Convention Insider (Conventions.net)

Perhaps this is the male perspective and being a male I apologize immediately if this is not for you.  I wonder if it is all about getting the phone number. It seems to me that when I attend events and i walk by a booth and give a wave or a hello to the person behind the table, they immediately begin to reel in the sale.  They want the number. Close the info so we can spam them later.

If this is the way we are getting "leads", perhaps it is time to rethink our law of attraction. I feel like I am more a number when all the person at the show wants is my badge to get my info scanned into their system. I understand.  It is about getting a return on investment, (there is that phrase again) and really we are attending as exhibitors to get leads, but it has to be a little more personal than that.

This is what I have been teaching and preaching about social media. It is not always about the page videw or the email address so you can ge that subscriber to broadcast your message to them. I have so many dummy mail addresses for this that I am sure I have clogged the Internet with traffic to nowhere.  I am not even happy about admitting to that, but when I give an email address and I get 30 emails in 30 days all asking me to buy your stuff or to click your junk I get a little pessimistic.  Its not about the number of people you scan but about the number of people you actually connect with.  I know its tough to tell your boss you "connected well" when they are asking for your list of email addresses or contacts made.  Perhaps now is the time to help me preach this doctrine.  Just subscribe to the blog here and let me know… oh wait, we really don’t send spam messages here.

Tags: Exhibits, Trade Shows, Booths, Sales, Leads

I have been talking quite a bit lately with people about the things I receive at Trade Shows.  The things I find most useful I have talked about here a few times, like the lip balm giveaway. I have been also reading about "green giveaways" as this seems to be the wave of the future.  Jenn over at Trade Show Blog has a post about The Greenest Trade Show.

This made me think of the number of events I have been to this year and how "green" they have been.  I tend to bring home lots of giveaways, and they usually don’t make it far out of my bag before the are commandeered by my kids for their own purposes.  I have seen many gifts turned into warriors, ninjas victims and even saw a mouse pad turned into home plate.  This is how I can use the giveaways I get that I don’t really need.  I have been actually getting a number of bags that we are using now to carry groceries in and that is pretty cool given I have a full tribe of people to feed here at home.

I recently received a hip flask at an event and that was somewhat perplexing given I don’t drink, and that is not the best item to give your four year old to carry to school or around the neighborhood or heaven forbid like I caught yesterday taking it to church for a "water bottle".  Are your giveaways "green?"  Can they be recycled or reused?  Do you ask your exhibitors to be more green in what they do for giveaways?  I see inserts going into gift bags that I know won’t make it past the hotel trash can.  I am curious what you are doing.

Photo via King’s College

Tags: Green, eco-friendly conventions, trade show giveaways, swag

The most used phrase these days for attendees and exhibitors and sponsors and for those organizing events, conventions and trade shows seems to be "Return on Investment" or the acronym ROI.  I hear it in every conversation of business these days in this economy.  I want to have that tattooed somewhere like my forehead to remind everyone what the "bottom line" really means.

The folks over at Adler Displays has a really good and quick look at ROI and what it means for trade shows.  One point I wanted to highlight from their article is this:

And because clients tend to need several different "touch points" before buying (seeing a magazine ad, hearing a colleague speak of your product or service, receiving a sales call, etc.), it’s tough to tell where the sale actually came from.

This is a great distinction from the normal cost per acquisition figures we discuss.  I often wrestle with the thought of where a client came from or where a sale was closed.  Did this happen on the show floor?  Did it happen at a party the night before the event?  Is this a contact and sale that was developed over many shows and many discussions and emails or other communications?  I like their idea of sitting down with the sakes team and determining some information.

Photo via Examiner.com

Tags: ROI, Return on Investment, Sales Leads, Conventions, Trade Shows, Events, Meetings

I have been planning another trip to Hawaii after my latest trip in May.  I will be hosting a track in a conference and it will be called the Social Media Business Summit and it will be held at the Marriott Waikiki.   The event is scheduled to take place in the first part of November and is actually an invite only event.  You can leave me a message if you are interested in getting an invitation to the event.

The event is scheduled for about 5 days and this time I will have some extra time to actually enjoy the island and get in some site seeing while I am there and perhaps a little rest.  After the schedule I have had this year I could use a little of that thing we call rest.

Upcoming I have Houston, an then I am off to Los Angeles for a speaking gig I have and then we may be headed to Orlando to attend another event, and then my major event is set for October 15-17 in Las Vegas. Then after Hawaii, I am off to San Diego to speak at the National Association of Realtors and who knows what else. I would say this year is rounding out to be very busy.  The problem is, with the events all beginning again in Las Vegas in January the game begins again!  I hope perhaps to see some of you in Atlanta this year at IAEE.  Are you going?

Tags: Hawaii, Hawaii Travel, HawaiiHTA, Las Veasg, Atlanta, Conventions, Trade Shows, Conferences

I was recently walking around the show floor of an event and was curious about what was in a tub of ice.  I was looking in the tub wanting to see if they were giving away free beer, or if it was a tub of water with ducks but i wanted to see in.  By that time they had me hooked.  The hard sale tactic that I endured from that moment is something that I won’t forget.  I kept looking over my shoulder afraid that if I would try to run away I would be tackled, knees broken and shamed into sitting in a sales pitch room for hours with water dripping on my forehead.

This unfortunately is a tactic that is played by more than just this single event exhibitor. I have had this experience before and I always walk away shaking my head feeling like I want to take out a full page Wall Street Journal advertisement for people to run from this vendor.  That is the last takeaway you want in your trade show exhibitor. I am not sure if this is a tactic that works, but browbeating a sale at an event is worse than spamming me with an unwanted email.

Tags: exhibitor, exhibit sales, conventions, trade shows

The football season is soon kicking off and so is convention season.  I often wonder if school starting, football starting and convention season starting all have a common theme. We all look forward to each in our own way.

I think that football beginning can play well for those that want to gain some attention to their exhibit booth.  I recently spoke to someone that wanted to design an exhibit booth like a man cave, the term given to the place where men drink beer, hang out in smoke filled rooms and cheer for their home team.  It makes sense to use what you can to have people remember your exhibit booth.  I think making a man cave where people can watch football might be a good way to gather attendees and brand your booth.

I remember this year while at an event in Las Vegas during the NFL playoffs looking at a few of the booths that had exhibitors and attendees surrounding a radio and still other attendees nowhere near the exhibit floor but at the local sports book watching their team play.  If you could make a place for them to enjoy the football games while sitting in and around your products or brand that would be a good plan.

Tags: Football, Conventions, Trade Shows, Exhibitor

As I indicated earlier I was in Seattle for a conference that is one of the top tech conferences with many geeky types in attendance.  As we geek types do on a regular basis, we spend time on Twitter.  We not only spend time on Twitter we speak to each other often times not only in the same room but sitting at the same table.  In this case, Twitter was going at its usual pace and people were talking between each other in the conference area.  That will set the stage for what was happening.

While the presentation went forward, the speaker, I believe one of the first times he had ever been on stage, began to speed up and then began to lose the crowd.  He was speaking of a topic that was very technical and something that many could not grasp.  He was getting some momentum and began to get passionate and speak faster. Then Twitter exploded, and even my own statement about this speaker needing to be the guy that does my homework.

The organizer at the time saw immediately the comments coming across on Twitter and slowly walked to the stage and refocused the  speaker, asked a question and made him slow down.  He told the speaker to breathe and to throttle it back.  The crowd became refocused and we all settled in to learn some really cool stuff the speaker had to say.  Twitter had saved the day without making a scene or embarrassing the speaker or all of the negative that could have come out of the situation.

Tags: Twitter, Speakers, Conference, Conventions, Presentations

I was at a recent conference in Seattle called "Gnomedex" a technology and conference for geeky technical types.  No I am not considered one of those but I enjoy hanging out with those that make me smarter and this was no exception.  I learned quite a bit of information just sitting and listening to the speakers and talking to people in the hallway.  One of these smarter than I types was Scott Porad.  Scott is the CTO of the popular websites I Can Has Cheezburger?  (the picture here I made at their site) and Failblog.org.  Scott wrote a recent post recapping his own experience at Gnomedex and it was revealing about how we as attendees perceive the value of the face-to-face meetings.  The highlights I would like to talk about are Scott’s perception of meetings:

In my view, there are two reasons to attend an industry conference, regardless of industry:

1. To gain some practical skills or information.  For example, attending a training or sales conference.
2. To develop relationships with industry peers.

And finally he finishes with:

I’ve come to understand in a more personal way the age-old axiom that “it’s not what you know, but who you know”.  At a certain point, business is not a meritocracy–there are lots of smart people with good ideas.  It’s the relationships you have, and the ability to enlist others to support you, that separates the good ideas from the successful ideas.

Most companies don’t encourage their employees to attend industry conferences.  I would encourage you to make an effort to do so, even if you have to pay your own way.  The connections made at events like Gnomedex are worth every penny of the price of admission.

This goes a long way to telling me what some industry professionals are saying when they decide to go to an event and what they are getting out of that event which we need to pay most attention to from a return on investment standpoint.  It is about the relationships made at events.  I have been following Scott for a little while in social networks and reading his blog.  I have not had the connection until we were able to shake hands and actually meet.  This is the biggest return on my investment for being in Seattle and the time and place most of us discount in the long run.  I on the other hand need to garner these relationships and i will continue to attend conferences until they come up with a better way to meet, shake hands, and say hello to a new friend.

Tags: Scott Porad, Conferences, Gnomedex, Seattle, Travel, Conference Costs

I was just thinking that I am getting into the busy part of my “season” with the trade shows and conventions I attend, and then I realized that I have been busy since this time last year.  That mens that I really did not have a down time or a slow time.  It began with a trip to Las Vegas last year in November, and now I am planning the same trip in October and not a month went by that I didn’t attend an event or convention, conference or trade show.

Is your industry seasonal?  I have friends that have a convention they work on that is scheduled every other year.  They work 18 months for one show and then the net show is not for another 2 years.  That is a long a drawn out process for a convention, but when it is as big as these are it makes sense.  I on the other hand am covering more than one industry and my industry is multiple industry events.  I will be in Los Angeles coming up shortly to speak at an event, followed quickly by Houston, and then back to Las Vegas. The good part is I get to see a number of facilities.  The bad news is, I get to see a number of facilities. Let me know about your industry.  Does it have a season?

[photo via peasap]

I wanted to quickly share with those that are on Twitter, our retweeting function here at Convention Insider.  If you like what you read or you want to share our blog poost with your network of friends, please feel free to use the retweet function on each of these posts.  The retweet button can be pushed and it will automatically open your Twitter account and you can then send out to your network the link to the post.  Feel free to do so!

I am in Seattle this week and I am attending a conference at the Bell Harbor Conference Center.  Enjoy your own convention, conference or trade show!

Tags: Twitter, Tweetmeme, Blogging, Conventions, Trade Shows