Chapter 12
Leveraging Face-to-Face Marketing Opportunities
In This Chapter
Making face-to-face marketing work for you
Supporting someone else’s special event
Creating your own events
Marketing in person at trade shows
There’s an old saying that goes like this: Half the secret of life is simply showing up. It may not be true in all aspects of life, but it certainly applies to marketing. To be a successful marketer you need to be where things are happening and make yourself and your brand visible and accessible to both prospective customers and others in your industry and community. If you’re not sure how to maximize your brand’s visibility, never fear. This chapter gives you the lowdown on making the most of face-to-face marketing opportunities for your current and prospective customers. (Face-to-face marketing describes all the many ways of having a personal impact on individuals and groups.)
Harnessing the Power of Face-to-Face Marketing
Face-to-face marketing has a personal, warm, human element to it that gives it special marketing leverage and considerable drawing power. Think of it as theater — a performance that entertains or stimulates people in a satisfying way (and sometimes includes people as participants, not just an audience).
The possibilities for face-to-face marketing are endless and varied, but no matter what you do, they should all attract people and hold their attention. After all, you need that attention to communicate and persuade as a marketer. The next sections help get you started making the most out of your face-to-face interactions with customers by highlighting some options you can try and by showing you how to keep marketing events interesting.
Considering your options
Face-to-face marketing can take a number of forms, which can be simplified by placing them into one of two categories: You may either participate in someone else’s event (such as a trade show) or stage your own event. Here are several ideas for face-to-face marketing that you may want to promote:
A trade show: Trade shows allow you to buy exhibitor space and get in front of a lot of prospects in a hurry. If you can’t afford booth space, plan to attend anyway and do plenty of informal networking. Remember: The more visible you are at your own industry events, the more customer attention and credibility you can generate. (See the later “Exhibiting at Trade Shows and Exhibitions” section for more.)
A client-appreciation event: A party aimed at entertaining and recognizing your customers can be a great way to strengthen relationships. If you invite a broad range of people, they may enjoy the event’s friendship and business networking opportunities.
A musical performance: Sponsoring a concert your customers and prospects might like, or organizing your own concert or other performance, can be a great way to draw a crowd and get a chance to mingle with prospects. For maximum marketing impact, add a food and/or beverage counter in the lobby along with a table or counter where you give out information and answer questions about your products or services.
A weekend at a golf resort for your top customers, along with prizes for the winning golfers — and everyone else, too: Many business-to-business marketers find that their prospects enjoy golf and find such events entertaining opportunities to socialize. Make sure your staff is visible and mingling during the event to maximize networking. (The later “Putting On Your Own Public Event” section offers ideas to help make your event manageable.)
A fundraising dinner for an important charity: Philanthropy is a great unifier, drawing people together and making them feel good about their contributions. Participate in or sponsor social events that benefit nonprofits, and you may find the brand visibility and networking opportunities worthwhile. (See the “Sponsoring a Special Event” section, later in this chapter, for direction on choosing an organization to get involved with.)
A community event, like a fair or children’s workshop: If you market to families, events that attract and entertain or educate children are a great opportunity for sponsorship and volunteering because they get you in front of your target audience in a positive way.
A community talent show: The idea is to think of creative events that attract publicity and draw crowds, raising your visibility and creating natural opportunities to meet and network.
A client advisory board: Invite a select group of good customers to join your advisory board and offer them quarterly dinners at a nice restaurant (private room recommended) in exchange for their input, feedback, and ideas.
A how-to or expert commentary video on your blog page: The Web can extend your face-to-face marketing by bringing your smiling face to prospects and other interested parties. However, a video isn’t interactive, so invite people to e-mail their questions to you.
A workshop in which you share your expertise or solve problems for participants: This workshop can be in person or it can be an interactive Web workshop. For example, if you own a store, you can bring in an expert and hold a day or weekend workshop. If you run a consulting firm, this advice may mean offering a special one-hour seminar, led by your principals, that’s accessible to all clients and prospects via the Web.
Whatever the business-oriented opportunity, remember that you’re still trying to attract and hold the attention of people, not businesses. You’re interested in the people in any business who make the purchase decisions. Corporations have only legal lives. They’re dead as doornails when it comes to marketing. So, above all, make sure your business-oriented events interest the people involved.
Avoiding boredom to ensure interesting events
If you’re planning your own event and want it to attract customer attention, keep in mind that it needs to be entertaining as well as professional and informative. Getting stuffy and businesslike is very easy, but no one really wants to sit through two days of lectures on the impact of new technologies in the industry. You’re better off offering optional, one-hour panel discussions on the topic, with a backbone of outdoor sports and recreation events or a visit to a nearby golf course. And yes, it’s true: Attendance is always high at conferences and other corporate events if you hold them in Las Vegas or any other venue that attracts tourists in high numbers.
Some events and sponsorships become staples that gain visibility and impact with each repetition. However, the majority of face-to-face events are one time only; don’t repeat them because they’ll fail to attract as much attention after people view them as outdated and their novelty has worn off. Creativity adds impact in face-to-face-marketing, just as it does in other aspects of your marketing program.
Sponsoring a Special Event
One great way to create face-to-face marketing opportunities is to sponsor a special event. (Think of event sponsorship as piggybacking on others’ investments.) The right special event — that is, an appropriate one that’s well publicized — is often many times more effective than a paid advertisement.
Sports get the biggest share of sponsorship spending (about 70 percent), but there are lots of other options too, including entertainment, tours, attractions, festivals, fairs, and the arts. To decide what sort of event is best for your marketing program, think about your customers and what events they like to go to or watch. If your product, service, or customer base is related to the arts, or if you happen to be interested in the arts, you may want to ignore sports events and sponsor the arts, leaving your competitors to compete over more costly sports sponsorships.
The following sections break down the four actions you should take if you’re considering sponsoring a special event. If you follow them, odds are your experience will be worthwhile.
Whatever special event you decide to sponsor, make sure you get a clear, detailed agreement in writing about where, how, and how often the event identifies your brand name. That identification is the return on your sponsorship investment. Too often sponsors end up complaining that they didn’t get as much good exposure as they expected, so make sure you and the event directors understand the exposure level upfront.
Know your options
Your first step when determining whether a sponsorship is a good idea is to look at all of your options. The more informed you are, the better a decision you can make. The following sources can help you discover and identify your options:
IEG: IEG is the International Events Group. It publishes a sourcebook listing many of the special event options out there, including just about every large-scale event. Check out www.sponsorship.com for more info. (Note: IEG’s emphasis is on U.S. sponsorship opportunities.)
Local chambers of commerce: Chambers offer lists of local events that may be the biggest things in town, even though you’ve never heard of them.
Organizations that seem like a good match with your product and customer base: These groups may know about or put on special events that are appropriate for your sponsorship. For example, if you market sports equipment, educational games, or other products for kids, you may want to call the National Basketball Association to see whether you can participate in one of its many events geared toward children (perhaps a Stay-in-School event featuring popular musicians and basketball stars?).
Schools and colleges: These institutions usually have a strong base of support in their communities, and some add a broader reach through their alumni, sports teams, prominent faculty, and the like. So try calling their public relations offices to see what kinds of events they have that may benefit from your sponsorship.
The Web: A number of Web-based companies now help you locate possible events to sponsor. For example, check out www.eventcrazy.com for hundreds of possibilities in everything from sports and the arts to reenactments and museum shows. At this site, you can enter your zip code and limit the distance away from your location if you want to find smaller, local events to sponsor.
Local television stations: Call the local television stations and ask them what local events they expect to cover in the coming year. These events are naturals for your sponsorship because television coverage makes the potential audience bigger.
Run the numbers
When deciding on a special event to sponsor, you need to be careful to choose one that reaches your target customers effectively. Carefully analyze the marketing impact of each candidate for sponsorship. Cut any from your list if their audiences aren’t a good match with your target market. You may also want to cut controversial events that are likely to generate negative publicity. Last (but certainly not least), axe any events that don’t seem to have strong positive images. (After all, a strong nonprofit brand combines well with your goal of building your own brand.) Now compare what’s left by calculating your cost per thousand exposures for each one.
Like any marketing communication, an event sponsorship needs to deliver reach at a reasonable cost. So ask yourself how many people will come to the event or hear of your sponsorship of it. Then ask yourself what percentage of this total is likely to be in your target market. That’s your reach. Divide your cost by this figure, multiply it by 1,000, and you have the cost of your reach per thousand. You can compare this cost with cost figures for other kinds of reach, such as a print or radio ad or a direct mailing (see Chapters 7, 9, and 13, respectively, for more information on the costs of these types of reach).
Screen for relevance
Relevance is how closely the event relates to your product and its usage by customers, and it’s the most important yet least considered factor. A chance to use the product, or at least to see the product in use, makes any event highly relevant. And the more relevant the event, the more valuable those exposures. Make sure you pick events that tie into your product or service in some obvious way. For example, a healthcare organization may logically sponsor a blood drive, and a bank can reasonably sponsor a first-time homebuyers’ clinic. These events clearly reinforce the sponsor’s brand image in its industry.
Sometimes going beyond direct relevance is okay, but always consider the pros and cons first. For example, the local branch office of a bank may sponsor a local youth soccer team because many of its customers have children in the league and doing so creates goodwill in the community.
Express your values and convictions
Whatever charities you support, make sure they’re working on issues that matter to you. Sponsorship is a great way to align your personal values with your business interests. For example, sponsoring events and charities aimed at making business greener might excite you — and also attract like-minded customers.
Putting On Your Own Public Event
Sometimes the best alternative is to stage a special event yourself. Perhaps none of the available sponsorship options fit your requirements. Or maybe you really need the exclusivity of your own event, a forum in which no competitors’ messages can interfere with your own. If you want to put on your own special event, check out the following sections for some sage advice.
Selling sponsorship rights
Many of the events you may want to hold — such as a workshop, open house, or clinic — are small in scale and easy to stage on even a small budget. However, if you want to put on a larger event, you’ll inevitably run into bigger costs and may want to find ways to defray those costs. A possible way to make your event pay for itself is to find other companies that want to help sponsor it (not your competitors, of course). Many companies often have an interest in the same event as you do but for different reasons; these firms make good cosponsors. Basically, if the event is relevant, novel, and likely to draw in those companies’ target audiences, then you have a good pitch. Now you just need to go out and make sales calls on potential sponsors.
Be sure to publicize your event well by listing it in Advertising Age (visit www.adage.com) and your industry’s trade magazines and by posting it on the Web. You can also consider hiring an event management firm that sells sponsorships in addition to helping organize and run events.
Getting help managing your event
Some people specialize in managing special events; they work on a consulting basis, from the initial brainstorming sessions through teardown and cleanup, to make sure that everyone comes and everything goes just right. Many such specialists exist, from independent experts (check your city’s business-to-business Yellow Pages directory or post an ad on your local craigslist.com site) all the way to major companies.
I recommend bringing in a specialist of some sort to help you design and manage any event that involves a lot of people, shows, speeches or activities, meals, conference and hotel room reservations, security, transportation, and all those sorts of details that you have to do right when staging a major event. Large events are challenging, and even if you can run one by yourself, doing so probably will take most of your time for several months, leading you to neglect your other duties.
Exhibiting at Trade Shows and Exhibitions
A great way to get face-to-face contact is through trade shows and exhibitions. If your industry has regional or national trade shows or other professional events, you need to attend them, and you should present and/or exhibit at one or more of them too. Exhibiting is almost always necessary, even if you only do so to keep competitors from stealing your customers at the show! Business-to-business marketers in the United States devote a fifth of their marketing budgets, on average, to trade shows; in Europe the figure is even higher — one quarter of the budget goes to trade shows. Trade shows generate 10 to 20 percent of sales leads, depending on the industry.
Some retail or consumer industries also have major shows. For example, boat manufacturers use boat shows as an important way to expose consumers to their products. County fairs attract exhibitors of arts and crafts, gourmet foods, and gardening supplies. Computer shows showcase new equipment. If your industry has a major show for the public, I highly recommend that you try to exhibit there. Send your in-house list of customers and friends an invitation, too — the more traffic you can get in your booth, the better. (In fact, you should plan to begin direct marketing to announce the event and give people incentives to come, starting at least two months before the show!)
The sections that follow explain how you can take advantage of trade shows in order to get more face-to-face contacts.
Knowing what trade shows can accomplish for you
You can generate leads, find new customers, and maintain or improve your current customers’ perceptions of you at trade shows. You can also use trade shows to introduce a new product or launch a new strategy. You can even introduce back-office people (like the sales support staff or even the company president) to your customers in person. At a minimum, trade show presence makes you visible, building awareness of your brand that helps with future sales. Make sure you bring lots of marketing materials and samples to hand out (if at all possible) to help build your visibility and seed future sales.
Use trade shows to network in your industry. You usually find the best manufacturers’ representatives and salespeople by making connections at trade shows. And if you’re secretly hoping to find a better employer, a little mingling may yield an offer at the next big trade show. Also, be sure to talk with a lot of attendees and noncompetitive exhibitors in order to find out about the newest trends and what your competitors are doing in the market. The information a good networker gleans from a trade show is often worth more than the price of attendance. Never mind selling — get out there and chat!
Building the foundations for a good booth
Marketers traditionally focus on the booth when they think about how to handle a trade show. But you should consider the booth just a part of your overall marketing strategy for the show. Develop a full-blown show strategy by answering each of these questions:
How do we attract the right people to the show and to our booth?
What do we want visitors to our booth to do at the show and in our booth?
How can we communicate with and motivate visitors when they get to the booth?
How can we capture information about them, their interests, and their needs?
What can we send visitors away with that will maximize the chances of them getting in touch with us after the show?
How can we follow up to build or maintain our relationship with our booth visitors?
Your strategy has to start by attracting a lot of prospects and customers, and the easiest way to do so is to just go with the flow by picking a show that your potential customers already plan to attend. Find out what shows your customers are going to attend. For example, if you import gift items and your customers include the buyers from retail gift stores, then where do they go to make their purchases? Can the New York Gift Show give you full access to the market, for example, or do you need to go to regional shows, like the Boston Gift Show and the Portland Gift Show? You can ask the sponsoring organizations for data on who attended last year’s show and who has registered for this year’s show, using this information to help you decide. Also ask your customers where they plan to go. Remember: You need to see high numbers of your target customers; otherwise, the show wastes your marketing time and money.
Don’t overlook the drawing power of simple things, like fresh flowers or food. At a recent trade show where my company rented a booth, we offered free fresh-baked cookies each day. It was a simple gesture but a remarkably effective one in terms of drawing traffic to our booth and putting visitors in a positive mood! Other times, we’ve used comfort as our draw by setting up some cushy seats in the booth. People stand for hours at these shows, so they appreciate a chance to rest — and of course, if someone sits there too long, you can launch into your hard sell and either win an order or politely drive him from the booth to open the seat to someone else. A massage chair or bottles of cold spring water can also draw weary visitors to your booth.
Locating trade shows
How do you find out about possible trade shows? I thought you’d never ask! If you subscribe to trade magazines, the shows in your industry find you because the magazines sell their lists to the show sponsors. But don’t go just by what comes in your junk mail, because you may overlook something important.
Your most reliable source for trade show info is your customers. The whole point of exhibiting at a trade show is to reach customers, so why not just ask them where you should exhibit? Call or drop by a selection of your best customers and ask them for advice on where and when to exhibit. They know what’s hot right now and what’s not.
Here’s where else to look for the scoop on trade shows:
American Exhibition Services: AES handles more than 300 major shows, so add www.aesmarketing.com to your list of resources to check out.
PR Newswire’s trade show area: For recent listings and press announcements of trade shows and other industry events, visit PR Newswire’s trade show area at www.eventnewscenter.com. (Or announce your own event by using PR Newswire’s online distribution of corporate press releases.)
Trade Show Exhibitors Association: TSEA can provide you with information about shows in your industry. The association also offers a great source of information and training for trade show booth designers and exhibitors. Find out more at www.tsea.org.
The Ultimate Trade Show Directory: This Web site (www.tsnn.com) is a useful clearinghouse of listings for vendors and companies involved in the trade show industry.
Renting the perfect booth
If you decide to rent a booth, you need to select a location and booth size. You want to aim for anywhere near a major entrance, the food stands, bathrooms, or any other place that concentrates people. Being on the end of an aisle can also help. And bigger is better — in general, you should get the biggest booth you can afford.
Even if you end up with a miniature booth in the middle of an aisle, don’t despair. Many shoppers try to walk all the aisles of a show, and these locations can work too, provided the show draws enough of the right kind of customers for you. In fact, smart buyers often look at the smallest, cheapest booths in the hope of discovering something hot and new from an up-and-coming entrepreneurial supplier.
Setting up other kinds of displays
The firms that make trade show booths can also help with many other kinds of displays, such as lobby and conference room kiosks and tabletop displays. These smaller-scale displays can be effective in the right spot and often cost you less than a trade show booth, so explore all the options before you decide what fits your marketing program and budget best.
Experts can help you design and build your booth or other display, manage your trade show program, and handle the sales leads that result from it. Freeman of Dallas, Texas (800-453-9228; www.freemanexhibit.com) builds exhibits, manages leads, and coordinates international and domestic trade show programs. Table 12-1 highlights some additional established U.S. companies that help with a range of displays and booths to get you started in your search.
|
Table 12-1 Trade Show Display Companies |
||||
|
Company Name |
Location |
Phone Number |
Web Site |
Specialty |
|
Design Marketing Group, Inc. |
Sarasota, FL |
941-377-6709 |
Trade show booths and kiosks (as well as general design services) |
|
|
FLEXi Display Marketing, Inc. |
Farmington Hills, MI |
800-875-1725 |
Portable trade show displays and booths |
|
|
Bonnie Gilchrist Events |
Lake Oswego, OR |
503-635-9191 |
Events and trade shows for nonprofits |
|
|
Studio Displays, Inc. |
Pineville, NC |
704-588-6590 |
High-end source of custom display cases for special purposes |
|
Many other firms also provide booth design services, so consult business directories at a library or cruise the Internet for leads. And don’t count ad agencies out; many of them handle trade shows as part of an overall marketing communications program. (Another option is to search for used booth equipment that you can convert to your needs.)
Be sure to get opinions and quotes from multiple vendors (and ask for credit references and the contact names of some recent clients) before choosing the right company for your job. Also, share your budget constraints upfront to find out whether the company you’re talking to is appropriate for you. Some can do very economical, small-scale projects with ease, whereas others are more oriented to large-scale corporate accounts.
Doing trade shows on a dime
A major booth at a big national convention or trade show is costly (somewhere between $15,000 and $50,000, depending on scale), so if that’s beyond your current budget, look for more modest ways to participate, such as the following ideas:
Share a booth. You may want to consider sharing a booth with a similar (but not closely competing) business if the expenses are too high and you aren’t sure you can get a good return on the cost of a booth. We use this money-saving strategy at my firm. We buy half-booths at some regional human-resources meetings by working with our regional affiliates, smaller local training companies. These affiliates show our products, and they also sell themselves and their own services. We both get good leads — at half the regular cost. However you do it, make sure you show up so you can do some face-to-face marketing.
Work with a sales rep. If you can’t afford even a shared booth, you may still be able to appear in the exhibit hall of a trade show by working with a sales representative. If your industry has any sales reps, consider contracting with one and letting him include your products in his wider assortment at the next major show. (Flip to Chapter 17 for more on working with sales reps.)
Make a presentation at the show. Start early with a proposal to speak at the event. Many trade shows are coupled with conferences, so get in touch with the person in charge of selecting presenters and pitch a workshop during regular conference hours (but avoid the final morning of a multiday conference because attendance is usually very low then). Speakers are selected as much as a year in advance, so plan ahead. You can wait to decide how big of a booth to rent until you find out whether you’ll also have an opportunity to present, because your presentation can help drive traffic to the booth and make your investment more worthwhile.
Passing out premiums
Premium items, as the industry calls them, are gifts you give to your customers, clients, prospects, or employees. Trade show booths usually give away premium items, so you should think about what you can give away if you exhibit at a convention or trade show. I recommend that you give a fun or interesting premium (a puzzle, joke book, or toy, for example) as a token of appreciation for filling in a registration form. You want to focus your marketing resources on finding and qualifying leads, so focus everything you do, from advance mailings and e-mailings to booth design and signs, on this goal. Giving everyone who wanders by your booth a premium is silly and requires such a large volume of premiums that you can’t afford something nice. But there are exceptions to this rule. Free bottles of cold spring water, cookies, or other draws can be offered to all as a way to attract people to your booth. Then add a more durable premium as a thank-you gift when you give out brochures and collect information from serious leads.
If you’re selecting premium items for a trade show or other event to which people travel for long distances, stick with easy-to-carry items. Keep premiums small, durable, and suitable for airport security. Also make an effort to keep your marketing materials (such as brochures) compact and durable enough that they won’t be left in the hotel room or ruined in someone’s luggage. Heavy catalogs are usually deserted, but informative, compact brochures stand a better chance of making it home with the prospect — especially if they contain special offers for samples or introductory discounts.