It’s the Monday morning after your last trade show. Stand up and tell your investors what business goals were accomplished.
I’m Tony Compton. Welcome to my Marketing Podcast.
Just another - one or two or three - of the things expected from marketing that they probably still don’t teach in marketing school.
How do I know? Your trade show picture can be worth a thousand words - of waste.
A trade show people and their companies paid to attend.
In one way, you or somebody at your company may have already provided the answer to that question about what may have been gained or lost at your last event.
One social media constant is the endless parade of trade show pictures that clog social home page feeds. Pictures of smiling staff, standing shoulder-to-shoulder inside trade show booths. Across industries, from across the globe, those pictures look the same. Can’t say that I blame anybody. I’ve been in those pictures.
But one recent ‘smiling staff in a booth’ picture got me to look at it in a fiscally responsible way.
Instead of wearing my marketing and ‘happy to be at the show of the year’ hat, I put on my investor and budget hat. That perspective made all the difference.
Because when a person has been around the trade show and marketing block a few times, the type of information that can be gathered from one exhibit hall photograph is enough to get the sales and marketing questions going and the post-show executive meeting rolling.
So don’t be surprised if somebody, somewhere, in one of your executive conference rooms asks: “How much did that show cost?” and “What did we get out of it?”
Also don’t assume you’ll be there to answer, or defend yourself.
Something you may not learn in marketing school.
But I mentioned three things at the top of the podcast.
One, know that you’re spending money on the event and need to have business rationale and sales-oriented outcomes.
Two, know how to gather that on-site intel and post-show data to report on it.
Three, know how to deliver your event report in detail. And defend it. When you have the opportunity. By that I mean stand and tell everybody in the room and online what was accomplished. You’ll be doing that live.
You’d better have more to share than that smiling trade show booth picture.
From what I’ve seen and heard most don’t know investors and owners are paying to sponsor and exhibit and participate in any show.
I’ll talk more about the mathematics of participating in any trade show or events on my next podcast, which will be experienced, down to business, and right to the point.
Now That’s a Marketing Podcast!
I’m Tony Compton.