Convention Insider (Conventions.net)

One of the things that see a quite a bit is the fact that many exhibitors just show up and hope people will come to their booth and buy their products or services.  This is such a missed opportunity if you don’t take advantage of the fact that you are giving your customer a chance to meet face to face and experience your conversation first hand.

I try to make as many appointments wit all my contacts that I can. This helps me set a good schedule before the event and sets out my time.  I can stay on track that way and make sure I get the biggest bang for my buck.  There is also another underlying thing that happens, people talk about you and the fact that you will be at the event.  Many of the people that you make appointments with will talk about you to your friends, your competitors and others in your industry. You ge4t seen as the expert or as the person in the know about what is going on at the event.  You are seen as the person that they need to know and meet or compete with on the floor.  This increases your stock exponentially.  Make your contacts now and get your calendar set before the show and you will see great benefits.

I have been traveling all day and I had about 12 hours of airports, boarding this plane and carrying that bag.  I am currently speaking at an event in North Carolina and I really enjoy visiting new towns and places that I have never bee before and drink in all that place has to offer. It is part of the perks of having to put up with business travel like the day I just experienced.

I like to get to events and have a set place I can go for dinner and have most of the details worked out for me. Because I have had an all day excursion, it is nice not to have that next bit of problems with deciding where to eat, what parties to go to and what is the next thing.  Do you offer a stress free environment for the attendees or event the conference speakers for your event?  This could set you apart from other conferences and events that might be competing with yours.  Give a stress free itinerary to those tat have been going hard all day to get your event.  They will be refreshed when the event opens and will be one of your best evangelists.

My friend Dana Doody from The Expo Group sent out a twitter message this morning and I picked up on about 4 tips of things that exhibitors should not do on the show floor in their booths.

These are really good tips.  The one about speaking too much in your booth is a great tip and one that I have issue with in my own experience.

This is a great way to use a social media tool like YouTube and your own knowledge of your conference to help people have a better experience.  If you are an event organizer take a note here from someone that is using a tool that will help remind your exhibitors about how they can make your event better for them and better for the attendees and others.

I am constantly going over submitted speaker submissions for ideas about speaking at the events I manage.  Many of the speakers have much the same talk and it is some of the usual suspects that I see get a shot at speaking.  Some of the speaker agencies out there submit 10 applications to speak and all they do is change the name of their client and that can be especially frustrating when you are the one that has to read every application and determine those that make the cut for speaking engagements and those that you have to tell, “Maybe next year.”  It is tough to make those calls and it is even tougher to tell the folks their submission didn’t make it.  I think there are a number of things that can be done by speakers when applying to speak at events that can help your chances.

Be Unique – That may sound very basic but like I said many of the speakers out there all want to talk about the latest and hottest item in their industry and if you don’t stand out you can be assured you will be added to the “No Thanks” pile.

Know Your Organizers – This is not so typical of what I think is on the windshields of those that apply to speak but if you know more about those that are involved in the decision making process the better.  Do a little research on who those people are and what they do.  This can provide invaluable if you get a chance to pitch the idea later.

Keep It Simple – Organizers of events have a very limited amount of time to go through 100′s of submissions.  Keep your title catchy but simple and your pitch should be very much an elevator pitch.  If the organizer reading your submission has to spend too much time getting to the money portion of the pitch, you may end up on that pile quickly.

It’s Not About You – The worst thing I see in the pitch is that the applicant want to make the talk about them and how cool they are.  What you need to do is make it about the event and their attendees.  You pitch from the stage and you may never be asked back to an event. They want to make the best conference for their people. Make it about them.

Speaking at events is for some the best marketing you can have.  You get to be seen as an expert, you get exposure and you get to be the rock star.  Remember that organizers also are looking for the person that understands that from their point of view.  Your applications should be selling to the organizer and it should be your best stuff, but they see it as an honor for them to invite you to their show not that you have graced them with your presence.  Keep your egos and your chest thumping to a minimum.  Make it your mission to make their conference the best it can be and they will respond favorably when it comes times to make a decision on who gets to speak.

With the ever increasing media distribution channels and now the many citizen journalists your show floor needs to adapt to meet the needs of today’s new media.  The new media I am speaking of is the attendees themselves. Many of them are now producing their own media, through blogs, podcasts, video and photos.  They are now the new media replacing perhaps the more traditional media that we as convention organizers have been keeping in our planning for our events.  We have sent news release after news release to the more traditional folks trying to get them to run a story on their news sites or to do a quick story about how their viewers, readers or listeners can find out how to attend.

Now we need to figure ways to make it easy for the attendees themselves to have a way to make media on the show floor. We are now seeing many step and repeat back drops for people to do impromptu interviews of experts or speakers and other attendees.  Are you making these types of interviews happen by providing a place for this new media to distribute their product?  If you are not making it simple for the attendee citizen journalist to have a place to make their new media you are missing a most important distribution channel for your event right on your show floor.

Photo via ShashiBellamkonda

I have been thinking for a while about convention and trade show leaders.  The people that lead us up the hill in this time of economic troubles.  The ones that make us feel good about where we are in the industry.  Those that are our though leaders and those that have companies that they are keeping on the path to success.

I have been thinking about what makes a good leader and what do the conferences, conventions or trade shows that are successful have in common?  I think the answer is simple and obvious, they have good leadership.  Last night on Twitter this conversation came about about companies that work well and what they have in common.  It also talked about the traits of the leaders of those companies that were successful.  Some of the traits of the leaders were:

• Passion
• Vision
• Fearlessness
• Determination

Those may sound like things we all have but in some leaders that exude these traits.  The funny thing is that if you ask each of us about what we think of when we think of a good leader and what traits we find important, each of us would have a different answer.  It does seem that we all wont to follow those that inspire us to be followers.  Some leaders have a confidence that we want to follow. It makes me think of what are the traits I want to see in a leader.  I have talked about events that fail and have been talking about events that are struggling but those that are winning the struggle and the battles are those with good leadership.  What are the things you look for in your event leadership?

Photo via Hamed Saber

I was having a discussion with a colleague the other day about using email marketing as a way to get the word out and help get information to a customer.  I am still a child of email myself and I check that usually before I get my coffee in the morning.  A recent study reported by Mashable indicates that the next generation may be checking Facebook before they have their coffee, but I for one stick with the basics and go through email.

I continue to receive email updates from conferences and trade shows I have attended but for the most part, they smaller shows only send out a few updates a year and those are usually centered around events such as a call for speakers, or a sale of early bird tickets or other bigger announcements.  I think that is a poor use of email and newsletters.  Email is a great way to get up to speed year round and keep things fresh in the minds of your attendees, exhibitors and sponsors.  It is a great tool for helping you garner more sponsors in fact if they think you will be promoting them all year.

There are many email services out there and none of them are head and shoulders about their competitors.  I like to see a company that provides good analytics and one that allows you to customize your emails easily.  I know that some of the companies out there even have the ability to integrate with your blog and other social networks which is a nice touch.  Are you using email as a way to market your event?  How many emails is too many versus how many are too little.  I like to think that once a month I should be seeing your event show up on my radar and as we get close to your event you should get out as many as one per week.  What has worked for you in the past?

Canceling an event that never seems to get off the ground can be a difficult decision.  There are many things that go into making that decision, be it sponsorships that are on the fence, and attendees coming on board or speakers that will make or break both of the foregoing.  I was watching around the Internet this weekend and noticed that a recent tech event in Italy was canceled by organizers here in the United States.  It was not a great story to read as I too have been part of a failed conference and it was a difficult time for all.  There are sponsors to answer to and their are attendees to work out issues with and finally making things right for speakers that are making commitments can be a hassle.  All-in-all, I don’t wish a failed event on anyone.

When is it time to call it quits or when is the time for that pass fail grade for your event?  For many it seems to revolve around money.  If an event does not get the number of attendees for their needs to pay hotels and facilities, the answer is simple.  You cancel the event by necessity since the money is no t in the bank to support the event.  Some sponsors want certain criteria to be met before they will provide the check for the vent and if that does not happen, that too is a trigger to call it quits.  In this particular instance it seems that a combination of money and logistics caused the event to fail.  They had to cancel the location of the event as the hotel required a deposit that was not paid and they themselves pulled the rug out for organizers. This is very unfortunate as there are tales now of attendees showing up for an event and not having the event take place.

I am also disturbed by organizers that are putting together events and have no intention of having the event take place.  I have heard of some fraud going on in our industry and that is very disturbing.  Making exhibitors pay for booths and sponsors to pay for sponsorship of events and when the time comes for the convention or conference to take place the organizers are no place to be found.  This is a practice that seems to give us all a black eye.  When is the best time to cancel an event?  My hope is never.

If the answer to this is no, you are missing out on a great opportunity to promote, publicize or market your event, trade show or convention. Flickr makes it possible to store your photographs online and they allow you to actually share those photos with the people that matter to you.  You can share your photos on your blog, or even on the Facebook page that seems not to get enough attention from you.  Flickr is also a database that can be searched for people that are perhaps looking for information related to your event.

Flickr allows you to upload photos that can then be tagged and labeled.  If you have an annual event and want people to see photographs from other years or if you want to make those photographs part of your sales pitch or sales brochure, it makes it easy to store them for future use.

In addition to being able to share your own photos, you can actually have other account holders’ photos fed via RSS directly onto your site as they tag those photos with your hashtag.  Hashtags are more than just a way for people to follow your event online, they are a way to identify your event in social networking sites like Flickr.  If you have not yet signed up for an account on Flickr I suggest you gt one and in addition to signing up for a free account today, I would also recommend that you sign up for a Pro account.  This will give you a little more flexibility in your use of the system.

I love to follow along on Twitter for people that are live tweeting events.  Live tweeting refers to attendees at conventions and trade shows that send out Tweets during the event to let their followers know of great nuggets of information.  Many events are getting great exposure as a result of Twitter and it helps spread the word that the event is well attended.

I was following along with an conference called the Cause Marketing Forum which was taking place in Chicago.  One of the speakers was a friend and client of mine and I was curious how the event was going.  I was able to call up the hashtag of #CMF10 and see what everyone was saying about his session and about the conference overall.  He was also tweeting out information from other panels and sessions that he attended.  I was able to get some good quotes and some good ideas about what was happening in Chicago while I was in Denver.

This is a great way to get some further exposure to your event.  I suggest all of the meeting planners out there have an acronym and the year for their event publicized as a hashtag for your event website or somewhere in your materials when promoting the event.  With the explosion of smart phones at events and how people are communicating, it will be a normal procedure to get updates sent directly to the Twitter stream and ways to get the word out about what is going on at your event.

I can actually attend an event and see what is going on across the country at another convention at the same time.  Technology is making it possible to be at two or more conferences at one time!  If you want to hear what is happening at an event but can’t make it across country to attend, try following along on Twitter.  If you want to see some of the tweets we send out at Conventions.net, you can follow us on Twitter too!  We will tweet some info about events and use hashtags as we do it.

[Photo via Hashtag.org]