TSMI's Trade Show Marketing Report

Shel Game

The power of brand + the power of will + the power of being Sheldon Adelson = one of the more successful pre-launch event schedules of any hotel we're aware of.

Paul Woodward of Asia Business Media reports that the Venetian Macau, which isn't scheduled to open until 2007, has already pre-booked 20 events.  These 20 events are across almost as many different industries and produced by almost as many different show organizers.

Paul says Sheldon Adelson, the $800 million man, was personally involved in sales calls to acquire this business.  Granted selling the Venetian brand should be relatively easy, but selling Macau as a venue over Hong Kong or Mainland China or even Singapore had to be a bit tricky. 

Sure, Macau is "Asia's Las Vegas", but it's still unfamiliar territory for most organizers, not to mention potentially iffy as to its ability to attract Mainland China buyers for, er, business purposes. 

Sometimes Just Being Heard Is What Counts

Like most of you who travel frequently, I have received hundreds of "customer satistfaction" surveys via email.  If I have something to say, whether positive or negative, I'll take the time to click the link and fill them out.  Since I'm involved with a lot of survey work, I figure it's part of the quid pro quo equation.

Today something unusual happened.  The hotel wrote back.

I was at the Hotel Helix in DC last week.  I enjoyed the hotel except for two things.  One problem was that the bed frames were low and extended well beyond the mattress - and I banged my shins on them several times. 

The bigger problem was that I had selected the hotel specifically because it offered free wireless.  And my fifth floor corner room was just out of range of the signal.  Even a booster was little help in establishing a steady connection.

So I returned my survey and noted my issues.  Not the first time I've done that.  But this was the first time I heard back.  And not from corporate customer service - the reply was a detailed, personal note that came from the actual hotel front desk manager, Holly Clymer.

Holly didn't give me anything - no free night, no coupon, nothing other than saying that she and Hotel Helix heard me and would address my specific issues.  And you know what?  That's enough for me in this situation.  You don't always have to go overboard in making amends.

Had they not responded, I might not give a positive review of what I liked about the hotel.  I'd probably only say that the wireless doesn't work and watch out for the bed frames.  But now I can say that I had some issues but Holly let me know they're working on them - so it's worth a reservation.

Good for you Hotel Helix.

Sickbed Thoughts: Fun with Stats

Picked up some crud over the weekend that has me somewhat incapacitated - I'm blaming Southwest for this.  Was on four jam-packed legs between Pittsburgh-Philly-Providence last week.  Cramped cabins are a sure way to spread the germs.  Thanks a lot Mr. Kelleher.

Downside is barring a super-fast recovery, looks like I'm going to have cancel speaking at Blogging Enterprise.  Just thinking of flying tomorrow with a stuffed head is painful.

Too bad - one of the benefits of conference speaking that we tend to overlook as organizers is meeting and getting familiar with other speakers.  Once people put faces to other people it's easier to pick up the phone and have your emails answered.  I'd have liked to meet Shel Israel, Steve Rubel, John Moore and others so that I could put faces to each of them - and more importantly, get on their radar in a more personal way. 

I'm relying on the healing powers of Sesame Inn's hot n' sour soup.  And crossing fingers.

As I was having a hard time keeping vertical last night, I decided to watch some football and saw an amazing stat - that San Diego's running back LaDanien Tomlinson has thrown as many touchdown passes this season as all four New York Jets quarterbacks.

Who knew?

So often I come across exhibit marketing brochures that have plenty of useful stats and charts, but which don't create a compelling or cohesive picture.  I've noticed that in these brochures, the organizers tend to only use statistics from proprietary research to make their points.

But there are tons of secondary research statistics out there that can help you connect with your market.  And quite often the most effective way of presenting those stats is to surprise exhibitors by putting data in unfamiliar contexts.

Years ago I was marketing a regional SoCal clone of a big engineering show.  We made sure that prospects knew that California was the seventh largest economy in the world.  Using that stat allowed us to make the case that as an exhibitor, you should be investing more in California than in, say France.  This put California in a context that was less a regional show and more of an international event - or at least a strong #2 domestic.  The picture we created caught our prospects off guard and got many to try us out.

There are other ways to creatively present data with imagery that will surprise people.  Many of you who are marketing large shows already use the "X acres/football fields of exhibits" analogy when marketing to attendees.  But there are plenty of other pictures you can create with your data.

Stats can be used extremely effectively in regional mailings.  Let's say you were promoting your Houston show of 45,000 attendance to exhibit prospects in Chicago, why not employ a regional mailing that suggests they'll be exhibiting to more people than attend opening day at Wrigley Field.  That's a picture Chicago prospects can relate to.

More ways to think about presenting data:

• How much attendee buying power does your show have?  More than Indonesia?
• If your all your attendees joined hands, how many miles would they stretch out in a straight line?
• What's the combined market share of your top 5% or 10% or 20% of attendees?  While most exhibitors want quantity, presenting an 80/20 message is a convincing way of showing quality.
• Have stocks in your industry historically gone up during the week of your show?  Hey, you're a market maker!
• What percentage of your industry's "Top 100" or "Fastest 100" were in attendance last year?  Most every publisher has a list.  The more lists where you can show substantial penetration, the more effective your "must-attend" message becomes.

More and more exhibitors are looking at stats when preparing their annual show budgets.  Make yours different from the ordinary.  Present the facts.  But paint a picture for prospects while you're doing so.

Basic Internet Mistakes We Learned Today

If your site is hosted in South Florida, have a back up plan during hurricane season.

My ISP, HostDepot, was in the path of Wilma.  Their generators have died and they've gone offline until power is restored.  Meaning nobody can access either my corporate site or the Aldo Coffee Co. blog.

This sucks. 

I'm sure the folks who are linking to me in advance of next week's Blogging Enterprise Conference are going to be really impressed with that error page.

And we were introducing Pumpkin Spice and Gingerbread lattes today with soups starting on Friday.  Timing couldn't be worse.  And nobody to blame but yours truly.

New Rules: When You Have the Right Content, You Can Host a Major Conference Anywhere

Pop!Tech. 

Camden, Maine.  Past peak foliage season, no less.

Surprise to me, they've been in Camden for nine years.  In an old opera house.  So who says you have to be in NYC/Bay Area/Seattle or any of the other hot tech cities to make a go of your event.

I wonder if they used nTag again this year?

OT: Daddy's Gone

Another "meme" has popped up amongst bloggers.  This one is "Who's Your Blog Daddy", a project launched by The Politburo Diktat.  The intent is to build a family tree - to map the genesis/inspiration from which most of the best-read blogs sprang.

I doubt anyone shares my "daddy" blog because it was so obscure.  So excuse the following moment of introspection while I pay respects. 

While I had started a blog back on my old tsmi.org portal at the end of '02, I gave up on it relatively quickly since I couldn't add the tools I wanted to my CRM backend.

Then, when I went over to Sofia, Bulgaria in early '03, my laptop became pretty much my only outlet.  I found a local blog called "Sofia Sideshow" which was authored by an LA-bred movie producer who was living in Sofia and shooting a lot of "B" movies (you know, the ones starring Bruce Campbell).  To keep sane, I started my own blog, called Xiled in Sofia: Please Send Mexican Food on the old Radio platform.  It was part travelogue, part show industry related, part political.  The latter was hard to avoid since this was during the buildup to the current Iraq war.  It got me through the tail end of a bleak Sofia winter and introduced me to a decent number of early bloggers.  When I moved back to the States, it didn't make sense to keep that blog up, so I started this one.

Unfortunately - and still inexplicable to me - my old Radio address had been given over to a technical education blog from the UK.  So there's no evidence it ever existed, except for a few broken links from other sites.  Wish I'd saved it... that's still a regret.

We eventually met over beers at JJ Murphy's on Karnigradska St. (best bar in Sofia for watching Premiership matches - highly recommend the Irish breakfast) and stayed in touch for a little while thereafter.

Anyway, inspired by the family tree project, I went back to my "daddy's" blog today and noticed that Jeff has apparently signed off as of last June.  Which I suppose now makes me an orphan.

Jeff, wherever you are, just wanted to thank you for the inspiration. I'm raising a Guinness in memory of the first international blogging conference in a post-Soviet bloc country.

Rumor Mill: Landscaping Show & Lawn & Garden Expo Are Not Merging

You have to love merger rumors that are denied out of hand.  Especially when the reasons for the merge are so compelling.

From Landscape Management magazine:  One Giant Fall Show?  Not Any Time Soon.

What Price Mac Knowledge?

Just saw this article on the new "MacWorld Symposiums" to be held at this year's MacWorld event.

My immediate thought after reading the description of what they were was, "Why are they charging for these?"

As a small business owner, asking me to pay a $295 fee to introduce me to more of your applications seems counterintuitive to me.  Maybe it works, but I don't understand it.

It would just seem more remarkable to me if these symposia were free.  Free would get me to attend if I'm using a Mac.  It would also get me to investigate if I'm a Windows user.  And if they wowed me over the course of the day, I might switch. 

But for $295, I'll stick with Gates, Inc.

And if I'm already an Apple user, the $295 fee feels like Jobs has his hands in my pocket.

Just an observation.

Sticky Subject - Is Your Conference Package Useable?

I've been involved with dozens of show research projects, both in pre-planning mode and post-show customer evaluations.  And while the data offered from these surveys is valuable, you regularly need to look beyond the numbers to understand prospect and customer behavior.

Jennifer Rice posts a perfect example of this in today's post on What's Your Brand Mantra?

"My personal philosophy on customer involvement is this: Find out what they want. Then figure out how to deliver it. Customers should be involved in "need identification"... or as John puts it, they should serve as the inspiration. But it's the company's job to figure out the best, most cost-effective solution to that need."

The example that Jennifer provides is something out of an everyday occurance - in her case, when trying to make a breakfast burrito, she encounters tortillas that are stuck together because there are no plastic or paper sheets separating the individual tortillas. 

This may not sound like much until you put yourself in the picture with role playing.  While I can't pretend to know Jennifer's state of mind, I'll venture a guess.  She wakes up, decides to treat herself to something special for breakfast.  Breaks out the eggs and the (veggie) sausage and the peppers and onions and cheese and starts happily dicing and chopping away.  The coffee is brewing, it's a fine morning all around.

Then, just when she's ready to assemble her treat, "Damn these *&$^%$ tortilla shells!  C'mon, separate you lousy *$*%&%s!  Oh &#&%* my eggs are getting cold.  *&$%!@^ you, Mission Tortillas, you just ruined my breakfast!"

And just like that, Mission Tortillas loses a customer.

They might just be the tastiest tortillas ever, but hey, breakfast is ruined because somebody didn't think of separator sheets.  And unless Jennifer tells Mission Tortillas about her problem, chances are pretty good the marketing folks at Mission won't find out.  And they'll keep asking surveys about taste without asking about usuability.

I recently posted over on Aldo Coffee about why I buy Parma prosciutto at one store and not others.  It's the same reason - packaging.

Find out what they want. Then figure out how to deliver it.

What do you consider your "packaging" to be?  If it's simply content and exhibits, that might not be enough.  It's time to analyze your customers experience first hand.

There are countless small things that have an impact on customer satisfaction.  Session handout formats.  Lighting.  Audio quality.  Foodservice.  Parking rates.  Shuttle bus service.  Flight availability.  Walking distance between the exhibit hall and sessions.  Breakout room seating.  Session design.  Inquiry response time.  Pricing.  Political affiliations of your keynote speaker.  And this is just the short list.

Different people desire different packaging.  Any of the above factors may affect the usability of your conference for a given attendee and thus result in an unsatisfactory experience, not unlike Jennifer's "&$^#*@ tortilla".

Research alone won't uncover all the needs, wants and desires of customers and prospects.  It's a good idea to step away from the numbers and picture yourself in your customers shoes. 

Put yourself in various situations - role plays - and see if your event meets the needs of the different characters you're portraying.  Pretend you're a aging boomer and see what the walk from the exhibit hall to the session rooms are like.  Pretend you're a vegetarian and see if you're satisfied with your menu.  Pretend you're handicapped and see if you have access to everything.  Pretend you're a savvy wireless user and see if you've got satisfactory connectivity and content availability.  Pretend you're Rich Westerfield and demand an excellent cup of specialty coffee in the morning and a place to sip a great single malt at night.

You may be very surprised at your experiences when adopting this different role plays.  And what needs to change.

You may also learn, as the comments to Jennifer's post noted, that it may not be the packaging that's in question, but the instructions on how to use the product.  One commenter noted that his Mission Tortillas didn't stick together.  Maybe the problem was Jennifer simply held the tortillas past the optimal expiration date.

But that's a whole other post for another time.

Blog Your Next Launch

There's been a murmur in the blogosphere about blogs replacing websites.  BL Ochman talked about a VC firm that's doing it and says she'll be converting her site soon.  They're not the first and won't be the last.

Of course, my side project, Aldo Coffee Co., never had a website to begin with.  It's been a blog since day one with better results than we would have received from a straight website.

While we're not going to jump on any bandwagon that suggests blogs are replacing websites anytime soon, you could do worse than blogging your next event launch. 

Generally speaking, when you're looking at an event launch, you don't have a lot of marketing money to play with.  Considering a decent-looking professional web site is around $2,000 (that's the going Pittsburgh rate for design and admin of a six page site, including hosting and back end measurement), you could save a bundle by foregoing the site and deciding to blog.  At least until you know you're headed for black ink.

Blogging software is simply a web content management system with some customizable design templates to organize that content.  And that's all you really need to start an event web site.  Your content is coming to you daily - speakers, sessions, exhibitor releases... even your own story regarding trials and tribulations about the launch, like Tim's doing for his Podcast Expo. 

Let's say you greenlighted a launch today.  You could start posting your content and begin telling your story in about 15 minutes with a blog.  How long would you have to wait for your web site?  At least a week, if not more.  For a quick turnaround event like a sponsored conference, that could mean 1/12 or so of your available sponsor sales cycle.  Which is a lot of time in limbo.

The level of service you'd need from a hosted blogging service like TypePad (what we use) is $12/month.  If that's too much, you could do use Blogger or WordPress for free.  Blogger has some issues (it's sort of viewed as the AOL of blogs), and WordPress may be a bit of a challenge for the completely technically inept.  But anyone can do TypePad.  Anyone.

So if you're looking to shave $1500 or more off your launch's marketing budget, substituting a blog for your planned website is worth consideration.  Given the built-in search engine indexing benefits that blogs offer, you might be able to cut your SEM budget as well.