It’s OUR Fault
Dear Tim,
Thanks for the information about the Expo. Do you think there might be an opportunity (panel or other presentation) for us to “demo” our product in the conference? We find that a straight booth sponsorship doesn’t get us a good return. Thanks.
This is an email I got this morning. I get this email or phone call, nearly word-for-word actually, about 4-5 times per week. And each time I respond politely but directly that I am building an event where having a booth alone DOES work. I’m not sure when it started happening because I’ve only been in the tradeshow business myself for about 8 years. But somewhere along the way exhibitors and sponsors began thinking that the only way to make tradeshows and conferences worthwhile is to pitch their product in the conference.
How is that possible? Do exhibitors somehow track all responses to conference pitches where they don’t at the booth where they should be? Some way, some how - psychologically - speaking at a conference magically makes everything worthwhile. Let me ask a rhetorical question. If you deliver a sales pitch to a session room of 100 people who are angry about it because they have paid to sit there, yet deliver your demo to 2,000 people in the exhibit hall who are happy to hear it because that’s what they are expecting at the booth, how in the world is that somehow better? How could that possibly that make the investment in a tradeshow worthwhile?
It’s not their fault - it’s our fault as conference and tradeshow organizers for letting it get this bad.
I also find myself wanting to push back even more every time I get that email. There is a post coming from me - sometime in the next year (I feel it) - where I announce that every speaker, at every conference we do - will be independent and not representing a company. Instead of getting the marketing guy from ABC Software to teach the software, we’ll get a power-user of ABC Software to teach the class. Instead of getting the CEO of XYZ company to talk about the XYZ industry, we’ll get they independent blogger who writes about the XYZ industry every day to be the speaker. And there is a simple reason why organizers aren’t doing it this way now - because it’s HARD. It’s hard to find those folks and when you do find them, you might have to pay them because there’s nothing in it for them to speak for you because they aren’t selling anything!
But it makes the conference a world better. And therefore more people will pay for it - and I think they’ll pay MORE for it. This is good for everyone. The attendee gets a much better conference. The exhibitor gets a real return on a booth because the quality of the attendee is better, and I get to increase the conference revenue because it’s a better product and more people are willing to pay for it.
Who’s with me?
July 14th, 2007 at 1:56 pm |
You’re right that vendors shouldn’t just do a demo of their product or Web-based service at a conference. I’ve even seen audiences rebel when vendors used screenshots of their product as very appropriate examples of what they were teaching.
In general, decision makers in an audience want to learn how to select a vendor and hear problem-solving stories — and demos don’t sell them at that early stage.
My approach when speaking has always been to teach the audience how to solve their problem. This helps them see just how challenging it is to do — and helps them see the value of my product or service.
July 19th, 2007 at 7:06 am |
I think that there’s one piece of this that is the exhibitors fault–they have all copied each other and reproduced the same old generic, banal booth presence.
I walk around conferences and wonder at how many companies spend tons of money on crappy booths, not necessarily aesthetically since some of them are beautiful, but that don’t give me a compelling promise or reason to stop and care about what they are doing.
If I had a booth, it would be designed to do one thing–make a compelling promise to get my target prospect (not everyone, just my target prospect) to stop and look further.
Then very quickly I would give them a reason to “raise their hand” and give me permission to start a relationship with them. That is to say, my only goal would be to start that relationship and get their contact info so I can continue it.
I pass all kinds of booths that do nothing but throw their fat logo up which means nothing to me. Yeah, you have a pretty logo, but I don’t care. Why should I stop and talk to you? Why do you have something that these other people don’t? If that is not readily apparent, then yes, you are wasting your money on the booth.
If the only thing they can do to improve the situation is ambush a “captive” audience in a conference presentation, then they need to go back to Marketing 101.
–end rant–