Dear friend,

Yes, I’ve been away longer than planned. Yes, I should have posted yesterday early in the morning as usual.

I didn’t. And for that my apologies. So I owe you an explanation…

Two Saturday’s ago I had a death in the family. It was a tough blow, especially because this was the second death in my family in the last two months.

My priority has always been family…at the end of the day, our loved ones can mean more than anything out there.

So I put most of my business activities on hold to be with family. This isn’t an easy thing to do with such a busy business. But my clients are wonderful and understood I’d be in the shadows for a bit.

This week (yesterday) I should have come with a post covering a marketing or advertising technique, maybe a story from the trenches, but I didn’t. Business has just been crazy this week. My head is halfway under water…but this is okay because I love what I do.

Things are now in order. Some would have given up. Some would have abandoned their posting for months, or gone weeks without an explanation. But I can’t, nor won’t do that to you.

So today, I have a story about PERSISTENCE. This one comes from the ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

This agency took a big blow to their business. They could have taken drastic measures, cutting staff, big layoffs, big pay-cuts, or just given up and gone home…many businesses do. But they didn’t. They kept going…here is their story: Ad Agency Case Study: Persistence

Enjoy! There is an important lesson in this story.

To your success,

Michael
President of Relagy Marketing And
Author of Profitable Relations

Friends,

I’m taking some time off to be with my family. There will be no post this week.

Check back on Feb 25th.

Thank you.

Michael

There is one area that marketers and companies alike often neglect. Yet this ‘final step’ in the majority of cases dictates your rate of success.
This is as relevant with trade show marketing as it is with direct mail, face-to-face salesmanship, advertisements, and even web promotions.

What am I talking about?

Possibly the single most important step of any marketing strategy…THE (you can hear the drum roll) Follow-Up.

That’s right. The follow-up.

You go to all the trouble of planning your tradeshow, putting together materials, coordinating with vendors and your staff — not to mention the expense of printing, booth rental, travel and hotel costs and all the rest….we’re talking anywhere from tens-of-thousands to millions of dollars being spent.

However, 80% of companies don’t follow up. Don’t quote me on that figure, it’s an educated guess. Here’s why I’m saying that though…the last trade show I attended, where many companies were spending bi big dollars on their tradeshow marketing efforts…80% or more of the companies I met with to talk about business and opportunities didn’t follow up.

A surprise contender…(you’ll never guess which companies seem to be delivering the best follow-up).

Almost every single one was from China. Now many of them were a bit aggressive…touting their products and services. They’re doing whatever they can to get me on board. But hey, that’s okay.

You see friend, if they wiggled themselves to jello-like state of laziness like all the rest of the companies and didn’t follow-up…99% chance I’m not going to do business with them. Heck, I doubt I’d even remember them.

By getting in touch with me…I thought about them again. I took the time out of my busy schedule to have another look at their offerings.

They re-ignited the communication torch…they’re pushing to keep the relationship going. And in business it’s all about the relationship. You can hawk goods and make a profit in the short term, but without a real relationship, your business will fade into the mist…you’ll lack the long term loyal customers a business requires to grow and be profitable into the future.

Your fortune would be as good as gone. Poof! Gone.

Follow-up can come in many forms. An email, a phone call, a fax, even a letter. It doesn’t really matter. The key is that you DO FOLLOW UP.

The best marketers know the value of follow-up. They understand that follow-up isn’t about a random and unplanned call to a prospect months after the event. But rather a highly strategic, well planned out part of your overall tradeshow marketing strategy.

And the best marketers make sure that strategy comes in many forms. It may start with an email, lead to a phone call, then a letter, then another phone call and eventually to a face to face meeting again to provide more information or give a demonstration.

When you’ve got them, don’t lose them.

 If you haven’t been using a structured follow up process in your marketing, start right now to work it into every aspect of your arsenal.

You will glow with glee and your bank account will bulge. Folks, follow-up works. Give it a shot.

To your success,
Michael

Let’s pick up where we left off. In the last two weeks I talked about the process of getting attendees to visit your booth at the tradeshow. So now that they are there, what do you do?

Well, you don’t just say hello and show them your product. Of course, there is nothing wrong with showing your products to anyone that comes to your booth, but what you really should do is qualify each person.

You don’t want to spend 20 minutes showing someone your product only to find out they have no intention whatsoever of buying it or writing/talking about it (if they are press).

My suggestion here is for times when there are many people around your booth. If there is no rush, not many people around, sure - take your time and talk away…you never know who that person may tell…even if they don’t plan to buy, someone they know may.

But you need to have your priorities in place.

Back to qualifying attendees. You can do this by finding out, “which company are you with?”, “have you ever seen this kind of product”, “do you have experience with this product?” ….or simply ask if they are looking for the kind of solution your product provides.

This will give you a good indication if you’re talking with a potential “prime buyer.”

And then, if they are, you can make the move to get their contact information. Before we talk about that there is one extremely important topic we must cover….

…preparing for the dialog with potential buyers before you even arrive at the tradeshow.

It’s a mystery why most companies don’t do this (actually, not really, people are just lazy). Gather your team around a table and make a list of all the questions your potential buyers (those that would be most interested in your product…the ones you had in mind when you developed the product) could possibly ask you.

Things like the cost, the materials, how does this part function, can I use it with this other product, so on and so forth. This might take 30 or 40 mins to write down, but it will be time well spent. Then take another 20 mins or so to answer all of those questions. What you’re doing here is ensuring that all of your staff’s answers are aligned and that you’re prepared for any possible question that comes to you.

This is important because often times you’ll lose potential customers because you can’t justify for them why they should make this purchase or you don’t have the information they need to make up their mind that “this is the right choice.”

Again, it is time well spent.

You can also build in much of this information into your print materials that promote and support the advantages of what you are offering.

What  kind of print materials are most effective for trade show marketing? A 1-page, double-sided outline of your product with a few photos and list of what it can do…often times a comparison chart of other similar products in the industry works well too.

What should this not be? Forget the 10-page brochure. Leave that for when the potential client requests additional information. Most trade show attendees have their bags filled with papers and promotions…and they don’t appreciate receiving heavy packages. Fact is, they can (or should be able to) get all that information and more from your website.

So keep your materials short and sweet. The key to these materials, as always, is the copywriting. It should be laser targeted to you prime prospect and clearly tell them why they should care.

A headline, benefits, proof, testimonials and don’t forget to make them an offer….use a call to action that emotionally forces them to want to contact you again for a free report or demonstration.

In the hole please….
That’s where it can go. Many executives think it’s too cheesy…but it still works. To make collecting people’s information easier offer a draw for a prize -  you can even have them fill in a simple survey…and then you can sort through to find the real prospects later. Thing is, you give away an iPod or something that most people would like…but it also attracts attention to your booth and makes it easy for you to get the contact information of attendees.

I’m going to have to end here. Sorry folks, but stay tuned. Next week I’m going to cover the most neglected yet exponentially important final step of tradeshow marketing.

See you next Monday.

To your success,
Michael