Written by Ken Newman on 25 August 2009
Hey Newman, enjoying the posts. What’s your take on Twitter? -Mark in San Francisco
Twitter streams are overflowing with loud, unsolicited advertisements for all sorts of random stuff. And while I won’t begrudge someone for attempting to raise awareness about their e-book, that approach really misses the point.
What business people and trade show exhibitors don’t typically realize with Twitter is the potential for connection. Sure, it’s not the same as engaging someone face-to-face, but when are you going to be face-to-face with Demi Moore (@mrskutcher) or the CEO of Zappos (@Zappos) or the Chief Technology Officer at Cisco (@Padmasree). Even with a “connection” to Cisco, Padmasree Warrior wouldn’t take my call or respond to my e-mail. But Demi and Tony and Padmasree are actively involved in the Twitter community and responding to tweets—especially if they’re clever or funny or helpful.
This is the equivalent of getting invited to “that party” and having a chance to start a dialogue and charm influential people with your personality. More to that point, you wouldn’t walk into that VIP party and immediately say, “Here’s what I’m selling!” They’d shun you instantly (if you didn’t get kicked out altogether). But through a genuine conversation, talk might turn to what you do, and that person or the company that person represents might very well recognize a need for your services.
Twitter “conversations” are just as relaxed. It’s fun and often silly, but you can get work done within this budding medium. It’s just important to remember that Twitter is inherently a social model, not a business one. The business comes later … just like in real life.
This holds true for the flipside of the equation, too. Recently, Zappos posted the following tweet:
http://twitpic.com/f4pqp – Coolest. Toilet Seat Cover. Ever. (Never thought I’d use those words together)”
The other day there was a message about cool outfits Zappos employees made out of duct tape. (http://bit.ly/4P3h) And while Tony Hsieh just seems like a genuinely cool guy to hang out with, what’s subtly happening is he’s building brand loyalty. After months of connecting with Tony, how much more likely will you be to log on for that next pair of shoes or stop by if you were to see a Zappos booth at a trade show?
That’s because if you were at a trade show and you knew that a close friend of yours had a booth, you would stop by. You wouldn’t just go to the trade show and blow off a friend. A regular common experience with another Twitter feed will foster that sense of fellowship—even if it’s a big corporation. That’s powerful stuff. Certainly much more powerful than 140 characters overtly trying to sell me something.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Written by Ken Newman on 04 August 2009
Hey Newman, how long is too long before following up on trade show leads? Something tells me I’m not going to like the answer. -Robert in Palo Alto
Robert, three-quarters of the leads generated at trade shows are never followed up on … and when they are followed up, it tends to be way too late. So, what does that mean for you? It means don’t bother to spend the money on lead generation if you’re just trying to impress the people in the next booth with a big statistic. Those 2,000 leads you got don’t mean anything if you don’t do something with them.
It’s essential you have a mechanism in place for when you’re receiving the leads, whether that’s using barcode scanners or a little Q&A afterward to ascertain if this lead is something worth pursuing over the next week, two weeks, month or year. You need some way of categorizing your leads as “HOT,” “warm,” “cold” and “dead fish.” (Well, maybe not the last one.)
Take those leads and, for example, send each one a postcard with a funny photograph from your presentation. People aren’t very accustomed to getting real mail anymore, and sometimes that can be far more attention-grabbing than just seeing another e-mail in the inbox. But at least promptly send an e-mail with a memorable photograph in it. Thank that potential customer for coming by the booth. Tell them you really appreciate it—and have that note waiting for them Monday when they get back from the trade show.
First contact should come within days of the trade show’s end. When two or three weeks or God forbid a month goes by without contact, you just end up lumped together with all the other SPAM.
I use a postcard as an example of something that makes people stop and take notice. When I get a postcard I say, “Wow, that’s amazing. I haven’t gotten a postcard in a long time.” It will make me not want to throw it out, particularly if it’s a funny image that makes me laugh. And when it’s flipped over, there’s just a quick note:
“Thank you for stopping by the booth. We’ll get in touch within a week or so to follow up.”
It’s just a warm way to reach out to people. Warm is good. Prompt is even better.
People go to such lengths to get traffic in their booth—renting the leading scanning devices and hiring crowd gatherers … and then it either all sits untouched in a database or collects dust as a stack of business cards or filled-out lead cards. Somehow, nobody does anything with them after putting in all that initial effort. Worse, they’ll group them by territory and send the info out to their sales staff, who expect these to be qualified leads. But after a few phone calls those salespeople realize these were just a bunch of people who stopped by to get a T-shirt. They’ll quickly feel like they’re wasting their time and stop making attempts, which ultimately throws out the good with the bad.
That’s why they need to be categorized as real leads, as opposed to just inflating the body count. Sometimes you’ll know immediately when you have a hot lead. In those cases, there’s no such thing as getting hold of somebody too soon. (Well, let them de-board the plane and get home first.) But there’s nothing better than arriving and finding a note waiting for you.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Written by Ken Newman on 14 July 2009
Hey Newman, I saw your Live Presentations post. So what’s the deal with PowerPoint? -Ray in Oakland
Well, Ray … simply put, don’t use PowerPoint. I’ve seen more PowerPoint used badly at trade shows than anywhere else. Even a tight, concise presentation can be sabotaged by poor PowerPoint usage. It’s just not enough to throw up bullet points, text, graphics and beauty shots of the product. That’s exactly what it is: throwup. The audience’s eyes glaze right over—especially if you’re reading from the PowerPoint as if it were a TelePrompTer.
The only time to use PowerPoint is when there is something you have to show that words cannot adequately describe. Use it for counterpoint, irony, humor and surprise. I started off a recent live presentation with a 60-slide PowerPoint presentation. Sixty real, honest-to-goodness slides about the company. But it was a joke. I put those 60-slides on automatic at overdrive PowerPoint speed. The whole thing ran about eight seconds from start to finish, with frenzied music underneath. At the halfway point it stopped and said, “YOU’RE GETTING THIS, RIGHT?” Then it did 30 more slides with an epic music finale and one final slide that said, “ANY QUESTIONS?”
Can you imagine the applause? Can you imagine the additional applause when I told the audience we weren’t going to do anything like that? Ultimately, I did use PowerPoint during the presentation, but only for exquisite images from nature that enhanced the storytelling.
I tell my clients all the time that if you hired a compelling presenter, you want the people looking at that presenter. You want me to make contact with your audience-to look them in the eyes and tell them that company’s story. You don’t want their eyes shifting back and forth between me and the screen because that will dilute the message completely.
PowerPoint is not effective; storytelling is effective. If you use juggling, magic, plate-spinning or humor to tell that story, it’ll trump PowerPoint every time.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Written by Ken Newman on 07 July 2009
Hey Newman, in your opinion what are do’s and don’ts of live presentations? -Marcus in San Diego
The death of live presentations is the l…e…n…g…t….h.
Let me say it right now: Your trade show presentation is probably too long. Twenty minutes is too long. Fifteen minutes is too long. Ten minutes is too long. As a general rule, if audience members are looking at their watches, it’s too long.
I’ve participated in hundreds upon hundreds of trade shows, experiencing them both as a presenter and an attendee. In all that time, no one has ever come up to me and said, “That was a really great presentation, but it was a little too short.“ Ever. In 25 years, it’s never happened.
Want to know (as a presenter) how to have your audience utterly thrilled? Tell that crowd there’s only three things you expect them to remember. Describe those three things. Reiterate those three things at the end. That’s it.
Two hours after the live presentation is over, an audience member should be able to tell you precisely what the presentation was about. These folks are completely inundated at a trade show, so if you can get them to remember a phrase or a slogan and up to three basic points, that’s a triumph.
Make Your Live Presentation Twice As Nice
If you want to get the biggest bang for your buck, don’t make me do a 15-minute show. Let me do a seven-minute show twice as many times a day. Let me build a crowd, work that crowd and then do it over again.
It’s About Questions, Not Answers
Ask more questions than you answer. Get them to think about your company in a unique way, inspiring them to follow up with booth staff. It’s not important to explain everything. What’s important is to ignite a desire for that audience member to independently acquire any information not included in the live presentation.
So, to recap:
- “Too many answers” is death.
- PowerPoint as a crutch is death. (We’ll discuss this next time!)
So, stay away from these traps and have a tremendously successful live presentation. If you’ve absorbed this advice and need more guidance on where you go from here, feel free to contact us for a consult.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Written by Ken Newman on 23 June 2009
Hey Newman, cash prizes at trade shows: A good investment or a waste of money? -Mike in Los Angeles
I recently did three days of presentations for a company that was giving away $10,000 at a trade show. The festival atmosphere this promotion conjured up was beyond incredible. I’ve seen companies give away cars and other larger-ticket items, but the buzz about this cash was unparalleled.
To win, you filled out a card with your name and contact information. To be eligible to enter the drawing, you had to watch the live presentation I gave or engage with somebody in the booth one-to-one and ask a question or listen.
All three days of the show, we never presented for less than standing room only. Ever. On the last day, the money had already been given away, yet we still packed the presentation. That final-day success had a lot to do with our crowd gatherers and how persistent we were about getting the seats full. But on those first two days, the money did a lot of the work.
I mean, it’s $10,000. That’s a lot of cash … and a substantial incentive.
Not every company is going to shell out 10 grand, but they might spend $1,000, which is still a good chunk of change. It’s enough for people to come into a booth and fill out a piece of paper just to enter the drawing. So, if a company is willing to spend $1,000 for the cash grand prize and a total of $800 more for three medium-priced electronic devices, what they’ll get back for that expense is huge. There’s a lot of buzz and booth traffic to be gained from an investment of that size.
Mike, the point of contention is whether this cash incentive will get you a bunch of greedy “dead-ends” or some actual leads on which to follow up. There’s a big argument in the trade show industry that says you’ve got to look for quality leads over quantity. I disagree. That’s because if you have 20,000 people attending a show, you must do something compelling in your booth to capture the names of a significant percentage of those people (even 10 percent over three days) and get that traffic to flow through the booth. If you don’t, there’s a good chance you’re never going to have the opportunity to identify those coveted high-quality leads. In fact, you won’t have any leads at all.
Those 25-30 key people—the dream leads—aren’t going to just magically appear in your booth. They’re likely to be swept into your booth along with the hundreds of other people who may be there to just win the $1,000.
There are only a few things that will draw people to your booth, and a lot of it has to do with what’s eye-catching. That can be movement, color, noise; those create crowds. When we did this drawing, and we have video documentation of this, there were 1,000 people standing around the booth. The fire marshals were getting people out of the aisle. It was insanity, pandemonium. People were walking by asking, “What’s going on here? … They’re giving away $10,000! Oh my, can I get in?”
Sure, that person may have no interest in the particular technology, but somebody they later talk to might … or somebody they’re standing next to might … or somebody just walking by. An adept salesperson will capitalize, and there’s a huge piece of business that’s been booked.
Trade shows are, by their nature, a little bit of “sideshow.” There’s no question that it’s all about buzz and excitement. And nothing says excitement better than an oversized check with $10,000 printed on it.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Written by Ken Newman on 16 June 2009
Hey Newman, from one booth to the next I see vastly different protocols for booth staff. Do you have any basic guidance for how booth staffers conduct themselves? – Emily in San Francisco
Great question, Emily. A lot of booth staffers simply fail to apply fundamental rules of human behavior at trade shows. Two or three staffers will just stand around in a cluster talking to each other. That’s basically saying to a tradeshow attendee, “Don’t bother us; we’re busy.” Then, if an attendee actually gets close enough, the booth staffer says, “Do you have any questions?”
You wouldn’t engage a friend that way.
You would first make a comment relevant to the both of you. You know, make some conversation: “Did you watch the inauguration?” was a natural question I was asked in January. Or how about something simple like, “Are you staying at a hotel nearby?”… “Did you walk over?”… “Isn’t this weather amazing?” It doesn’t really matter so long as it feels human. Booth staff should first be in the business of finding a way into the middle of a conversation.
The best stories are the ones that start in the middle and circle their way back to the beginning, anyway. When you do that successfully at a trade show, you get the attendee “into the mix.”
Most booth staffers just don’t get that. The main problem is a lot of people who show up at trade shows to man booths don’t have the necessary skill sets. That’s why Magnet Productions ends up doing so much consulting and booth staff training. These folks need to understand appropriate and fruitful ways of approaching attendees.
When conducting a training session, I sometimes just give the booth staffers a simple exercise. I say, “All you do is read their badge.” That’s it. I tell them to walk up to an attendee, flip their badge over, if necessary, and just say, “I see that you’re with [insert company name]. What do you do for them?”
People will answer that question. They’re not going to say, “None of your business.” But if you ask them a question for which there’s a “no” response, (such as “Can I help you?”), there will be a “no” response. It’s just simple sales technique.
It also works because people love to talk about themselves. It gets the trade show attendee engaged. It’s about making contact and asking the types of questions that get desired results. And it’s essential that your booth staffers “get that.”
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Written by Ken Newman on 09 June 2009
Hey Newman, do “booth babes” actually make a difference at a trade show, or are they just a financial drain? -Richard in New Jersey
Richard, I have really strong feelings about this topic. First of all, I don’t like that term. I resent references to “booth babes” or “booth bunnies” or “booth bimbos” … really “booth anything” other than booth assistant or booth hostess.
But I do understand where you’re coming from. All too often you have a fashion model just sitting on a high stool with her legs crossed, checking her nails and handing out literature. That is not a particularly valuable investment for a trade show.
But a real booth assistant can be a substantial asset for a relatively small amount of money. I’m talking about a skilled, experienced person who goes out into crowds and asks the right questions and can deliver a killer 30-second pitch on your behalf. I’m talking about someone who knows what to do if an attendee asks, “Is your marketing director here?” … And here’s a hint: It’s doesn’t involve just pointing to the opposite end of the booth.
That person has real value at a trade show for about $400 a day or less. But a lot of people feel “we don’t need that.”
In fact, they do.
Otherwise, they’re not going to have any one person who is dedicated to that “crowd gathering” task. Booth staff should be engaging people at a deeper level and getting involved in potential sales and qualifying leads and showing off technology.
It’s the job of the booth assistant to bring people into striking distance for a trade show presentation or booth demo. That being said, you can’t just go to a modeling agency and select someone 6-feet-tall who looks like Angelina Jolie.
The value is in selecting someone with years of trade show experience who knows how to behave when an attendee brushes them off. You want someone who can smile in the face of trade show adversity. Those are the types of people you look for, and those are the types of people we have worked with at Magnet Productions for at least 10 years. They are real trade show professionals who deserve respect and have an important role in delivering a highly successful trade show that brings in lots of qualified leads.
So, before you dismiss them as mere “eye candy,” consider all there is to be gained from professional booth assistants as part of your trade show presence.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Written by Ken Newman on 02 June 2009
Hey Newman, times are tight, and I’m under pressure to cut our trade show expenditures. Any tips on saving money without compromising too much? -Bob in Virginia
Bob, in this economic climate pretty much all companies are trying to save money. So, what are they doing in regards to their trade show presence?
Well, if you can’t afford a 10,000-square-foot house, you don’t buy a 10,000-square-foot house, right? You buy a 3,000-square-foot house, and if necessary, you rent some storage space.
In stark contrast, companies have been totally consumed with “bigger is better” at trade shows and having the biggest possible booth. But the real estate you rent from the management company is one of the biggest expenses … and then you have to fill up that large space (more $$$).
At Magnet Productions, our argument has always been to prioritize filling your space—not procuring the largest one. If you don’t need a 50×50 booth, don’t rent one. If you can get away with a 30×30, then get a 30×30. Frankly, having a small booth completely overrun with people makes a much stronger statement than having a large booth that’s half-empty.
As an experienced trade show presenter, I advise not to have the maximum number of seats because you’re not going to fill them. And if you don’t fill them all, it will give the impression that the presentation going on isn’t very interesting. Now, if you have 10 filled seats and 40 people standing and watching, that conveys a very different impression: Your product is so compelling that you have a standing-room-only crowd.
So, booth size is a great way to save some money. Booth design is another area where the savvy spender can achieve great results for far less money than other companies are shelling out. Magnet Productions partners with a number of booth designers who “re-skin” existing booths. That’s the process by which the designer will strip the signage off a booth and repurpose the existing design to save the client a fortune.
For more information about booth design consultations, feel free to contact us.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Written by Ken Newman on 05 May 2009
Hey Newman, the trends don’t look good, man. Are trade shows going the way of the dodo? I think it would be a shame if that’s true. – Jeff in Philly
There’s been some recent doom and gloom about the future of the trade show industry. To Jeff and everyone else with similar concerns, I have a simple message: The trade show is far from dead. People are just spending more selectively.
Face-to-face marketing is not going away. Ever. We have the Internet, but the telephone isn’t going away. For that matter, we have the telephone, but we’re still getting together to talk in person.
Look at the Presidential Inauguration. Was there any particular reason why people had to stand outside in 20-degree temperatures (10-below with the wind chill) for hours and hours to see Mr. Obama be sworn in? The crowds were so deep that many were freezing and three-quarters of a mile away from the stage watching details a JumboTron.
Why didn’t all 2 million of those people just stay and watch in the comfort of their living rooms?
Because we have to be with each other. That is fundamentally who we are, and that’s not going to change. It doesn’t matter how sophisticated our technology gets. We now have “telepresence” where you can be talking to someone halfway around the world, and it’s so real you could seemingly reach out and touch one another.
But it’s not real.
It’s close enough to save a lot of money and reduce a carbon footprint. Companies should absolutely utilize technology to avoid spending money on travel just to have a two-hour meeting only to get on a plane and fly all the way back. There is a host of compelling reasons for that. But people are still going to congregate on the National Mall in D.C., when there’s a defining moment in history.
Social Beings Thrive on Connection
We are social creatures, and we absolutely thrive on connection. So, to think for a minute that the trade show is going to go away … because it’s being supplanted by what? By blogs?
Virtual parties are not replacing dinner parties. We still want the contact.
Yes, industry studies show some real, tangible trade show shrinkage. But that’s more about people wising up and removing redundancy from the system.
The Numbers Are Real, But So Are the People
At CES, there was a reported 25 percent attrition rate this year, which doesn’t surprise me given the economy. But it was still a huge show with people still waiting in cab lines for an hour to get back to their hotels. My clients may have gone from 10 trade shows a year to four trade shows a year. But they were simply being more selective. They picked the four trade shows that made the most sense for them. But that reduction made intelligent marketing all the more important.
Yes, the big, bloated trade shows are disappearing. But we are fundamentally social beings and we like to transact business that way. It’s just about being more intelligent about how we do it. You’re not going to go to every single trade show that has even remotely anything to do with your business and invest in a 50×50 booth with as big a booth staff as possible. That’s going to break you.
It becomes about making cuts with a scalpel instead of a hatchet: Pick the right trade shows. Populate the booth with the right people. Do the right kind of pre-show marketing and the right kind of presentation to guarantee that ROI will be huge. Just be smart about your investment because trade shows are not going anywhere. We’re never going to stop wanting to meet each other.
My philosophy on this matter and my business are inextricably linked. I don’t believe for a minute that this industry is over. If I did, I’d be jumping ship and finding something else. There are plenty of other things that I could do.
We’re always going to want to connect—no matter how sophisticated we get. I really believe that. I’ve been in the trade show business for 25 years. I’ve seen it go through this incredible cycle—the ebb and flow—but when it comes down to it, people want to see one another.
A colleague reminded me recently that there are very few opportunities to get so many potential customers in one place at one time the way you do at a trade show. That person said: “I don’t care what people say about trade shows being less popular than they were. There is still no better way to do this. The right people are at the trade show. You’re not going to get that kind of situation anywhere else.
“What you have to do then is make sure there’s a compelling reason for them to come and visit you. It’s about something going on in the booth. Sure, it’s about having a good story and a good product, but it’s also about getting people to want to visit.”
I couldn’t have said it any better myself.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
Written by Ken Newman on 07 April 2009
Hey Newman, what’s your take on trade show swag? Is it worth doing anymore? – Kenneth in Los Angeles
Back in the heyday of COMDEX, an attendee could come home with literally two suitcases full of freebies—enough for the next five years of stocking stuffers. Companies would spend an extra $5,000 to $10,000 just on T-shirts, stress balls, hats with propellers on them or whatever else they could come up with.
These days, companies are spending more frugally on “swag” and trade show attendees are coming home with less of it. This change is primarily because companies are asking a very important question: “If we lure 2,000 people into the booth with free T-shirts, are these people actually qualified leads?
At Magnet Productions, we don’t think so. We think those are just people who have a rabid desire to get a new T-shirt.
When a salesperson calls those folks two months after the trade show, they’ll have no idea who the salesperson represents or what the product is. They’ll have no compelling interest; they just wanted a free tee.
Now, the T-shirt did accomplish something: It created buzz in the booth. But you can’t assume for a moment that the free T-shirt is also going to be translated into a qualified lead.
We recommend that clients use a different mechanism to attract and identify qualified leads: a two-tiered giveaway. You offer the typical swag on the front end—some sort of stress ball or trinket or USB keychain—whatever will get people into the booth. That will create the necessary commotion to get your booth noticed by passersby. It also means your trade show presenter will be delivering a talk to 50 guests instead of five.
But Phase II must be much more targeted. There are many different possible approaches, but one is to have the presenter follow up with questions and comments that identify qualified leads:
“How many people here are familiar with our technology or use our technology? Well, in addition to all that, we also provide consulting services. An hour-long Needs Evaluation is normally $500, but we’re going to give one away to a lucky person. So, for those of you who are interested, we’re doing a drawing. Just come on in the booth and talk to one of our people. We’ll stamp your card and enter you in the drawing.”
So, essentially the giveaway prequalified the people who had actual interest because the giveaway was directly related to the company’s technology. It wasn’t a DVD player. It wasn’t an iPod. It was something very specific and relevant.
If you don’t have something like that you can offer, you can still utilize a raffle. In order to be entered in a drawing for a high-ticket item, they have to come into the booth and actually watch a demo. And then you can gauge the actual interest of a person.
If you’re just trying to get numbers, you absolutely can do that with T-shirts because they have always been, and always will be, one of the greatest draws. T-shirts (and other gadgets with a “wow” factor) can succeed in getting a lot of butts in seats and a lot of eyeballs on a screen for a demo about the company. It’s just that many of them won’t necessarily be the “right” people.
Trade show swag can still be worth the expense. The key is there has to be clarity about the purpose of a giveaway in order to get the most return on your money.
Do you have an industry-related question you’d like answered on “Hey Newman”? Send him an e-mail and get your inquiry answered on the blog.
