One Month Until the MarketingProfs B2B Forum in Boston!
Friday, May 8th, 2009The Marketing Profs B2B Forum kicks off June 8th in Boston. If you haven’t already registered, today’s your lucky day! Use code ESPN7 and get $200 off your registration price. Join some of the smartest B2B Marketers getting definitive solutions to the 3 biggest challenges today:
- Integrating your marketing programs
- Engaging your customers and prospects
- Measuring and analyzing to prove ROI
If you already have your tickets, we’ll see you there!
Can I pay for my virtual event with virtual dollars? - Marketing WTF?
Thursday, March 26th, 2009I am always looking for new ways to find qualified leads for sales and will typically try anything once. Each quarter we try to add something new to the mix. For next quarter we looked at couple of virtual tradeshows. We sponsored one last year and found it pretty interesting even though we didn’t get many real leads from it (lots of international visitors). It was a good place to cut our teeth on something new.
In the last week or so, we were contacted to sponsor another virtual tradeshow being put on by a major industry publication that seems to be in transition with both their events and their publication, moving everything online. I was intrigued and wanted more details. I inquired further about this new event to find out what the cost would be and how many/what kind of attendees they expected. I got back a very interesting reply. Sponsorships ranged from $10K to $25K. Little surprised here since this is typically the cost of live events. I was still interested…then I found out how many people they were expecting. I figured thousands, right? Nope, they’re only expecting about 2500 people. But how targeted are these people visiting?
With this economy travel budgets are definitely being cut but aren’t tradeshow budgets too? Not sure about you, but it seems like a hefty pricetag for a very broad tradeshow. I can think of a lot of things to spend $10K - $25K that will result in more targeted, qualified leads. What about you?
The 6 Principles of Deliberate Marketing: Qualified Buyers vs. Leads - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #183
Monday, December 22nd, 2008This is the second post in a series on Deliberate Marketing. Be sure to check out the first post on Intention vs. Attention.
Sales teams are always clamoring for more leads but smart marketers know that what they really need to deliver are qualified buyers. A lead status is often applied to anyone who fills out a form on your website or stops by your trade show booth. Rather than tossing that list of names over to sales, marketers must nurture those leads and weed out the good from the bad, those with budget and need from those still in the education phase.
Deliberate Marketing ensures marketers can extract the most value from their marketing programs based on using the most cost-effective method to move prospects and buyers through the funnel. It is not focused on simply filling the marketing and sales funnel with contacts and expecting sales to follow-up on any lead that downloads a whitepaper.
Deliberate Marketing is about profiling the best possible buyers, recruiting more buyers that are just like them, and then executing the most effective techniques possible to move the prospect through each stage of the funnel.
Rock Your Tchotkes - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #167
Friday, October 31st, 2008Getting ready for your next trade show? Don’t skimp on the tchotkes with boring and ineffective promotional items like hats, stress relievers or mints. Take a lesson from the queen of self-promotion Madonna and go for something unexpected and memorable.
Successful Promotions magazine just ran a cover article on the killer goodies rock stars like Madonna distribute to promote their albums and/or tours. For her recent Sticky and Sweet tour, Madonna had giant lollipops made with her album cover emblazoned on them. Other musicians mentioned included Ice-T who distributed body bags and the Black Crowes who produced rolling papers.
If those options seem a bit inappropriate for your business, keep these tips in mind for selecting giveaways that help support your message and make your brand more memorable:
- Think visual branding. To help your message or brand promise “stick” in the minds of your target market, go with a promo item that underscores your brand promise or the message of your latest campaign. For example, if your product promises to install within minutes instead of days, give out a stopwatch and invite users to put you to the test.
- Create a must-have collectible or invest in a hot product that works as an incentive to draw people to your booth. NetQoS created a series of collectible t-shirts that were popular enough to draw 3500 booth visitors year after year. Other companies have accomplished this with less expensive product like buttons.
- Come up with a giveaway that will garner press coverage or blog commentary. At Pervasive we created a campaign that involved jog wallets stuffed with different denominations of money. This clever program netted press coverage in Information Week magazine.
What are your favorite tchotkes — either for giving or receiving?
Trade Show Marketing for Startups - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #156
Monday, October 13th, 2008Just returned from Brussels where I represented BreakingPoint at the Broadband World Forum (BBWF). Our 6 meter by 3 meter booth was quite a difference from my typical experience in a 30′ X 40′ Platinum booth at the show entrance.
As a startup and a new entrant in the market, we didn’t have the large Marketing budget to invest in a huge exhibit and it wouldn’t have made a good investment anyway. We also didn’t have the history to score a great booth location. Finally, to make things even more challenging, we didn’t have the $80,000 exhibit that our competitors had to stand out at the event. So, we had to rely on a superior product and a little ingenuity to get the most from our investment in the event. Here are a few tips for your next trade show:
- Locate your exhibit right next to your hottest competitor. It’s a risky move, but if your product stands out and provides superior capabilities this strategy should help you attract a steady stream of qualified traffic. It also makes a bold statement about the confidence you have in your product.
- Locate your exhibit next to your largest partner. This will also help you attract qualified traffic without the risk. Even better, your partner may actually recommend attendees visit your booth.
- Make use of lots of plasma displays to tell your story without the need to invest in a costly booth or expensive graphics.
- Promote and deliver presentations in your booth. Live presentations from subject matter experts attract significant crowds and helps position your company as a thought leader.
- Produce a creative marketing campaign that stimulates word-of-mouth.
- Use Twitter to spread the word about your exhibit.
- Take your show on the road. At BBWF, I actually saw an exhibitor rolling a mobile demo stand around the show floor. Genius!
Just a few ideas to help your startup stand out at the next trade show. Wish we would have had the time and resources to leverage all of these ideas at BBWF. As it turned out, simply using idea #1, 5, and 6 were quite enough to drive very qualified traffic. Another interesting data point: our Twitter updates drove about as much traffic as our email blast. Neither of these techniques worked as well as parking right next door to our competitor, however. Big risk, big reward.
Drive Revenue from Customer Events - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #128
Friday, July 25th, 2008In a previous life when I was VP of Marketing at a high tech software company we had thousands of customers with huge upsell and cross selling opportunities. Since many of these customers were long time customers we decided a live event would not only give us the opportunity to update them on our additional products and services but would also allow us some face time for further relationship building. Our overall goal for the event was to drive more revenue from our current customer base. As we were brainstorming on the event details we wanted to be sure we had a 3-D view on everything we did. We wanted to be sure we were educating our customers, building customer loyalty and get a better understanding how we were going to continue to monetize these relationships. I’ve included a few tips below for each of these components.
Education –
- Make sure your agenda for the event is not biased towards your company and what your company has going on, but instead show interest to solving THEIR business problems and what really impacts them.
- Think about what you want them to take back from this event?
- Consider bringing in industry leaders or analysts to speak on their experiences in the marketplace
- give away an educational book or take home information they could share with others
- Add a panel of happy customers to discuss their experiences and results from working with you
Loyalty –
- Make each customer feel like they are your #1 customer
- Treat them to a nice venue, easy transportation and great food to start.
- Most importantly, make your customers feel they are part of the inner circle and by being at the event they are privy to information others aren’t. For example, show an exclusive demo of new or upcoming product releases.
Monetize –
- Hold your sales team responsible to have the right customers at the event. Ones who bring the most money, ones who have problems, ones that would benefit the most from being there.
- While at the event, set up customer face-to-face meetings with key executives. I had a spreadsheet with everyone I was meeting and knew their problems going into the conversation so I could bring the solutions. This was key.
Even though the event ended on a high note, we would have to wait another year for this type of customer interaction. Today, we wouldn’t have to wait another year to catch up with our customers. Companies like BD Metrics have already started to tackle this obstacle. BD Metrics’ You-Based™ personalization technology for leading tradeshows and associations to help make sure once people leave an event, all is not forgotten. I’m sure there are others out there also helping extend the momentum of live events. What have you seen or used? How are you staying in touch with your customers 365 days a year?
Here’s another continuing customer event idea for you to ponder… ideas
How to Get 3,190 People to Watch a Demo at a Tradeshow - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #124
Friday, July 18th, 2008Written by Andrea Stout, ReachForce Customer and Event Marketer at NetQoS
After my last guest post on Getting More Traffic to your Trade Show Booth I thought I would share an inside look at the success behind NetQoS’s trade show marketing. I turned up the heat on Cisco Networkers this year with a party at the Hard Rock Hotel.
Every year, companies spend millions of dollars on tradeshows worldwide. At NetQoS, there is one show each year that produces the best leads. Cisco Networkers Live is an event that brings together thousands of networking professionals for four days of training.
As with any exhibition, the key to success is knowing your audience. With many booths to choose from, it’s hard to get prospects interested in visiting you. In January, the NetQoS marketing communications team met to discuss the overall strategy for the June Cisco show. Knowing that we had to choose a theme, we identified the most important characteristics of our target market. They are as follows:
- Male
- Aged 25-45
- Works in the IT field – most are responsible for the performance of their organizations network
- Unlikely to be elected “Prom King” in high school
With songs like “Party Like A Rockstar” by Shop Boyz and “I Want to be a Rockstar” by Nickelback ruling the radio, we decided that we should treat our prospects and customers like they are rockstars – network rockstars. With this theme, we were able to select promotions for the booth and plan a large customer party.
Each year, we hand out t-shirts in our booth. We decided to design a shirt that fits in with the vintage shirts that are popular today. In addition, we purchased blinking guitar pins that contain our corporate logo. We have found that anything that with a flashing LED light attached to it is a huge item at tradeshows. As a general rule of thumb, if it can’t be stored on a desk or given to a child, it’s trash.
For our party, we designed a landing page where customers and prospects could register online. We asked them to print off their confirmation and stop by our booth during the show to pick up their VIP backstage pass. This awarded us a lot of attention as other tradeshow attendees noticed the exclusive passes being worn around the show by our customers.
Fitting with our theme, we booked the Hard Rock Hotel as our party venue. We passed out Elvis glasses as attendees walked down the red carpet. We set up Guitar Hero and Rock Band in the corner of the room which was a huge hit. In the past we learned that our guests don’t like loud music so we nixed the band this year and opted for a DJ. Also, never skimp on food. If your audience is mostly male, feed them well. We hired a photographer from Event Mall to take pictures of our guests and print copies on site. In addition, we hired two celebrity impersonators to entertain the crowd – Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osborne.
The Results:
For the first time, we ran out of all 3,500 t-shirts we had printed before the show was over. On the first night alone, we scanned 931 badges in two hours. We had 3,190 people sit through product demonstrations in our booth during the show. We handed out 3,000 blinking guitar pins in two days. At the party, we had 400 guests who have given us nothing but positive feedback.
Check out examples of everything below:
Hard Rock Party Landing Page: http://www.netqos.com/seo_promo/hardrock/
Flickr Photos Page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/netqos/
T-shirts:
Front:
Back:
Guitar Pins:
Backstage Passes:
Leveraging Current Customers at a Tradeshow - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #122
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008Guest blogger, Andrea Stout shared some great ideas Monday on Getting More Traffic to your Trade Show Booth. I want to add one more - leverage your current customers. Generally your current customers will be attending the same events as your prospects. If you can convince a few to be evangelists for you, they will be more impactful than your best sales reps.
A colleague of mine had great success at a tradeshow last year. The messaging at the booth was all about being power driven which is also their company tagline. Each one of her customer evangelists wore a button that said “I am Power-Driven” while all employees wore “Ask Me How You Can Be Power-Driven.” They tripled the amount of booth traffic from the year before.
Here are a few things you might want to keep in mind when planning to use current customers at a tradeshow:
- Plan ahead - Ask your sales reps and account mangers to find out if any of your best customers will be at the show. Consider inviting a few to be your guest. A customer advisory board is a great resource, if you have one.
- Ask in advance - Most people will be flattered that you asked. Do not wait til you see them on the show floor to ask.
- Set expectations - Make sure that your customers know exactly what will be expected of them. Do you just want them to just sing your praises or will they need to be able to answer questions from prospects.
- Integrate with your overall theme - If you have a theme or specific message for your booth be sure the customers enhance and add to your overall objectives.
- Give them something to wear - Ask your customer to wear a button, hat or shirt so that attendees can find them. Like in the example above, this does not have to be your logo - being different is a conversation starter.
- Thank your customers - Cocktail parties, dinner or a gift at the show are a few ideas. When you ask them to be an evangelist, let them know how they will be thanked
Another idea is to include your current customers at any parties you might be throwing during the show. This can be a more comfortable environment that on the show floor. We all have a few customers that just could never be satisfied. Check with Sales and Account Management to be sure that everyone you are inviting is a happy customer.
Top 10 Ways to Get Booth Traffic at a Tradeshow - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #121
Monday, July 14th, 2008Written by Andrea Stout, ReachForce Customer and Event Marketer at NetQoS
Pam recently blogged about how to use after hours events to drive booth traffic and buzz at your trade shows. Today, I want to share my tricks for getting the most traffic to your booth.
- Know your audience - Study their likes and dislikes. This will help you select giveaways and presentation topics.
- Offer good content - Attendees love getting tips and best practices so focus on creating interesting and educational theater presentations.
- Market your presentations - Do you have a speaking slot at the show? Are you giving presentations in your booth? Design a business card that contains your presentation topic and timeslot and place it into the badge holder of the attendee you scan.
- Build brand awareness - Have your logo printed on stickers and place them on the badge of the attendee. Everyone will see it. I have also seen exhibitors place temporary tattoos on booth visitors.
- Don’t hand out junk - The best giveaways are those that can be kept on an office desk or given to children. Anything that has an LED light and flashes is popular right now.
- Show them the way - I’ve found that buying advertising space in conference guide rarely works. About 5% of our traffic is driven from bag inserts. Don’t waste your money – place good signage throughout your booth instead.
- Play music - Before you begin a theater presentation, play music. The sound will attract people from nearby booths.
- Shoot video - Take a Flip camera to your booth. Add the video you capture in your booth to YouTube – this will help you in search engine rankings.
- Location, Location, Location - Real estate is prime on the exhibit floor. Try to get a space close to the entrance as the attendees must walk by you to enter and exit the show floor. Stay away from your competitors and try to get a booth near your partners so you can get referrals. If you’re in a small 10×10 space, make sure to get a corner spot. Your booth will get lost if you are boxed in between other exhibitors.
- Feed them - It sounds so simple, but it works. Any time you can place a bowl of candy, a bucket of bottled water, or any other snacks in your booth – do it!
Develop an Integrated Theme for Trade Shows - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #118
Monday, July 7th, 2008One of the greatest challenges for event marketers is standing out from other booths at a trade show. The obvious way is to have the biggest badest booth in the expo hall, but with tightening budgets, spending more may not be an option. A more low-cost approach is to have a theme.
Here at ReachForce, we have a history of getting attention (mostly good) at DreamForce, salesforce.com’s annual user group conference. Each year we have a different, fully integrated theme to help attract more booth visitors. Last year our theme was Let’s Make a Deal (you know the old game show hosted by Monty Hall).
If you don’t remember the game show, I’ll give you a quick rundown. Monty Hall, the host, bartered with contestants dressed in costume and would allow them to choose their prize from behind one of three curtains or from one of several envelopes. The contestants always had an opportunity to trade in their prize for another mystery prize.
We decided to play Let’s Make a Deal to drive more booth traffic and engage attendees. If you attended DreamForce last year, you may remember seeing Fred and Wilma Flintstone; that was us. Fred and Wilma walked the floor handing out envelopes with $1 bills and told attendees that they could trade in their envelope for a chance to win much more at the ReachForce booth. Those of us working the booth were in costume as well (yes, I was Little Bo Peep). Booth visitors could then play a game of Let’s Make a Deal. To do so they had to take a demo of our latest software offering.
In the end, we reached all of our goals for capturing leads and gave more demos than expected. And people still remember us. One lesson learned was to consider who you are putting in costume. Our sales guy had more than a few people tell him they just could not take him seriously while he was dressed as Fred Flintstone. Be sure to draw attention but not at the cost of distracting from your message.
Different areas where you might consider incorporating a theme:
- Pre-show promotion
- Post-show follow-up
- Giveaways
- Costumes
- Booth signage
