How Do I Prepare for My First Trade Show?
This is part 2 of our trade show video podcast for first time exhibitors. You’ll learn about how to prepare to be an exhibitor, how to get the most out of an exhibition, as well as the honest truth - the good, the bad, and the ugly of managing your company’s trade show participation.
In part 1, Krishaan Khubchand, founder of Trade Show Edge, and I discussed why you should pay attention to tradeshow marketing, when it makes sense, when it doesn't, and how to run an effective tradeshow exhibition. This 101-level video podcast is perfect for anyone new to trade show management and marketing responsibilities.
Transcript
(To read from the beginning, visit part 1.)
Krishaan Khubchand: OK, interesting. So, I guess to a certain extent what we've just discussed is mega strategy surrounding trade show investment decisions. Right?
A lot of your book also contains just immense kind of level of insight on the essentially 3 stages of the trade show, right? You mentioned it's not just the two days, it's the before the trade show itself. We've just spoken about selection but there's also questions of kind of pre-marketing process as a whole. There's the during trade show kind of tactics that one may have to ensure maybe you're targeting the right people, you kind of look at those conversations and then this post trade show, those 3 months afterwards.
I'm wondering if we could spend a few minutes on each of those sections and you could kind of share some of the insights or even examples, case study, stories as it relates to what people can kind of, you know integrate into their own brains as they're thinking about how can we as a company or how can I as a CMO do better when it comes to this part specifically of trade show marketing?
Sound good?
Lisa M. Masiello: And that's what you have to think of. You have to think of it as three distinct parts. And that's why when I was putting the book together, I thought I really need to separate it into those different sections.
So I put a little list together for you.
Krishaan Khubchand: Oh, very nice. Let's go.
Lisa M. Masiello: So as you said, we have pre-show, we have onsite at the show, and then we have post-show activities. So pre-show, and most of the things that I want to talk about and to help people with is either saving money or saving time, or those sorts of things.
So the first one is about the pre-registered attendee list. So, this is chapter 8 in the book. So, here's book, Trade Show 411, and this is chapter 8. It's quite common, once you become an exhibitor to receive as part of your exhibitor package the pre-show or pre-registered attendee list. So these are people who have come to the show website and have already registered to attend the event. And you will you, you may. I shouldn't say you will be given this, but it is made available at many trade shows and it's free information. It's a free database of people who have already raised their hand and said I'm coming to this show.
Use that list. Yes, you should use your list of the people in your database but these are people who are going to be there.
So, use that. Send them emails. Mark it to them. Call them and talk to them about what you were doing at the show and invite them to come to your booth. They're going to be there. So it's a terrible waste if you don't use that list.
So that's the first thing.
Krishaan Khubchand: You showed me the book. So, I've got my notes that I was taking whilst kind of having conversation. But here I have like the Trade Show 411 book as well on my Kindle, which is right next to my notebook as I was obviously listening but anyways, continue.
Lisa M. Masiello: So the second thing I would say on the pre-show tips is chapter 12, submit an abstract to speak at the show.
See, there are two reasons why people go to the show. They go to see all of the exhibitors and to see what new products and what new services are offered across the industry. But they also go to be educated, to listen to the presentations, to listen to the keynote speakers and those sorts of things. To be educated and informed on what's going on and learn new things that they can take back to their office or to their home.
And so often a trade show will open, sometimes a year, but I would say within nine months of the show, they will open their call for speakers. They may put a page on their website that says, “Our next show is going to be taking place on these dates. We are going to focus our educational sessions on these topics. If you happen to be an expert in any of these topics, we would love to have you speak at our event. Please fill out this form and tell us what you would like to speak about. Maybe give us 3 bullets on what you will teach the attendees that come and see your presentation, and in many cases this is free to exhibitors and even sometimes to non-exhibitors. If you want to speak but you don't want to be an exhibitor. And if they select your presentation, they'll give you a presentation slot. If it's a popular topic, they might even give you 2 presentations slots and the attendees will come and see you. You give your presentation and you really position yourself and your business as an industry expert, as a leader, someone that these people should talk to. And so often you know, when I've spoken at trade shows, people have come up to me after the presentation and said that was a great presentation. I learned so much. What's your booth number? And could I stop by and chat further? And you can also use that as a marketing opportunity. You really shouldn't use a speaking opportunity to sell, sell, sell. It's your job to educate, educate, educate. But at the end of the presentation you could say just for those of you who came to my presentation, we're going to be offering you twenty-five percent discount if you stop by our booth this afternoon or maybe you sell software as a service and you say, you know, if you stop by our booth during the show and you say that you attended my presentation, we'll give you 3 months of free service or something like that. So that's another opportunity for you to generate traffic into your booth and get more of these attendees to not only see you as an expert but to stop by your booth as well.
And again, it's a free opportunity that people really should take advantage of.
Krishaan Khubchand: I like the educate, educate, educate framework as well and I think that's incredibly important.
Lisa M. Masiello: Absolutely. And if you're abstract that you fill out at the beginning, if it appears to the judging committee, because there's usually a judging committee who determines what presentations will be at the show. If they get any inkling that you're going to be selling during the presentation, they won't accept your abstract because that's not what you're there for. You're there to educate the attendees.
So, let me see, the next section is on-site tips. So what are some of the things that we should remember when we are at the show? One thing, and I always mention this because it caused me so much grief at the beginning of my trade show career, my exhibitor career: You have to understand that the fact, and this is getting very technical now. We’re sort of getting into the weeds here a little bit.
Shipping and drayage are two different things, and if you don't know that they're two different things, you could really do a number on your budget and really blow your budget out of the water.
So shipping is what you do when you send your trade show booth and all of your materials and your carpet and those sorts of things, when you send it from your company or your exhibit house to the show. Then while you're at the show, the show decorator, the show organizer, they will bring your materials from the advanced warehouse to the hall.
If you have any packages that you sent directly to the hall, any FedEx packages or anything like that, if you need more literature and you call your office and say, hey, send us some more literature because we’ve run out. Any things that they bring to your booth, that's drayage. And when your booth gets packed up when the show's over and it gets taken to the loading dock for shipping, that's also drayage.
So in your budget, when you're preparing your trade show budget, you have to have a shipping line item and a drayage line item because there are two different things. And I didn't do that. So when my boss said how much is the shipping going to be?
I told her how much the shipping was going to be but I didn't have a drayage line item, so I went over budget for that line item about $2500.
So it can be a very costly expense if you're not prepared for it so I always include that one.
The next one is, when we're talking about on site at the show, don't forget your existing customers. So often we go to trade shows, as I said, to generate leads to bring on new prospects and new customers, but we forget our existing customers. Show your customers some love, especially if you have customers that you know buy your products and services over the Internet that you never see or you very rarely see.
If you if you have a trade show, let's say in New York City, and you have some customers in New York, you might want to send your salesperson, if your salesperson is going to be in the booth anyway, send them out a day ahead of time and have them go and visit those customers, or set up a dinner one night during the trade show and invite your customers from that area. Or rent a hospitality suite and invite them to come over. Show your existing customers some love.
It's also an opportunity for the marketing department, you know, videos and video marketing is so important nowadays. So set up an area where you can interview your customers and have them talk about how great your company is, how wonderful your products and services are and those sorts of things. So don't forget your existing customers.
And then we move on to the post-show activities. So, as I said before, and sometimes it can be a little bit funny, but it's absolutely true, follow up on those leads.
Don't stick them in your bag and forget about them. You know you went there to generate leads. Now follow up and close those leads and turn them into customers.
So, maybe send out an e-mail after the show to all of the leads that you generated. First e-mail, have a picture of the booth because we see so many booths at the show that we forget when a company sends us an e-mail after the show, “what did they have? What did their booth look like? I don't remember.”
Send them an e-mail, put a picture of your booth and your booth staff in the e-mail, and just thank them. “We had such a wonderful time exhibiting at this show. We so enjoyed meeting everybody. We wanted to let you know that the drawing that we had for this product, we're so excited to tell you that Joe Smith from XYZ Company won this. We had a great time and we hope you did too.”
Then a few days later they get another e-mail. It's a little bit more salesy. And it has the name of a salesperson. So, the emails are getting a little bit more salesy and then we start calling. So, the salesperson, this is a great opportunity because now with your initial e-mail you've warmed up the prospect or the lead.
And then they remember, “Oh, I remember that company.” And then the salesperson calls and it's a much more warm call because he can say, hey, you know, this is Joe Smith from XYZ company and we were so happy to have you visit our booth at the show, we wanted to tell you about some of the great things that we're doing now and the new products that we have coming out and we'd love to set up a time to meet further with you. So, it's a process and we can't forget to manage those leads and close those leads successfully.
And then the last one is to analyze that ROI. You know you can't go to your salespeople and say, well, how did you think the show went? And the salespeople say, “Oh, it was great” or “You know, it wasn't really that great.”
That's not the answer to how the show went. The answer is you need to sit down, and how many leads did we generate? How many leads did we close? What was our original estimated budget? What was our final budget? And all of those things. So, you really have to do a post-show analysis of how successful the show was.
If it was successful, great, do more of it. Participate and do more of it next year. And if it wasn't as successful as you thought, then maybe you participate in another show. You do things differently, but you won't know how successful it was unless you do the analysis. You know, on what happened at the show?
So, these are my tips.
Krishaan Khubchand: What a tremendous wealth of knowledge. I can imagine listeners kind of writing these things down or they could buy the book after the episode and hopefully applying some of these best practices. Phenomenal ideas.
Lisa M. Masiello: Thank you.
Krishaan Khubchand: So I feel like now that we've touched upon the direct tips, I'm curious, as we're trying to seek more color and some more examples and maybe kind of enhance our creativity here, are there any specific case studies that you would be able to kind of share of companies doing a great job, creatively or pragmatically, in kind of maximizing their kind of trade show success. So, like any just stories and just so to know what it looks like when a company is kind of just hitting it out of the park when it comes to trade shows and what the results of that tend to be as well.
Lisa M. Masiello: You know it really comes back to one thing that we've been talking about the whole time. It really comes back to you need to understand the pre-show activities, the on-site activities and the post show activities and really manage them through the process.
So, you've worked with your management team back home at corporate and you have thought about why you're going to the show, what your booth is going to look like, what your messaging is, and what your collateral looks like and those sorts of things.
Then based on that, you've taken your pre-registered list and you've marketed to those people and said we're going to be at the show come and stop by and talk to us about specific product or come and put your name in for this drawing or whatever the case may be.
Then you may have an evening reception that you host, or you may sponsor a keynote presentation.
You do social media to promote the fact that you're going to the show. So it's, I don't want to say that the shows that stand out to me are the ones with the biggest booths or the most flashy booths or those sorts of things. It's the companies and the people who have understood the individual elements of a trade show and implemented them effectively.
And that may not be a sexy answer, but that's the real answer.
Krishaan Khubchand: It's a pragmatic answer. It gets to the core. So then maybe moving away from the pragmatic answers to the more kind of story-esque answers. I think when we first spoke, you shared a story of a trade show adjacent event that impacted the trade show itself, if you recall what I'm going to here.
I love if you can share that with the audience. Just so they know that it's not just about the kind of core trade show itself, but there's activity surrounding it. You mentioned, for example, customer visits, but also other such things that maybe get us out of the frame of direct ROI and get to see our industries as places where other humans kind of exist as well.
Lisa M. Masiello: Absolutely. And that's really why we want to go to trade shows. You know, the trade show industry took a huge hit over the last few years with COVID. And so now everyone is going back to trade shows because they want that human interaction.
So, the key shows that I remember most have absolutely nothing to do with the booth. They are the ones that really touched my heart or made me think about activities that happened outside of the booth area. So, the one, when anybody asked me this type of question, the one that immediately comes to my mind and it was so long ago it was, I think it was in 2009, but I remember it to this day.
Back in 2006, Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, Louisiana, and it just devastated the city. And a couple of years, two or three years later I went to a Microsoft conference. They decided that, you know, New Orleans was ready to hold another trade show. And so Microsoft had their large partner program trade show in the New Orleans Convention Center.
And I think what they started, I'm not sure actually if Microsoft started it, but certainly they started the idea and more and more trade shows today have usually a day or two before the show begins, they have what they call their day of giving.
At that time, you know, even three years after the Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was still rebuilding, and so Microsoft decided that they would ask attendees and exhibitors if you would be willing to join us because Microsoft partnered with Habitat for Humanity, which is an American organization that goes around the country and builds homes for people. And so they said we have partnered with them and we are going to go to an area of New Orleans, to a specific neighborhood, and we are going to help Habitat for Humanity build houses while we are here.
And also, there were a couple of schools that they were rehabbing, and they were painting and putting new landscaping outside and those kinds of things. So, they said if you would like to join us on our day of giving, you can decide if you would like to join us in building homes or if you would like to go to one of the schools to paint or to plant bushes and flowers and things like that.
And so, I joined with Habitat for Humanity. We got in our buses and we were driven over to this neighborhood and you know, I hammered nails and I painted and I did anything that needed to be done for the day.
And it was one of the most memorable things that I have done at a trade show. And so you think, well what does that have to do with the trade show in selling, but you take the bus to the activity and you're sitting with other exhibitors and other attendees?
And you're working together in in the hot sun all day. And you get talking about who you are and who you work for and what you do. And you know, you tell people about products and services that you offer, and they say, “Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know something like that existed. What's your booth number? I'll stop by tomorrow and we can chat further.”
And so you know it's the human interaction that happens around those other activities that are often outside of the Expo hall that are successful and the ones you remember the most.
Krishaan Khubchand: That's wonderful. I love that very much. The investment firm that work at, Sturgeon Capital, and we had the AGM. In March we went to Georgia, and it was tremendously fun to go, but we went skiing with people who were part of the kind of startup ecosystem, investing ecosystem, in those regions and it was, yeah, as mentioned, just like, you know, the camaraderie that comes from an activity, obviously skiing is more indulgent. Significantly more indulgent than like you guys were doing, but nonetheless I think that, you know, memorable events that get us out of the office in that way are just so tremendously important. For once, just being human. But two, they have those meaningful knock-on effects on the business side as well and I think the world with more of that is a world that is better.
Lisa M. Masiello: And it's the human interaction, because, you know, even when you're in your booth, you're walking down the aisle and you still, even though you see people in the booth, you still have this sort of mindset of the company as opposed to the people within the company. And so these activities give us an opportunity to meet each other one-on-one and develop that personal relationship before we ever start talking about the business or the products or those sorts of things.
Krishaan Khubchand: Definitely, and that tends to be the kind of seed and foundation for longer term collaborations, partnerships and such, not just kind of sales relationships, but also maybe longer-term sales relationships as well. So, it's incredibly important.
I will ask the final question regarding trade shows and then ask a kind of personal question towards the end which I think you'll enjoy.
And that is, zooming out of it and thinking about the organizations that are involved in the trade show industry, you mentioned the kind of exhibitors manual such guide, which contains essentially a list of service providers and other such folks says for example, the people who actually arrange the trade show themselves. There's the location of the trade show. There are people who may do marketing services related to trade shows. I'm curious, if you kind of were to describe the kind of orchestra of it all, this is more from a kind of curiosity perspective, who are all of the different players that can like what is a map of the different players that exist when it comes to making trade shows happen and, you know, if you have one or two kind of examples of companies to take a look at or learn about or kind of research on that. We'd love to hear about that as well.
Lisa M. Masiello: Well, you're right. There are so many different players and so that's what an exhibit or a new exhibitor has to sort of figure out and try and see who all these people are. So you have the show organizer. Well, you have the Expo Hall or the Convention Center - so the people that run the Convention.
Then you have the show management, so those are the people who are in charge of the show and running the show and marketing to the exhibitors, getting the exhibitors to come getting the attendees to come and those sorts of things.
Then you have the show decorator. So the show decorator is the one that goes down onto the expo floor and they map out where the booths are going to physically be located. They have the staff that will help you if you need to have your booth installed and dismantled. You submit your paperwork to them and they will help you do that. Then you have a number of different vendors. You don’t have to use all of their vendors. You can use any vendors you choose for different services like plants and furniture and all of those things. But those vendors have been pre-selected by the Expo Hall and the show organizer. And so it's just easier, especially if you're less experienced. It's easier to use those vendors so you will have the electricity vendor and you'll have the furniture rental vendor and you'll have the plant vendor and you'll have all of these other vendors, the photographer that will come and take pictures of your booth.
And one key point is that because there are so many different vendors, it's very important for you to remember that you should set up your booth in a specific order. We didn't talk about this and we probably don't have time to talk about it, but you need to look at all of those vendors that you're working with and make sure that you have those vendors coming to your booth and delivering whatever they need to deliver in a specific order. That's very important.
So, it's a juggling act and the companies that do it well are the ones again that know their exhibitors and know the needs of their exhibitors? Because if an exhibitor doesn't feel that they are being heard by the show organizer, they won't exhibit again.
Krishaan Khubchand: Well, I appreciate that. I think as you alluded to the end, it really is a kind of mass act of choreography that has to go into it and I feel like you genuinely given people, if it is choreography, some great dance moves so they can kind of, you know, give different participants in the dance to make a kind of wonderful performance.
So, final thing is that your writing and track record obviously points to broader purposes than purely mastering trade shows, although I think it's very exciting. You're on the board for the Girl Scouts and you're the chair for the Center for Women and Enterprise, and you also write quite a lot on personal growth. And so given that, I'd love it if you could share perhaps a story or an idea that has impacted you as it relates to giving back to others purpose, personal growth. Would love just like any other kind of thing that is in that realm that comes to mind before ending the episode. Anything that inspires you.
Lisa M. Masiello: I think it starts with, as we talked at the beginning, it started when I started my business and it wasn't something that I thought of one day and then the next day I just started my business. It was something that I had thought about for many, many years and had wanted to do so, I thought when I started the business that I had all the answers and I knew exactly what I was going to do and you know you, you learn very quickly that you don't have all the answers.
You know, overtime, as I let myself go and I sort of humbled myself and said I need help or I don't know the answer to this, so many people helped me and I was grateful they were free in their sharing their knowledge. And I was so grateful for that.
And then over time as I've grown my business, I've also had an opportunity to work with different organizations like the Center for Women and Enterprise. And I've been invited to meet with women from different countries around the world to talk about women in business and the challenges that women in other countries face when starting to or thinking about starting a business.
And you know whether it's giving back to women who are earlier on their journey than I am or it's, anyone who says I'm thinking about starting a business. What should I do? Or I'm new in marketing can you give me any advice? You know, I'm happy to share. I have, throughout my career I have had people who have shared their knowledge and their expertise with me. And so, you know, it's time for me to do the same.
Krishaan Khubchand: Wonderful. Well, on that note, I really appreciate you sharing that expertise with us in the last hour, Lisa, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Lisa M. Masiello: Thank you so much. Krish, you have a good day.
