SB Expos & Events’ Post

An organized set of #tradeshowmaterials allows your team to deliver spectacular results! Maximize your #ROI with these 6 tradeshow golden rules. https://ow.ly/LBCs50TnfQj

Discover the key strategies for ensuring your trade show booth arrives on time and in top condition. Learn more in the latest post on the ArcBest blog now!

You need to send your Marketing Manager to an exhibition 💼 Whether you're a startup or as massive as Pragmatic Play, if you're a gaming studio like GameBeat or a software provider, your marketing needs at least one person to attend the expo in a GEO of your company's interest. And there are five types of tasks for them to carry out: 1️⃣ Meet your media partners—potential and existing ones. Knowing those people in person will profoundly improve your relationship with the media. 2️⃣ Talk to the people responsible for hiring—those could be recruiting agencies or HR representatives. If your competitors are actively hiring for a particular GEO now, it means you should take a closer look at expanding to this GEO yourself. 3️⃣ Catch up with opinion leaders. You never know what type of collaboration they seek when the market changes again. 4️⃣ Have an insightful small talk with competitors. Your Sales Managers know their Sales Managers and vice versa. It won't work out. However, Marketing Managers speak their own language and don't have a goal of selling anything. 5️⃣ Work as a walking stand showing your brand. I was impressed by meeting Barbara Bang at SBC when they didn't have stands yet. They were so vibrant, presenting the company's name and merch so that you couldn't get them out of your head afterward. More about exhibitions read here: 🌟 Face-to-face: the requirements for your representative https://lnkd.in/eQcDUdCX 🌟 Stand Up: is the expo worth it? https://lnkd.in/eafA7M44 🌟 What kind of merch your company needs https://lnkd.in/e-mEUrCj 🌟 Merch VS Branded Items https://lnkd.in/eCGkHisF See you at SiGMA World next week 💚 #marketing #expo #sigma #communications #igaming #slots #pr #promotion

Don't get it twisted: In business, both transactional and consultative approaches hold value and are essential. Need a tradeshow booth next month? Let's do it! Facing a major company shift in your marketing strategy? Let's slow down and evaluate the best plan of action for your tradeshow exhibition needs. To me, every new opportunity calls for a mix of both approaches. I thrive on the personal touch when advising on tradeshow displays, brand choices, and onsite strategy. Yet, I love delivering a final product swiftly, painlessly, and hassle-free. Both are two sides of the same coin. The key is finding the right blend and adapting to client needs! #tradeshow #marketing

Designing and deploying a new tradeshow booth? Here are the questions the event manager/marketer must have answers to... As the event manager/marketer, you typically lead the charge working with a company on designing a new tradeshow booth. Hopefully you are crafting an approach and strategy with them first, but that's another post for another day. You don't need to know everything, but you need to know some things. You also have to be willing to say you don't know, and go find the answers from stakeholders. Here are important questions that drive successful tradeshow booth design. If you don't get asked these, then find another partner, and if you don't have the answers to these, its okay, just go seek them out. ❓ What are 3 things you want to accomplish or gain that would deem this tradeshow successful? How can you track these? ❓ Who specifically is your audience at this show and do you have multiple? ❓ Can you describe your interactions with customers at this event in your booth? Be detailed, whats going on in the booth and off the show floor? ❓ What problem do you solve for your customer? ❓ What is your value proposition or what makes you different than competitors? ❓ What are your biggest pain points at your tradeshows right now and why are they an issue to you? ❓ What is the single message you want attendees to leave your booth experience knowing? ❓ I am an ideal customer. I show up to your booth randomly or by appointment, what happens next? What's my experience look like step by step? ❓ What makes your brand unique or what is important to the identity of your brand? Many companies can be creative. Many companies can sketch beautiful things. Beautiful doesn't = effective tradeshow marketing. But having the answers to the above questions creates a road map to ideas and concepts for a design that sets you up to succeed. Who are we engaging? Why are we engaging them? and how can we most effectively engage with them? Now you can create a space that best allows you to accomplish your goals.

An achilles heel of good tradeshow booth execution is a lack of alignment among booth staff and company team members... Several years ago, I had a friend 👨💼 come in town for a conference. He is a Sr sales rep for a big software company. This company was exhibiting and between space, booth, travel, etc, probably spent around $200,000. I took him to dinner and asked how the show was going. He essentially told me he didn't really know what was going on, and they just flew him in to be on the floor. $200,000 seems like a lot of money to me, as well as a lot of effort, to have a Sr sales rep have zero clue what is going on. He was 1 of 4 reps there and none of the reps were briefed. As a team, its hard to run a successful play without the players knowing the play. My point. Booth staff and team staff alignment is KEY to tradeshow success. Knowing the basics, like the schedule of events and process for leads is a must. But if you are looking to dominate a tradeshow and capitalize on the investment, here is what alignment looks like... Keep in mind, this can all be put into a 1-2 page document for all to review and study. Event team should be developing this with sales and MKG input. 1️⃣ Everyone involved has a clear understanding of WHY you are there and what the specific goals and target objectives are. 2️⃣ Customer, everyone has to have a clear picture of the customer profile that is there. Who is here? Who do we want to talk to? What role do they play in our pipeline development and relationship with customer? 3️⃣ What is the weeks strategy? Examples are, do you have a theme and why that theme? How does it tie into the pitch or offering? What is the plan to produce results at this show and what is everyone's part in it? 4️⃣ Engagements and offerings. What kind of engagements, offerings, activities and offsite activations is your company running, and why should people attend them? How does the raffle work? How do they participate? All staff needs to know this, and be armed with the ability to invite, set appts, and clearly explain what's going on to someone. 5️⃣ I highly suggest morning huddles before the day starts and evening huddles as the day ends. Talk, share, brief each other, and get ready for what's next. Stay in tune and on the same page for the entire show. 6️⃣ What is the narrative and story you are telling and promoting? Everyone should know this and be able to talk on it. Have scripts, develop talking points that everyone can use. 7️⃣ Everyone in your booth should know how to explore and qualify someone in conversation. Give them questions 8️⃣ What does life look like after this 3-4 day whirlwind? Have a follow up process with goals outlined so everyone knows what's next. Knowing what's next gives confidence to what you are doing currently. 💡 Have a why, have goals, create a plan, craft a strategy. Make sure everyone understands all of the above and how they contribute to success.

Are you ready for your next tradeshow? Make sure you don't miss any opportunities and ensure success with our essential checklist for a successful event. Don’t forget to follow us for more content like this. #Tradeshows #Preparation #SalesStrategy #ListasoTips #AllyAtTradeShows #SoftwareCompany #MarketingMaterials

Tradeshow 101 5 Ways to Measure Success at a Tradeshow Most people have heard of the term “ROI” (return on investment). ROI is something we all want to achieve when we exhibit at a tradeshow, but exactly how do you measure this? How do you really know if a show is paying off or if it is a drain on finances and resources? The truth is, there is no one answer to this question. Some companies feel it’s appropriate to measure this based on customer loyalty and brand impressions, while others want to contrast their tradeshow spending directly to the revenue that is created as a result of the event. Both are legitimate approaches and it’s really up to any exhibitor to decide how they want to measure ROI. The critical part of making this work is collecting lead data. If you are doing that well there some actual metrics you can record to help with quantifying your ROI. 2.     Cost Per Lead – By keeping careful track of all your tradeshow spending and also having a good lead management system in your booth to capture all the attendee data, you quickly figure out a cost per lead. Overall Tradeshow Cost ÷ Number of Leads = Cost Per Lead You can compare this to other shows you attend, track it year over year and monitor progress as you go. You may be able to see shows that do well, and others that don’t. And if you classify your leads as suggested in tip one, you can enhance this data further. Want to learn more about exhibiting? Check out our educational resources: https://lnkd.in/gq4aak2v

Sleepwalking through you tradeshow planning is wasting💰and leaving results 📈 on the table... First. Tradeshows are a sales and marketing channel, not a cost of doing business. This means we must treat it as such. Don't exhibit at shows that you cant drive meaningful pipeline or propel company initiatives further. So you are planning to exhibit. WHY? Don't tell me leads. Sure, you are exhibiting for leads, we all are. And frankly, if you run a more thought out strategy, you'll drive more leads and convert more. But we must establish a why and a purpose. Want more leads? Ok, I get it. Focus on these two things and work from them in your planning. Audience and Initiatives. Audience is simple. Whiteboard this a bit... ✅ Who is your customer/prospect/partner? ✅ Why are they there? What are they seeking? ✅ What do they want that they are not getting? ✅ What kind of experiences, gestures, and engagements would resonate with them? ✅ What problems are they trying to solve? ✅ This is NOT what do you want to sell them, forget that for a moment. Initiatives are key. ✅ What is a company or sales and MKG initiative that leadership is chasing? ✅ Goals and objectives? ✅ What messaging do you want the audience to hear? People don't want to be sold on the show floor. They just don't. This means you must work differently. Understand the audience, then find a way to deliver what they want, what resonates with them, and what they might not be expecting. By doing this, you invest in relationship building. You invest in them and maybe they'll invest in you.