as you would a guest in your office or home.  Here are some suggestions to ensure your guests are sensing sincerity in your interactions at the booth. 

Almost without fail, the last thing anyone … even experienced exhibit designers … think about is what your exhibit smells like. Even now, after reading that last line you’re wondering where can I possibly be going with this?

For a moment, stop. Close your eyes and put yourself in a place you can recall by smell. I can easily recall the smell of baking bread with my grandmother, my grandfather’s pipe tobacco, apple orchards and burning pine needles in the fall at our family cottage. It’s amazing how well you can mentally recreate the smell without really having it available. Equally amazing is how a smell you encounter can trigger a memory. My mom used to decorate cakes for fun, and when we were kids she would make all kinds of fun cakes for birthdays and holidays. I can’t smell buttercream frosting anymore without seeing my favorite sailboat cake … chocolate buttercream frosting, coconut on the sail and peppermint ring candies for portholes (seriously, it’s pretty stellar) … and I haven’t had one in nearly 35 years (mental note: put in order with mom). Why does it work that way, and how does it relate to exhibiting?

A shorthand formula to help with exhibit design goes like this: "Exhibit design should compel a particular audience into a specific conversation to achieve a measurable outcome." It doesn't cover every situation, but it does help set a pace for most design scenarios. Let's go phrase by phrase:

Obviously, we advocate exhibit design. Intentional, evocative and relevant design is important to any good face-to-face marketing endeavor. Commodity exhibits are available, and you can buy nearly anything off the internet. 

 

Trade Shows are not easy. We have designed thousands of effective trade show displays for our clients, yet there are common mistakes we have seen over the last 35 years. Most Marketers would agree that effective trade shows hinge on several marketing principles done well over time.  However, the best booth design won’t make up for a poor trade show strategy or implementation of good principles. To ensure your exhibiting is a success, watch out for these 15 common trade show exhibiting mistakes:

1.  No Big Picture Goal. Your trade show presence needs to accomplish more than just raising brand awareness for a handful of attendees and getting a few leads in hand. Whether it’s expanding your prospect list, acquiring a set number of sales-qualified leads, or solidifying a new partner relationship, there should be a clearly defined and attainable goal each time you exhibit.
2.  Attending the Wrong Shows.  When it comes to attending shows it is easy to keep doing the status quo (because that is what we have always done), versus looking at each show critically from a return on objectives.  Many times shows are selected based on the “squeaky wheel” methodology… which ever account executive or client asks the loudest gets our vote for show attendance.  Looking at each show by comparing cost per lead, impressions, or closed projects are a better way to arrive at what show to attend and which shows should not be attended.

 

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5 Ideas for Client Engagement

No one wants to be replaced, as a company or a person, and having remarkable client engagement that eclipses that of your competitors makes you hard to replace.  Once we differentiate ourselves we become difficult to switch out with other companies that do the same thing that we do.  The best part about delivering this intangible value to clients is that it is fairly low cost or no cost, but essential to success. 

Telling Your Company Story

Story telling has been a popular topic in exhibiting over the last several years.  I’ve used the term myself when talking with clients.  And I do agree that when we are designing a space we have a story to communicate.  But I also caution our clients that you need to be savvy as to what story you are telling.  You have to sort out what story you want to tell about your company.

It matters more than ever!

One of the biggest challenges in life and business these days is face-to-face communication. How many of us are constantly checking our phones while we are with our friends and loved ones...and then find ourselves staring at our screen even in business meetings? (::reluctantly raises hand::)  While we can serve our customers faster and more efficiently via electronic means, the number one (and most effective) means of B2B marketing is good, old fashioned face-to-face interaction.

As your company's Marketing Warrior, you know the value of trade shows in generating leads and cultivating existing client relationships.  However, with a tight marketing budget you need some ammunition to convince the powers that be that the spend on trade shows is well worth the expense.  Here are some talking points from one of Skyline's trade show experts, Steve Hoffman, to help you when your boss asks, "Why are we spending so much on trade shows?"

 

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How Is Your Brand Health?

“How healthy is our brand and what kind of return are we receiving?” This common question looms in the minds of marketers far and wide who wrestle with this on a regular basis. As we begin 2018 and reflect back on 2017, we will inevitably consider each phase of our marketing mix and ask this very question. Upon reflection, it becomes a fair bit more challenging to evaluate how well people are adopting our brand or further yet, verifying if it is supporting what we stand for. So let’s look at one option for the question of “How do I measure our brand?” Here are some simple litmus tests that can be used to measure how "sticky" our brand is... and the health of our brand.

Failure is Not Fatal

One of the better sources for business success I have found is by observing everyday life and applying the principles I’ve learned to what we do inside our organizations. A great example is a recent ski trip to Vail Colorado and watching snow boarders who were still in their teens or younger.  They gather their courage at the edge of the run and dive straight in.  The kids attempt a trick or move, and I can tell you the majority of the time they fail and “kiss the snow.”  When they fall, they pop back up and turn around and try it again… and again, until they get it or run out of sunlight.  There is even a fairly good crowd gathered that will hoot, howl and whistle at epic failures.  It is counterintuitive, but these kids are celebrating the failure they just watched - knowing the success it will lead to.  These kids understand something that many organizations miss, that one key ingredient to getting better at snowboarding [or anything] is failure.  You will not get better unless you take some risks and fail, then try again until you accomplish what you set out to do.

Most of us who go to shows go there with the intent of generating leads (at least partially). According to the Center For Exhibition and Industry Research, the #1 reason that exhibitors attend shows is to generate leads. As marketers, we desire to fill our sales pipeline, shorten the sales cycle, drive repeat customers and find new opportunities.

In order to get the creative juices flowing, we have assembled some of the best ideas we have seen demonstrated from our clients and from success stories we have generated. Following are 50 ideas to get you more leads at your upcoming trade shows (broken down to 3 categories): 

You’ve invested the time, energy, and budget to generate valuable leads at trade shows, and while it’s easier said than done, it’s imperative to follow through with your connections in a timely manner.  Undoubtedly, there can be some hurdles to cross in order to get the qualified leads into your account executive’s hands:

A shorthand formula to help with exhibit design goes like this: "Exhibit design should compel a particular audience into a specific conversation to achieve a measurable outcome." It doesn't cover every situation, but it does help set a pace for most design scenarios. Let's go phrase by phrase:

Obviously, we advocate exhibit design. Intentional, evocative and relevant design is important to any good face to face marketing endeavor. Commodity exhibits are available, and you can buy nearly anything off the internet. Surely, budgets and limiting factors come into play and can't be ignored. But the reality is if you want successful show marketing strategies, you need intentional design - even in pop-ups and banner stands.

That design is necessary to compel, not just any audience, but a particular audience. Some shows you go to may be made up 100% of the audience your marketing efforts work with, and everyone is a qualified lead. But more often than not, you need to weed out many of the attendees in order to meet the ones who will really do business with you. Those qualified leads are a particular group of people. You have a profile of them already: your current customers. You know what that audience looks like. So how do you compel them? How do you catch the attention of more people just like that, and draw them in? How do you compel that particular group? That's the foot you want to put forward on the show floor.