One light if by land…Two if by Tradeshow?
Listening to our leaders we can conclude the recession is over. I’m guessing that news came as a surprise to you and your business, but is now the right time to start exhibiting again? Considering I am a trade show marketing consultant, my answer will surprise you!
While trade-shows are one of the very best ways to capture more leads, if your consumer is not spending, then neither should you. If your sales are starting to trend up, then YES, by all means get of to the shows and capture new business before your competition does. However, lets examine a few different ways to generate new business.
Social media can be a powerful lead generator, but it does require a large chunk of upfront time—getting your profiles built and your name inserted into the discussion. The most powerful part of social media is the price, most all sites are FREE.
Add a business blog to your company website. Business Blogging is a top of mind marketing strategy. Later, when you do start exhibiting again, your blog can serve as a communication medium between you and the show attendees—giving your company brand name more exposure.
Don’t forget the tried and true methods! Take an existing customer out to lunch. Stay inquisitive in the eyes of your customer. Seek ways to continuously help them grow their business.
Send out holiday cards. Christmas is obvious, but what about Arbor Day? Your customer receives cards every Thanksgiving and Christmas so your card may not be standing out enough. Send a card for Labor Day, Memorial Day, Boxing Day, or any holiday that will help make you stand out as a friend. Remember, people do business with people they know and like.
Good Luck and please remember Zenith Exhibits is your affordable marketing solution provider for both tradeshow and internet marketing.
Ed Bejarana
Daily Tradeshow Tips: Exhibiting on a Small Budget – Tip #5
No matter how small your marketing budget, your business can afford to have a successful presence at trade shows without incurring big expenses.
Purchase used trade show displays rather than springing for new ones. Many pre-owned booths and exhibits are in excellent condition and can be bought for less than half the cost of a brand new one. If you decide to buy previously owned exhibit components, be open-minded and keep your display needs in mind. Visualize how each used exhibit might perform for you.
You can’t win the game focusing on the scoreboard
You can’t win the game focusing on the scoreboard. Focus on the game of engagement and the traffic will come.
Social networking, by definition, is designed to get you involved AND keep you involved. Building a large following, in a sense, becomes a game. In business, it is not about who has the most followers, but are you gaining more customers?
While it is important to build your following; your following is NOT the business building activity, communicate with your network is. No matter if you are on Twitter, Facebook or you own blogsite, knowing your audience is always the best approach.
Answer the following questions:
- Who is your desired audience.
- What topics interest your desired audience.
- Why are they interested in that topic?
Create a social marketing plan (or a business blogging plan), stick to the plan, feed you audience’s desires.
Ed Bejarana
Zenith Exhibits, Inc.
BusinessBlogging.net is the internet marketing business division for Zenith Exhibits, Inc. We specialize in providing face-to-face and internet marketing to small and medium size business and we love saying, “we affordability do for you what you can not afford to do for yourself.”
Creating a Business Blogging Plan
A business blogging plan is a written strategy guide for your social marketing effort. Like all business documents, your business blogging plan is a living document! Expect and plan for frequent changes. It is reasonable to expect your plan to change at least seasonally (based on business seasons).
Goal
What do you want to achieve? While you can achieve multiple goals, narrowly defined objectives allow for easier and quick success.
- More search engine visibility (SEV)
- High Google page rank
- Increase company buzz
- Instigate online discussions
- Capture customer input
Your goals can be anything, but it must be documented!
Measurement Matrix
How you measure your effort will often dictate where and how you blog.
- Phone Calls, eMails, Online Forms Completed
- Analytics Software or Web Log
- RSS subscribers, Links, and/or Pings
Many FREE blog sites don’t allow for the installation of analytics software. Knowing how people interact with your website is very important, otherwise future topics are little more than a shot in the dark. i.e.: without a measurement system in place, you will never know how many people consume your knowledge.
For example: if you are going to measure your effort by the number of phone calls you receive, then include a call to action that drives people to the telephone.
Target Audience
Who are you writing for?
- Age, Gender
- Social Activities, Religious Beliefs, Political Leanings
- Financial and Marital Status
- Favorite Books, Movies, etc.
The intent is to understand as much as possible about who you are writing for. It may not be apparent what information is relevant until you are struggling with developing content. Spending time up front to create a complete demographic profile will save you time over-coming writers block.
Income Connection
If the goal is NOT to directly generate income, what is the connection to income? In business blogging there must always be an income connection, else the effort is not “business” focused.
For example: if your goal is to increase company buzz, then your income connection is the product or service you sell. While this sounds trivial, compare company buzz to writing about new employees. Blogging about your staff will generate company buzz, but what consumer capture opportunity have you gained?
Note: while we are listing the income connection, we are not business blogging sales pitches! A sales pitch, like personal blogging, is not “Business Blogging”.
Time Commitment
How much time can you realistically commit to writing per day?
Depending on your writing skills and organization, the typical 200 word business blog article will require 20 to 30 minutes to write, revise, proof, edit, link and publish. Your blog site should publish at least once per week. To be successful, like other marketing activities, you must set aside appropriate time.
Competitive Advantage
What sets you (or your product) apart from your competition?
These points will become your major keyword qualifiers. For example, let’s say you sell trade show displays. One of your competitive advantages may be very low overhead–which translates into lower priced displays to meet small business budgets. Your competitive advantage keyword distinction becomes “affordable trade show displays for small business”.
Reaction Plan
Business blogging is not an exact science because it is social in nature. Trends and fads will impact your blogging approach and potentially adversely affect your consumers’ perception. You must always be on guard for negative user input AND be ready to respond. What will you say when someone complains online about your product or service?
Sample Business Blogging Plan
Goal:
To improve SEV such that every blog article gets index on Google by one of the companies
Measurement Matrix:
Primary measurement will be time on site from visitors finding the article on Google. Seeking an increase of 30% longer on site.
Target Audience:
Women owned small business. She leans slightly to the right of center politically and values less government impact on her business. She is in her mid 40’s to late 50’s, recently divorced or widowed. Her children are grown and married. she loves to read mystery novels and watch drama movies. She is financially secure, but seeks an affordable solution from someone she can trust. She values working with men over women.
Income Connection:
Design and sale of trade show displays
Time Commitment:
I will allocate 30 minutes per day to blog on ZenithExhibits.com and promote my blog postings on LinkedIN, Facebook, CraigsList, and Twitter.
Competitive Advantage:
No overhead equals lower prices for small women owned business.
Reaction Plan:
I pledge to not fight negative reactions, but rather focus my time on resolving the complaint publicly.
Daily Tradeshow Tips: Exhibiting on a Small Budget – Tip #4
No matter how small your marketing budget, your business can afford to have a successful presence at trade shows without incurring big expenses.
Make over your current displays instead of buying new ones. Creating a new exhibit by giving your existing trade show booth displays a fresh face costs a fraction of the price of purchasing all new booth components. Consider each element of your booth separately, and brainstorm ways to update it without completely replacing it.
Daily Tradeshow Tips: Exhibiting on a Small Budget – Tip #3
No matter how small your marketing budget, your business can afford to have a successful presence at trade shows without incurring big expenses.
Share a trade show booth and expenses with a related but non-competing business in your niche. This cost-cutting solution works especially well for one-person businesses. Besides saving money, additional benefits to a booth-sharing arrangement include access to each other’s customers in the same market niche, and the convenience of having a knowledgeable person manning the booth when you need to take a break.
Using Social Media with Trade Show Exhibiting
Twitter is the perfect communication tool for trade show exhibiting because:
- Messages are short.
- Communication can happen on your cell phone
The above statement is obvious, but the first, and best question is; HOW do you use Twitter in conjunction with your trade show exhibit?
In a recent article published by Tom Humbarger, “Best Practices for Corporate Twittering” on SocialMediaToday.com–he outlines how to tweet from a corporate stand point. We need only expand a little in the tweeting details and back channel support to take this strategy to the trade show floor.
The are three distinct tweet times for your trade show exhibiting, pre-show, during show and post-show messaging.
Pre-show Tweets
Show focus on what show are you exhibiting in, what changes (if any) you’ve made to your booth, info on the staff you are sending to the show and some of the reasons you choose to exhibit at that particular show.
In essence, the goal of pre-show tweeting is to build a personal connection between you and the trade show attendee. Since people attend trade shows for a particular reason, building a connection that is personal yet leaves the reader inquisitive–wanting more info–will help create a lasting memory.
During show Tweets
Write tweets from the perspective of the staff exhibitor in the booth. What are you seeing, hearing and doing. If you held back some info on your exhibit, now is the time to share. If you have something special in your booth, tweet the world.
Show attendees will more than likely NOT be reading their tweets on their phone too much. Our goal is to build more search engine connections to your business name and the trade show you are exhibiting in. This linking strategy will pay off during the post-show tweet and search process.
Post-Show Tweets
What were the most memorable moments at the show? Do not spend this time just talking about you, your company and/or products/services. Connect with those readers who were also at the show by highlighting something special that happened at the show that ONLY show attendees would know.
The goal is to connect the your twitter profiles with your industry rumor mill. People search Google for post show information. Make sure your tweets show up by being the post-show reporter.
None of the above works without a company blog site that also contains more information about your show experience. Using your twitter account and business blog site can help you make more brand/name impressions on your target audience and will increase your show ROI.
Ed Bejarana
Zenith Exhibits, Inc.
Daily Tradeshow Tips: Exhibiting on a Small Budget – Tip #2
No matter how small your marketing budget, your business can afford to have a successful presence at trade shows without incurring big expenses.
Rent a temporary space at a wholesale gift mart or showroom. You can plunge into wholesale shows inexpensively and without being present by renting a temporary space in a wholesale gift mart or showroom. For a monthly fee, you can display your products there for direct sales to retail shop owners. This is a good way not only to break into wholesaling on a small budget, but also to test new products.
