Watch this ad first here. Share the one that touched your heart. After watching this commercial, watch the other commercial here. Do you like attending trade events? Not because you can take the chance to sneak off for some shopping or running personal errands after visiting the show. Trade event is a great place to keep yourself up-to-date with what's happening in your industry, new technologies, making connections with your existing clients and check out what your competitors are doing. It's also a great learning place about doing business. For the exhibitors, it's a place for you to promote your products and services, make connections, get leads and create awareness of your company. Last week, I happened to chance upon a trade event on cloud computing. Although it's totally not related to what my business is all about, I thought there might be some technology stuff that would be good to know about, especially those related to improving productivity and customer relation management systems. After all, you never know what you will discover. One of the things you will find out is that there are a lot a lot a lot of freebies. Lanyard, stress ball, pen, tissue, umbrella, note book, mug, recycle bag, mineral water, magazines, lucky draw, coffee and the list is endless. You're sure to end up with a bag fully loaded with brochures and freebies. Although you are probably going to throw them away, you get a feel-good feeling by collecting them and showing them to your colleagues. It's not unusual to see someone showing a freebie he or she has gotten to colleagues and then have the whole gang of them storming to the particular booth asking for one as well. Freebies are a form of investment, a marketing cost that many exhibitors use as a crowd puller to collect leads, apart from having beautifully designed booth at prominent location. Companies spare no efforts in trying to outdo everyone to get visitors' attention. Some even engage scantily dressed ladies to man the booth to give out freebies or walk round the hall giving out brochures to attract visitors to visit their booths. To get the freebie, you are expected to provide them with your name card in exchange or fill up a form. And with the advancement of technology, now they just need to scan your pass. The more attractive your freebie, the greater you are able to attract people. And when a booth is swamped with people, everyone will be curious to check out what's happening. There's also the herd mentality. When everybody see everyone asking for it, they also want to join in so they are part of it. Furthermore, the fear of losing out also plays a part in their behavior. One of the exhibitor at the show was even giving out Haagen Dazs ice cream and a chance to win Iphone 6. However, the problem with this is that the visitors literally have their eyes glued on what flavors are they going to choose. I've a feeling they'll walk away with a cup of ice cream in their hands without knowing anything about this exhibitor. Of course, the advantage of such trade event is that you know that these visitors are probably more qualified as prospects, having come from similar industry or businesses that are interested in your products or services. This company can follow up with these visitors after the show with their details.
I used to work for a trade publication and every time there's a trade show, the marketing department will set a target to collect a certain number of subscriber for their free magazine. As it's an audited publication, there are certain qualifying criteria before a person is qualified. We are also told to collect name cards in exchange for a freebie. It looks like a number game. At one time, I even encountered property and insurance agents attending such events and went around collecting name cards so they can sell their services after that. I mentioned to the person in charge that they are very smart to use this to attract visitors and she remarked, "No choice. Otherwise no one will come to our booth." I was rather surprised by what she said. Their booth was double the standard size and located in the entrance of the hall so it already has advantage of more prominence over the smaller booths located right at the back of the hall. Did she has not confidence in her company products and services? They have all the setup showcasing their products and services. Were they not attractive or interesting enough to stop passerby to take a second look? Could they have used their banner or brochure to get visitors interested in visiting their booth rather than using ice cream? |
AuthorOutrageous Marketing Archives
May 2020
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