Measurement Tip 20

Six Straight Forward Steps for Banner Trade Show and Event Marketing Results in 2013

Can you believe it? It’s show time in 2013!  As you read this, many of you are already on the show floor, enthusiastic that your event marketing program will be a success this year. That success rests largely on how effective your plans are for each show.

Here are six simple steps that will prepare exhibit managers and their extended teams to deliver the increased performance and measurable results their companies are looking for through effective planning:

Planning for Success - Exhibitors who come to the show with a good plan will capitalize on the rich business opportunities and achieve good results in marketing, sales, business process enhancements and profit improvement.  Planning for each event must begin with enough lead time to implement the plan.  Some shows require planning as much as one year in advance, or more.  Most shows and events require planning to begin three to six months in advance.

The planning process should foster and support internal discussions with the extended event teams and expand planning participation to others who should be involved.  Here are the six sequential planning concepts that you should include in your process:

1. Set Realistic Business Improvement Objectives - Map out a broad set of goals for each show. Include an array of business development and marketing communications goals.  Address activities and accomplishments in each of the three event phases: a) pre-event, b) at event and c) post-event.  Identify the most important accomplishments and top measures of success at each event.

(See my blog post “Value is A Lot More Than Leads…” http://constellationcc.blogspot.com/2012/03/value-is-lot-more-than-leads-how-to.html for a deeper explanation and examples). 

2. Target Market Identification, Attraction and Content Mapping Should Be the First Elements of the Plan - Targeting activity allows exhibitors to correctly identify the attractive, high-value targets available through participation in a show or event and to match their products and messages to each targeted audience. This activity will also greatly improve the quality of visitors and produce more, well-qualified leads.  

3. Develop Effective Messaging and Communications Plans – Weak or ineffective messaging is one of the most common reasons for event marketing failure. There are specific requirements of trade show and marketing event messages that must be studied and well executed in order for your program to work.  Communications must span the periods before, during and after the show using a variety of traditional and new digital and social media tools to facilitate post-event activity among sales ready leads. Additionally, the various media available through event activity must produce the maximum exposure practical from show participation. This includes managing the press opportunity and generation of press results associated with the event. 

4. Combine Elements 1 – 3 into a Cohesive Plan – This plan should pull everything together into an interactive planning format that aids in team coordination and communication over the ensuing weeks before the show.  It must also set proper expectations with upper management.  The plan document is quite often a PowerPoint deck that is updated and presented weekly or bi-weekly on a planning call for the extended team.

The event plan should address the qualitative objectives of the company and business units, as well as quantitative elements of performance and effectiveness.  Use the four elements of payback, revenue development, revenue retention, cost reduction and value of promotion to detail value and the key performance measures to detail exhibit, staff and program effectiveness.  (See Measurement Tip 7 http://constellationcc.blogspot.com/2011/12/measurement-tip-7.html).

5. Brief and Train Your Staff on the Plan and Effective Visitor Engagement and Management Skills – Pre-show training and briefings may be any combination of on-line and live presentations on the knowledge and skills necessary to execute the plan. The exhibit manager must ensure the staff is properly trained on effective visitor engagement, qualification, management, presentation and demonstration delivery and the commitment skills necessary to convert visitors into sales ready leads. 

6. Measure and Report Your Results - Obtaining and reporting your results should be as straight forward as evaluating and documenting your activities “According to Plan” using the elements of the five elements above. If consistent measures (and plans) are used for each show and event, the entire event program may be evaluated on an event by event basis and as a whole. Comparison of one event to another, and to future events under consideration, is possible when your results are consistently reported.

(See the case study “How Trade Shows Can Influence Executive Perceptions, Positively Influence Financial Markets & Gain Top-Level Visibility for Event Managers” http://constellationcc.blogspot.com/2010/11/case-study-how-trade-shows-can.html  for more insight on managing executive perceptions.) 

2013 is a great year to refine your planning process and to implement an event marketing measurement program if you have not already done so.  We wish you great success in 2013 and please feel free to call upon us with questions or needs.   

To get started on your event marketing measurement needs, please email us today at edjones@constellationcc.com or call us +1.770.391.0015.

Ed Jones

President, Constellation Communication

Measurement Tip 19

What are the Best Event Marketing Strategies for a Tepid Economy?

...How Events Can Help Solve Problems and How You Might Increase Your Own Value to the Company in the Process

2013 will bring with it many unanswered questions and by most accounts a tepid economic forecast (see the table at the bottom of this article). Most likely you are now working on aligning your event marketing activities to cover as many bets as possible, in many cases with lower budgets. Several event and trade show marketing questions are raised:

• “What event marketing goals are most important for our company to achieve at this time?” 
• “What changes can we make that will at least maintain, if not increase, our results?”
• “Are we in the right events for the circumstances?”
• "Where and how do we make cuts if necessary?"

Smart event marketing managers are making recommendations for program changes that will protect their companies.  For example, customer relationship management and revenue retention activities are of highest priority right now. Just ask your CFO! Are you prepared to make the right recommendations for your company for 2013?

We usually think of event marketing in terms of market share, new leads and revenue for the company.  When the economy is sluggish and new business is harder to find, several factors come into play.  First, we know cost control becomes a major issue.  “New revenue" from new customers often comes at a high cost, not only to sell but to fulfill. 

For many companies, existing customers are the greatest source of profit because they are the easiest and least expensive to serve and are the most likely to be sold in the future.  So, when things are tight, smart companies cling even more to their existing business. CFO’s in survival mode know that expensive sales and marketing campaigns to attract business might not be profitable right away, especially under under restricted budgets. Keeping existing customers is essential. 

How Events Can Provide Solutions 

Events provide a way to reach large numbers of people at once, for a variety of reasons, at a relatively low cost. Remember, the purpose of an event is to motivate people to act in a way that benefits the host. Here are a few ideas to consider organized generally by the main elements of marketing event value.

Revenue Retention and Customer Relationship Management

Providing your customers, prospects and others with access to your executives is a sure fire way to protect business and cement deals for new business. The savings from putting fifty or more customers and prospects in front of your executives in just a few days could reach hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings per event.

• You should strongly consider aiming events at existing customers to protect and grow their business. Customer meetings at trade shows, and user and customer conferences produce results in near term sales and reduce service costs for companies that know how to plan and run them correctly.

See the Case Study "What is Your Conference Worth to Your Company”

                   http://constellationcc.com/case_studies.htm

• Executive level customer conferences can create a platform where the top executives from your best accounts come together with your executives to collaborate on mutually beneficial solutions for dealing with an economic downturn. Executive to executive interaction is the most effective way to cement a business relationship.  These meetings may also be hosted in a trade show conference room.

Revenue Generation   
     
Few companies want to totally stop their pursuit of new business and new market share. When economics dictate a reduction in sales force or sales expense, your events can provide a cost alternative for reaching large numbers of potential buyers. 

• Be sure your exhibit experience results in qualified people experiencing the equivalent of a full sales call.

• Private events, i.e. those you host yourself, can be staged in locations close to your targeted accounts.  These events may be perceived by customers and prospects as an opportunity to find specific solutions for dealing with their needs.

•  A good multi-city road show can reduce field sales cost and be the marketing equivalent of a tent revival.

Public events often suffer from lower attendance during an economic downturn. In some cases, the absences are among lower level, less important participants who are not required to be there. As a result the remaining audience may be richer in targets and less expensive to reach.

Cost Reduction, Saving the Company Money

Events can save your company money when it is most needed. Face-to-face meetings reduce the cost of field sales because the prospects and customers have paid their own way to meet with you. 

Broaden your idea of who may be a "target" to include suppliers and alliances. Interactions with these targets reduce the cost of materials or logistics and contribute directly to the survival of the business.

• Host (see) fewer, more valuable people at a lower cost.  Change your pre-event target marketing strategy to focus on “high probability” and “high value” contacts.  Focus your resources on fewer people to whom your company can most likely sell the most profitable offerings.  In many cases, they might be existing customers. 

• Use the reduction in expected visitors to cut your space and resources.  A small private event may be more efficient than a large public one.  Meeting rooms in the exhibit or off the show floor may be your best investment.

• Handle your existing business volume with fewer people by holding customer conferences, training sessions and support activities conference style perhaps in association with large public events such as an industry tradeshow.  Customer education is a great sales strategy.

• Hold internal meetings around marketing events.  Put executives, product experts, sales management and sales team, even channels, from various geographies together for meetings that reduce future travel and meeting cost.  This can amount to a huge cost savings for the company. Utilize presentations, demonstrations and conference facilities to maximum benefit. For example, hold product training for the sales team using the presentation or demos in the exhibit during off hours.

Promotion Value

Many events provide fertile press opportunities and communications resources such as press briefing facilities, scheduled access to press, distribution of press materials, media and communication technology and more. 

• Use a major industry event to launch a new offering using the event press facilities and resources in place of hiring your own in another place.

• Events with a rich incidence of targeted individuals present may offer a more cost effective opportunity than does advertising in trade publications to introduce a new offer or position products.

• Plan to generate “free press” at every event where by proactively managing the opportunity.

Tighten Up Your Approach

How you approach marketing events should be different compared to how your company normally conducts business at trade shows:

• It is even more essential to identify, by company and title, if not name, everyone at an upcoming event who can improve your results.  These include not only customers and prospects, but suppliers, partners, channels, influencers, regulators, etc.

• Next, contact and arrange pre-scheduled, face- to- face meetings with those targeted individuals to discuss mutually beneficial approaches to dealing with a slow economy.

• Attract and consistently "brief" targeted individuals who visit your stand. If you are able to accomplish the equivalent of an important sales call with targeted individuals in your booth, you will reduce your cost of sale.

• You must have a specific outcome (one of the most important steps in the sales funnel) in mind for these targets, and you must get them to commit to participate.  The step must be valuable for them and focus on improvement of their business results.

• This approach fills the sales funnel with prospects committed to a step in the sales process, ones that may not be coming from a reduced sales force and may help to lower the cost of doing business.

Selecting the Right Events and “Right-Sizing” Investments  

Another clear source of cost efficiency is tailoring the investments you make in each event to the associated sales opportunity.  Even in good times we consistently find about 30% of event marketing expenditures should be reapplied to more productive investments.  Also, your legacy schedule of shows and events may not be the best mix for these economic times.  And even for events that are on target, your tactics might need to be changed.  

If your company revises the sales forecast in terms of products or geographies, the event schedule should be reconsidered as well.

Comparing events against a performance standard such as a payback ratio and “cost per” indexes (e.g. cost per visitor, cost per engaged visitor or lead and cost per square foot), will allow you to rank events from best to worst.  This will tell you a great deal about which events should be scrutinized for budget reductions.

A Real World Example

Due to market conditions a major client preemptively implemented a 40% reduction on the cost of their largest and most important show. We applied considerable effort to revise facilities design, devise a new visitor management plan and develop specific staff skills to deal with a very different approach. Thanks to a successful targeted invitation process, accomplishments in attendance, meetings, documented impact on relationship management, business development and virtually all other key measures were comparable to those obtained previously. This company was cited in industry press and among their peers for having figured out in advance how to make the most of the unfavorable market conditions. Similar changes have been applied across their entire show schedule for the remainder of this show cycle.

What to Do Right Now 

Talk to your sales and customer support executives about how carefully chosen events could help your company deal with the restraints associated with the current economic climate.  Get them on board.

Frame your planning opportunities in terms of impact on company profitability, i.e. Revenue Retention, Revenue Growth, Cost Reductions and Communications or Promotion Value.  Change your plans accordingly.

Evaluate, compare and rank your current shows and events. “Right-size" your investments in budget, staff, exhibit size, properties and other expenditures for the circumstances for each event.  Target changes in event marketing activities that will pay off.  Make the adjustments now.

Your importance to the company is about to rise rapidly.

Ed Jones

If you need assistance with your event marketing measurement program, please give me a call at +1.770.391.0015 or email me edjones@constellationcc.com

Or Click here to make a request for contact!

Measurement Tip 18

What Does Success Look Like?

Characteristics of a Very Successful Trade Show Marketing Program

A client recently asked me to detail the characteristics of the company’s trade show program that set it apart from others in their industry.  I was happy to oblige, as this client’s trade show marketing program is exemplary by comparison to most programs in all industry segments.  Their differentiators are ones that most companies strive to achieve so I am sharing these as a checklist that you might use to evaluate your own progress and the sophistication of your program. 

My conclusions on what makes this program special and effective are based upon more than twenty-five years of trade show observation and analysis, including hundreds of shows and thousands of companies.  And, our expert knowledge of this client’s program comes from supporting their program strategy, measurement and reporting for the past five plus years.

 Successful Trade Show and Event Marketing Program Differentiators

This program demonstrates:

1.    An extremely well-balanced mix of business development and marketing communication goals and accomplishments

2.    A very high degree of executive visibility, participation and support

3.    Direct linkage to sales activity and accomplishment

a.    Geographically aligned with marketing and sales priorities

b.    Sales team documented impact on project proposal achievements and customer and partner relationship management

4.    Well integrated press, advertising, PR activities

a.    Superior results compared to competitors at virtually every show in terms of the amount of press generated, the priority focus and tonality of generated press results through trade show participation

5.    Maximum use of Brand Development and marketing communications opportunities in the exhibit, venues and show sites, as well as advertising and digital media expansion to the broader marketplace.

a.    Campaigns, properties, demonstrations and digital and social media are exemplary in their integration of branding and product and service promotion and marketing communications

6.    Confidence among virtually the entire team, including sales and executive participants who concluded the combination of messaging, branding and key contact engagement environments provided an effective marketing opportunity.  (Substantiated by Staff and Stakeholder survey results.)

7.    A financially justified measurement and reporting program that supports show and event results reporting, event selection and “right-sizing” of budgets and resources to each show opportunity.

These accomplishments do not magically happen as a program matures.  It requires considerable attention to improving and refining the approach over a number of years.  Executive perception of the value derived from this program progressed from negative to positive, as demonstrated by these results.

Use this list as a quide for assessing your own programs weaknesses and strengths, and for setting goals or improvement targets.  You do not have to have a large program to persue these goals. For example, even a small exhibitor can make news and generate press if you have something interesting to say.

Please contact me if you would like to discuss this or other aspects of your event marketing program.

 

Ed Jones

President

Constellation Communication Corporation

+1.770.391.005
edjones@constellationcc.com