Focus Displays/Nimlok San Diego

1. Plenty to drink

Beer and football go hand-in-hand. Make sure the party is stocked with beverages from beers to sodas. Also, take into account that many avid football fans get glued to the television and sometimes won’t leave the couch at any cost. Consider a cooler or icebox to place in the living room so they don’t have to make repeated trips to the fridge.

2. Put it on ice

So important yet so often forgotten, make sure to grab a few bags of ice from the supermarket, particularly if you’re going to keep beverages in a cooler. Nothing can ruin a Super Bowl party faster than a lukewarm beer.

All organizations, particularly small and medium sized organizations, should use their trade show program to develop a simple, consistent Competitive Intelligence (CI) program to continuously gather primary intelligence on key competitors.

When was the last time you took a serious look at your competitors? Keeping an eye on the pulse of your industry will help you understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOTs) of your own organization and those of others. Dare to compare your organization with others. Unless you are a multinational corporation, chances are you don’t even have a CI department or key individual(s) responsible for this important function.

Many exhibitors, particularly the “small” exhibitors, do not do a good job of on-site marketing. The value of on-site marketing should never be underestimated and can be extremely important to increasing corporate presence and traffic to the booth. There is untapped potential to increasing your presence on the show floor to attract qualified prospects to your booth.

Many on-site marketing activities can be expensive, particularly for the smaller exhibitor with limited budget and resources. Most of the “BIG 5″* exhibitors at your industry events are in a position to take advantage of these opportunities. It can seem daunting at times, but there are several simple AND effective techniques that small exhibitors can do to increase their corporate presence and traffic at industry events.

International shows can be exciting and bring new business opportunities for your organization. They can also be challenging with different languages, customs, and government regulations.

Designing your booth with portable display materials, such as Nimlok products, can be beneficial to your international exhibit marketing program:

• You can save shipping costs due to smaller size and lighter weights.
• The exhibit materials are generally accepted by all countries and meet all fire regulations.
• Instead of shipping, you can rent your hardware and have your graphics produced from international locations.

When was the last time you took a critical look at your booth? When was the last time you did this from your competitors’ perspective?

Most exhibitors take the time to check out the competition at industry events. Your firm probably does this as well and you can bet your competitors are checking you out as well. So what have you done to ensure that your competitors get the same consistent information or misinformation? What have you done to restrict certain information from them? Do you know which competitors are watching you and what they are specifically interested in?

Look out there on the show floor. Check out the attendees. They look ordinary enough – but they have secrets. Dirty little secrets that they’d never tell anyone, not even under duress.

Successful selling at tradeshows depends upon two things. One is your products and personnel: How good are your products and services, and how well do your people represent them. The second has nothing to do with you at all. It has everything to do with secrets.

There are lots of ways to improve your team’s performance at tradeshows. From snazzy new displays to intensive training to rewards and incentives for top producers, it’s difficult to even count the myriad ways. What’s not difficult is realizing that some of these improvement methods come with hefty price tags.

Don’t despair. There are many ways to pump up performance without breaking the bank. In fact, I’ve collected 27 low or no-cost ways to improve your next tradeshow:

1. Research the show BEFORE you commit. Does it attract a large number of people from your target audience?

Set one foot on the tradeshow floor and instantly you’re surrounded by people. Tall ones, short ones, old ones, young ones. C–level executives are rubbing shoulders with corporate nobodies. Some rush from booth to booth in search of giveaways while others draw your sales staff into long, pointless conversations. The good news is that between 80 to 90 percent of the attendees are often there to purchase new goods and services. The bad news is that other 10 to 20 percent can eat up lots of valuable floor time. How in the world do you identify who are valuable prospects and who are ‘just looking’ in this throng of people? I’ve identified twelve distinct types of tradeshow attendees. Almost every person at the show will fall into one of these categories. Teach your staff to recognize these types. That way, they can politely, yet quickly, handle the nonstarters and spend their valuable floor time concentrating on the promising prospects. Keep them moving if…

One of the major objectives of any trade show exhibit is to create a lasting impression in the attendees’ minds. After all, if visitor’s can’t remember you, how can they give you their business? You also want to create a positive impression, and unfortunately, that’s harder to do than the negative equivalent.

Which brings us to humor. People love to laugh ñ and they like other people to laugh with them. Witness the almost constant flood of jokes and cartoons that flit across the Internet: Proof that humor cannot be stopped. You’ll often find that people go out of their way to remember great jokes, where they’ll never, ever, stop to jot down the details of an eye-catching graphic. This makes humor an invaluable marketing tool ñ if you can make it serve your corporate objectives.

The world is getting smaller. Going global with your business isn’t optional anymore — it’s essential. Survival in today’s price-sensitive and intensely competitive marketplace means that US companies need to abandon their marketing myopia for a more global approach.

Smaller companies often hold back from entering the international marketplace. It is very expensive to establish an overseas presence, and business owners don’t want to commit their capital until they are sure there is an international market for their products.

The following A-Z guidelines will help to take the fear and anxiety out of your overseas exhibiting ventures (A-L appeared in the previous newsletter):