It was inevitable given the beating that the auto industry has taken - the Detroit Auto Show is expected to be about 20% smaller this year. This is the auto industry’s signature event, but given the belt-tightening going on there will be less glamour and more sobriety (literal and figurative). Among the casualties are Nissan Corp, which has pulled out entirely, leaving US Nissan dealers to rush product in to fill the floor space.

But, recognizing the value of the show, most major companies (Nissan aside) are simply scaling back and spending more wisely. For example, GM is eliminating its GM Style fashion show. And in a move that will save it more than $1 million, the Company will opt for carpet in its 120,000 square foot exhibit instead of its traditional wood flooring. These actions reinforce the advice we give all of our clients in tough times: economize, don’t cancel. We’ve posted before about how to do more with less. It’s not magic and exhibitors sometimes do a better exhibit in the bargain. Still, the urge to purge and cancel your attendance is strong.

But before you do that, consider these insights. The trade show and event marketing category routinely posts the highest ROI in the marketing budget. Why? Qualified attendees. Unlike much of the marketing budget that goes to uninterested parties, by definition if someone is at the show or event, they wanted to be there. They’re interested. They want to see what’s new. And these attendees are conditioned to the event and trade show calendar - meaning you have fewer but more valuable opportunities than with traditional marketing. But if you miss them, they’re gone. These are your best prospects and pulling out of a show is short-sighted.

I realize this will seem ironic, but be like GM. Do more with less. Less expensive flooring. Fewer accessories and give-aways. Use your existing displays and get new artwork. Or if you can’t update your artwork, use what you have. You can do a backwall with banner stands if you need to - there are many ways to get creative without really sacrificing any benefits at the show.  Don’t cut on critical expenditures - like booth personnel. And don’t make the biggest mistake by pulling out of a show. With some creativity, you’ll have a great event or trade show that will pay dividends as the business economy improves.

Good luck and best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year.

I’m a huge fan of “best practices” benchmarking. I’m not alone obviously, but I’m always amazed when companies don’t seek out the best practices from successful companies. Here’s a handful of event and trade show tips from companies that have achieved astounding success (Nike, Reebok, Underarmor, etc).

1. Set a goal for your event or show. It’s not enough to show up, set up your booth and staff it. You have to decide what you want to accomplish well before the event or show. More PR? New product launch? Line extension? New marketing strategy? All of these demand a different strategy for your show. Set a reasonable goal and build your event presence around the goal.

2. Integrate your messaging. Your brand is probably visible in multiple channels. Make sure your show presence does as much as possible to leverage these channels. For example, put your URL on your display. Run an LCD with video clip that you usually host on your webpage. Think holistically about the messaging opportunity.

3. Differentiate. You need to do something to pull prospects to your booth. Think creatively. Consider a raffle. Add video. Hire extra staff to give your booth more traffic.

4. Activate off your booth footprint. Do something to pull traffic from areas outside your booth line of site. One company’s best ROI idea? They hired a few staff from an agency to walk to event venue clad in T-shirts with their booth number and a question mark. It worked like a charm  - people dropped by to see what it was all about.

Sure, these ideas can expand your budget. But there’s not much sense in attending a show and saving the last 10% of your budget that could actually drive traffic. Think about it – if you really wanted to save money you’d stay home. But you’re going to get zero ROI on this investment.

Well, one economic shoe has finally dropped – the GDP contracted 0.3% in Q3:08. The other shoe will be the Q4 figures – contraction again would meet the academic definition of a recession. Not that we needed a text book to tell us how tough it is out there. 

As we’ve commented before, the instinct to cut costs in economic downturns can be very strong. Many of these cost cuts are prudent or necessary, but it’s easy to lose perspective and cut too much. As the economy recovers, these businesses can pay a big price by not being ready for growth.We see this dilemma all the time in the trade show business.

It often plays out as an all or nothing fight: go with last year’s display or don’t go to the show at all. But of course, there are ways to exhibit at a show and cut your show budget. The following list will help you cut costs but still get the benefit of attending your next show.

1. Go to the Show. Sounds obvious, but you can’t win if you’re not in the race. The worst mistake you can make is to drop the show.

2. Plan ahead. Nothing kills budgets as quickly or senselessly as rush charges. Whether it’s travel, logistics or your displays, plan early.

3. Do More with Less. A budget display can be a better ROI than a more complicated display. So cut extraneous items from your booth or display. If you usually go modular, go with a popup. Need to buy a new display? Consider renting.      

4. Follow Up. Once you’ve committed to your show and economized in all the smart ways possible, make sure you get a return on your show. Follow up with prospects immediately and routinely.

5. Market Your Show. Make sure your customers know you attended the show. Show attendance delivers an amazing PR value, and these “softer” areas of return often dominate hard metrics (like sales).

Good luck and have a great show!

Since we’re located between two great convention cities – San Francisco and San Jose – we can easily get the scoop on the convention business. We just take a short drive north or south and check it out for ourselves. So, with plenty of bad economic news to go around – most of it originating in the housing sector, we watched with anticipation as the Mortgage Bankers Association rolled into San Francisco’s Moscone Center West from October 19 – 22. No fascination with disaster here – we just figured that of all segments feeling the pinch of tough times it would be worst in the residential mortgage business and we were wondering if this would change the conference tone or schedule.            

Well, although attendance was down about 15% from ‘07, the event pulled out the stops and had a cautiously upbeat tone. Consider this: Jay Leno headlined a night and tickets to the Steve Young and Chris Gardner luncheons were completely sold out. Fannie and Freddie were big sponsors and Karl Rove gave a talk. We saw something similar when the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress convened at Moscone October 12 - 16th. Attendance down about 15%, exhibitors down about 8%.

          What’s all this mean? Well, it might be the last of the convention budgets being spent, although that’s not the sense we got from the people at the convention we talked to. More likely it’s this simple recognition: industries, including the battered mortgage industry, will survive the current credit tsunami and the companies that will emerge strongest are building market positions now. Successful businesses take share and get well positioned during slumps. It is hard advice to follow since the instinct to conserve is so strong.  But the way we see it is that if the MBA can throw a great conference (as they did), the convention business might come off its recent peak but will remain relatively strong. Great companies are still going to exhibit. And when this crisis concludes (as all crises must), companies that indiscriminately cut trade show budgets are going to be worse off. Our business continues to show strength, so we must (luckily) be working with the next category leaders and the up and comers taking share in down markets.           

Long live the game – go out and take some share!

In honor or the 4th of July holiday that’s upon us, I thought I’d talk about a few ways to “go big” and “go high” with your trade show display.  Of course it’s easy to “go big” if you have unlimited funds, so I’ll focus on some cost effective ways to “supersize” your display on a tighter budget.

Hanging Displays:  Hanging displays do a great job of getting you noticed from far away in the exhibit hall.  Many companies don’t think about a hanging display, when, in fact, it offers great ROI.  I’ve found myself many times at shows seeing a hanging sign and thinking, oh yeah, I need to stop by that booth.  Hanging signs vary in price range, but if you go with a “gravity tension” (i.e. gravity provides the shape to the sign), you can use vinyl substrate for your print, and get a display that looks great at a very attractive price.  If you have a bigger budget, then a “tension fabric” display structure provides a more finished look and also provides more flexibility with shapes.  For the ultimate eye catcher, look at adding a motor to the sign for rotation.

Pop up tower displays:  Pop up tower displays are a great way to get some height without blowing your budget thru the roof.  These structures are also, like a pop-up backwall, very easy to assemble and break down quickly for shipping.  The towers are also cyclindrical in shape so you get a 360 degree messaging space!

 Extra tall banner stands:  Extra height retractable banner stands like the Expand Mediascreen XL banner stand, provide a very fast and convenient way to “go big” on a budget.  This stand will accomodate a graphic up to 118″ tall so you’re sure to get noticed.

As an environmentally “concerned citizen”, I wanted to discuss the various options currently available for “environmentally friendly” or “green displays” as they’re sometime called in our industry.  There are three main ways in which you can “go green” with your trade show displays or event displays as follows: 

1. Buy a lightweight display.  This greatly reduces energy usage as you ship it from event to event
2. Buy a display that’s made from re-usable and/or recyclable materials
3. Buy from a shop that uses water based and/or “eco solvent” inks that are much less polluting than the solvent based inks and photographic chemicals used by many shops.

Lightweight:  Given our focus on portability, most of our products are much lighter weight than the traditional custom and modular booths sold by most local suppliers.  The lightest weight products we sell are fabric pop-up displays, the FabWall fabric backwall, the Xpressions displays, and our complete line of banner stands.  Our pop-ups are also very lightweight when compared to traditional panel systems, custom booths, and modular systems.  These products are also much-much easier to setup and tear down, which ultimately saves energy as well.

Recycle:  We’ve recently added a new fabric called “Bio Celtic” cloth which is made from 65% Recyled polyester.  Each yard of Bio-Celtic cloth conserves approximately 44,000 BTUs of energy, equivalent ot .36 gallons of gasoline.  Recycled polyester is made from post industrial waste and post consumer plastic bottles.  If you use Bio-Celtic cloth with the Fabwall banner stand system, you have an ultra-lightweight display that’s made from recycled plastic bottles!  Pretty cool.   

Environmentally friendly printing:  At Impact Displays we don’t believe in using the solvent based inks used by many banner stand suppliers or the photographic chemicals that are used for the so-called “Lambda printing” process by many mural panel suppliers.  Instead we use next generation “eco-solvent” inks that are so clean they can be used in a standard office environment without special ventilation.  These eco-solvent inks provide the same bright and accurate color reproduction, without the negative impact on our environment. So the next time you’re shopping for a trade show display or event display, be sure to factor the environmental impacts into your decision.

You’ve probably spent lots of time putting together and executing on your trade show plan and you’re now back at the office with that “post trade show glow”.  You’ve got tons of leads, met some really interesting business development prospects, and are really excited about the outcome of your show.

 That’s the good news.  The bad news is that work has piled up in the office while you were away and you’re really tempted to switch gears and put the trade show leads on the back burner.

 Although you’ll certainly need to address the most burning issues in the office, it’s also critical to capitalize on all the great leads you generated at the show and turn them into sales!  So here are a few tips to help get through the crisis:

 PREPARE.  By pre-writing a follow-up letter and email and having fullfillment packets (if any) ready to go, you can make the initial follow-up step really easy!  This is even easier if you’ve paid the small fee for a lead collection system at the show and have a comma delimited file you can input into your database system for tracking and mailing.  You should check with the lead collection system supplier ahead of time to understand the file format and make sure you know exactly how to upload the leads into whatever lead tracking and email system your using.  This will also save a lot of time after the show.

 TAKE NOTES.  If you take detailed notes regarding follow-up actions and priorities at the show, then you’ll be organized and ready to go when you get home.  I recommend categorizing leads as “hot”, “warm”, “long term”, “discard” to ensure that you give them the proper priority.

MOVE FAST.  The faster you get back in contact with your prospects, the more likely you are to win their future business.   So, above all, be sure to contact those “hot” prospects within two days of your return, and the “warm” and “long term” within 1 week max. 

OUTSOURCE.  If you absolutely know you won’t be able to handle the follow-up yourself when you return, then make sure you have a plan in place BEFORE the show, to have someone else take on the follow-up and tracking tasks after the show ends.

OK.  Having just returned from the “trade show for the trade show display industry” out in Las Vegas I have to add one more major “Don’t” to my list.  Which is…  don’t interrupt an interested prospect to talk to someone from your office on your cell phone.  I know it’s hard to believe, but a sales rep actually did this to myself and a colleague while we were inquiring about a new product that was being introduced.  We waited around a couple of minutes, but after that I said enough is enough and we excused ourselves. 

 Not surprisingly we never did make it back to their booth.

One of my favorite sources of marketing “best practices” is the Marketing Sherpa group.  If you subscribe to their newsletter you can get all sorts of great advice that’s actually backed up by solid market research and best practice studies. 

 They recently published a very interesting and relevant case study entitled “How Simple & Inexpensive trade show Souvenir got 430% ROI“.  This great case study is one of many available on their site.  And best of all, many of their articles and case studies are free if you download them quickly.

Just go to www.marketingsherpa.com for more information. 

As promised, here is the fun corollary to “Top 10 tips for a successful trade show”.  I’ve seen lots of major blunders over the years, and here are my top 10.  To enhance your reading experience, I’ve listed the items in reverse order (with #1 being the biggest blunder). 

#10  Cluttered and messy trade show booth.  You’ve all seen the booth that’s filled with empty food containers, empty bottles, notebooks, giveways from other booths, and other miscellaneous junk.  Usually these same booths have staff that’s busy talking to each other, emailing, and text messaging.  It basically says to the audience “I’m not professional, very busy, and not focused on you”. 

#9  No pre-show marketing.  The best evidence of this is usually a booth with little traffic and no buzz.  Great booth traffic doesn’t happen by chance (at least not usually), so be sure to take advantage of all the great pre-show marketing opportunities listed in my previous blog post 

#8  No post-show marketing.  This is probably one of the most common mistakes that exhibitors make since they’re generally exhausted and behind on their “regular job” by the time they get back to the office.  But, this is a huge mistake which is akin to forgetting to tag the bases after you’ve hit a home run.  The fact is that the faster you get back to your prospects the more likely you are to close a sale.  If possible, try to send out emails each night to at least the more qualified prospects you’ve met, and follow up within a week to schedule a meeting to answer follow-on questions. 

#7  Untrained personnel.  One step better than having no staff, or unfriendly staff, is a set of staff people who know nothing about the company or product you’re interested in discussing.   This raises questions in your customer/prospect’s mind about the company’s dedication to the product or service and whether they’ll be able to get support when they need it. 

#6  Going to the wrong show.  The definition of “the wrong show” can vary widely, but basically it’s a show that doesn’t match the company’s target markethas very few qualified buyers (i.e. lots of consultants, job seekers, and other people trying to sell to you rather than vice versa)has a high cost per qualified prospect (i.e. the total exhibition cost including booth space, booth services, shipping, travel, other overhead, is very high and the turnout of qualified prospects is very low).  

#5  Missing a critical trade show.  As someone once said, the first step to accomplishing anything in life is to “just show up” (http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/show_up/ ).  If you aren’t at the show, and your competitors are there, you’re missing out on customer meetings and new prospect demos, and, most importantly, the chance to build relationships. 

#4  Really bad body language.  Some booth staffers almost shout “leave me alone!” with their body language.  Here are a few of my favorites:everyone is standing around talking to each other with their backs to you so you feel like it’s rude to ask a question.  Usually these are the really big booths with lots of people “working” and no customers there (I wonder why?)everyone is standing like security guards with arms folded and mad looks on their facesThe one guy in the booth is working away on his email (or web surfing) with his back to you. 

#3  No booth personnel.  I’m always amazed that companies let this happen.  It basically says that you aren’t capable of managing your company well enough to properly staff your booth.  And if you can’t staff a trade show booth are you really ready to handle my business??  You never know when that one “big fish” is going to stop by and you better be there when she does!  One of our customers, BabyCubes, had the President of Whole Foods stop by her booth at a recent trade show and tell her that her product was the best organic baby food product he’d seen at the show.   Just think if nobody was there to talk to him! 

#2  Really lousy trade show display.  I’m sure you’ve all seen the company with a desk, chair, and a schlocky looking sign that has the company name, and, maybe, some low resolution photo that’s been blow up way above the 4×6 inches that it was shot at.  This just screams out to the audience that “I’m a one may show, don’t have any resources, and probably won’t do a better job with your project than I did with my booth display”. 

#1  No exhibit booth.  I’m sure you’ve all seen it as well.  The totally empty 10×10 display space with the black drape in back and a small black and white with the poor company’s name on it.  This, of course, is much worse than not being at the show.  It basically says that you’ve gone out of business.  My advice – buy your display from a company that’s been around for awhile and has good references, give yourself plenty of time, and use a reputable shipping company.