Trade Show Disasters
By Igor Mordkovich on May 16, 2006 in Trade Shows
Every time I attend a trade show I see the same thing, over and over, and over again. …….. Cute Slogans that don’t mean a thing or 15 bullet lists of what the company does.
I attended the Search Engines Strategies show in NYC few months ago and can say that it was pretty good. I’d recommend any one who has anything to do with the web and marketing to attend that show.
Now .. back to the trade show and the booth slogans.
30% of slogans were confusing to me … now imagine how confusing it was for a business owner looking to acquire internet marketing services.
I’d say that 90% of slogans and whatever they wrote on the booth didn’t appeal. Why? Because people try to play it safe. What many do is … they say, let’s just write a list of service we provide and hope for the best. NO ONE IS GOING TO STOP AND READ YOUR LIST.
How many times have you seen this …. ”Best solutions for your business, we grow, you grow, yours grows … ” Are you selling Viagra?
Problem is … we sit in the conference room for hours trying to come up with a “cute” slogan or a catch phrase and by the time we’re done it’s confusing the hell out of anyone who sees it. …….. No .. it makes sense to us, because we’ve created it, but what about those that have no idea of what it is that you do?
Remember this … no one cares about it … at trade shows the main objective is to Catch Attention. Once you got the attention now it’s up to your Sales skills to convert.
My list of things to do for a Trade Show.
Catch attention with your booth. (Use a huge picture, short slogan, a keyword they know…)
Shut up and listen to what they want to solve.
Offer ONE solution you feel is the best one for them. Don’t confuse people with 30 choices. I know you’re proud of all the things you do, but they don’t care.
At the end, tell them what you’re going to send them after the show, or when you’ll call. Don’t just say “Thank you, hope to hear from you”
The worst thing you can do is confuse people because when confused, a person does not take out their wallet to pay for things.
I’ve found that if you give too many choices you get the deer-in-the-headlights look. People are often paralyzed by choices. When I first started the game of SEO we tried to make everything a choice. You can get A, B, C or any combination of those. Thing is, people just didn’t know what they need. Now, while we have a variety of “packages” we only show three on our website and proposals with a “more aggressive packages available” line added.
So what do you think of OUR tag lines?
“Search Marketing information to render your competition powerless” (a play on the EMP (electromagnetic pulse) bomb on our E-Marketing Performance site.
“Position Your Business First” (a play on Pole Position Marketing)
St0n3y | May 16, 2006 | Reply
First one is “cute”
I can tell that you sat down in the conference room (with your team), spent about 3-4 hours and after trashing 2-3 papers with slogans … at the end you had this one done. Right?
Second one … too generic.
Stoney, I don’t want to “bash” you …. though sometimes I enjoy that. (you know me a bit)
When I look at slogans, I want to see either a unique proposition OR something that will catch attention, stick in my head, be simple, unique and relevant.
Tell me what I have not heard before from the rest of the “grey” society in your industry.
P.S. I know it’s easy to sit on the throne and critique things. It’s much more difficult to come back with ideas rather than just negative comments. I’m working on it…
Igor M. | May 17, 2006 | Reply
I’ve been hitting a lot of shows this year (6 so far) and I agree wholeheartedly that too many booth solgans are not clear.
You have just a few seconds to communicate your message in a way that will attract attention. Many booths try the shotgun approach and just end up losing people with the “deer in the headlights” effect St0n3y mentions above.
Other mistakes I see include:
- Unattentive booth staff
- Unfriendly booth staff
- Booth staff spending more time flirting with the booth staff next to them than paying attention to prospects
- Poorly designed or laid out booths
- Food left on booth counter, messy, etc
I’m sure I’m just being picky, but whenever I visit a conference, I always walk the entire tradeshow floor to check out the booths and some of these things are a problem wherever you go.
Lee Odden | May 17, 2006 | Reply
I think a lot more goes into a trade show booth than people realize. It’s full on marketing and people need to get more than business cards and printed materials. Lee is right in his list of mistakes. Heck, that kind of stuff bugs me ANYWHERE!
On the tag lines, you give me far too much credit. After I came up with the name (EMP) the tag line came not long after.
On our main site, I’ve used several tag lines over the years, the one I’m using now was my first and best (so far). Maybe it’s time to put more thought into this one again.
St0n3y | May 18, 2006 | Reply
I’m a little late to the game when it comes to this post, but none the less, I’m quite pleased to see a group of exhibitors who DO understand what makes an effective display and good boothmanship (fancy industry term). As a distributor of trade show displays and exhibits we are constantly having to educate our buyers on how/what to do to make a successful show. The closest marketing medium to a trade show display is a billboard and just as Lee wrote above, you only have a few moments to catch someones attention. We try and adopt the KISS principle (Keep it Simple Silly (or Stupid)). Most companies take the direct approach to Marketing thier products/services, which is fine, but at SES how many SEO booths did you see that pretty much said the same thing? What we DON’T see from most small businesses is the abstract/creative side of a marketing concept. Here are two examples… We did a ten foot pop up display with mural graphics for a medical billing company which included only three elements. Logo, URL and a HUGE tagline that said, “We Make Medical Billing More Boring Than It Already Is”. The booth was a huge success because of its simplicity and creativity. Another example, not of our own creation, is the marketing campaign put on by Nationwide Insurance of “Life Comes At You Fast”. Here in Richmond, VA there are a couple of City Buses that have vehicle graphics applied to the side that make the bus look like a huge stretched minivan. Mom is in the front driving with a smile on her face followed by quintuplet babies each taking up a window seat (four rows of seats). Finally there is a “worn out looking” Dad in the very back set. Above his head is the tagline “Life Comes At You Fast”. These types of programs can create huge ROI. Sorry to ramble on…I just got excited seeing such an interesting discussion outside of my industry.
Evan D. Owen | Jan 11, 2007 | Reply
Evan … thanks for sharing your experiences.
Note that every successful booth had a very unique and clean message. There were no bullet points rambling on and on about all the services the company did.
It was simple. There was an element that caught the attention and it was relevant to what the company was offering.
Igor Mordkovich | Jan 11, 2007 | Reply
Exstremely lovely site. Very impressed about all the lesson there are to learn and to know how much help is there also. Keep up the great work
N Hampshire | Jan 25, 2007 | Reply