Driving Booth Traffic + Reaching Non-Attendees – NAB Show Exhibitors Webinar

Check out the replay of the NAB Show Exhibitors Webinar, “Driving Booth Traffic + Reaching Non-Attendees” with Cindy Zuelsdorf of Kokoro Marketing and special guest expert Heidi Steffen, SVP, Sales & Marketing at TitanTV, Inc. to find out about:
1. How to get people to visit your trade show booth
2. What customers/clients really care about right now (WIIFM)
3. How to reach people who aren’t attending the show

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Cindy Zuelsdorf with NAB Show Exhibitors Webinar and Kokoro Marketing. And today we’re looking at Driving Traffic and Reaching Non Attendees to your trade show booth with an eye toward NAB Show coming right up here. And I am here with our special guest, Heidi Steffen, senior vice president of sales and marketing at TitanTV. Welcome Heidi.

Thank you for having me.

I’m so glad you’re here and everybody stay with us today for the next 20 ish minutes. We know you guys have a ton of things going on right now, planning for your shows. And so we’re going to keep it short and sweet and give a ton of value. So stay with us because over the next 20 to 30 minutes, we’re going to look at: 1- how to get people to your NAB Show booth; 2- how to really know what your customers, what your clients care about; and 3 -for people who aren’t going to the NAB Show, how to reach them, how can you connect with those people who can’t make it.

Those are the three things that we’re going to dig into today. And at the end, there’ll be time for Q and A with Heidi and with me, And I think we’ll also have some folks on from NAB Show Exhibitor Experience as well. So keep your questions for them toward the end as well.

So, Heidi, I think we should just dig right in and talk about getting two people to the booth and your Field of Dreams Campaign. I love it. Tell me all about it.

Thanks. So. we all ask people, “Where are you from?” And we were doing that back in 2019 as we were going to trade shows. And we said, “We’re from Iowa.”

So Titan TV is out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. When we said that, everyone’s like, “Oh, that’s where the big MLB field of dreams, is going to happen in 2020!” And we’re like, oh my God, we need to play off of this. So the idea came up for a Christmas card, that we sent out in 2019. So with that, and I wonder if I can get up to my camera. So here’s the actual Christmas card that we sent out in 2019. Um, of course it had, we wanted to tie in the whole Iowa. We did a photo shoot. I have some friends that can do photography and drone pictures, so I’m excited to do that. But then we thought let’s take it a further step further and let’s then connect that to NAB.

One of the things I like to do with our Christmas card is we always include an image of all of our staff.

We would normally also then send like a postcard out prior to NAB with that same picture. And then when you come to the booth, we have that same picture in the booth. So the idea is hit in three things at the same time. So we thought, let’s play off of this.

What you see behind me is actually a selfie wall that we had made. This is actually the corn. This is a field of dreams that we had from there. And we went out there, got uniforms made. You can see our uniforms here. And the other thing we got made and we got baseball hats. And then I had this bat custom custom-made, it’s got all of our logos, our company logo, plus our product logos on there.

I love that. That is brilliant. Is it, is it actually engraved into the bat? Awesome.

I think I found them on Etsy. Then the idea is you can be, get your picture taken at NAB at the selfie wall. So if you didn’t make it to the field of dream games, so it was actually two weeks ago… the idea is that we’re bringing Iowa to Las Vegas. Get your selfie taken on the back wall that is actually from field of dreams. Then we got fun and creative too, we didn’t just stop there. Our business cards are actually trading cards, so that’s brilliant. And on the back, it shows rookie, year, team, position, hometown. Every staff member got to pick what pictures they used and their number and everything.

And it’s been great. So I’ve done three trade shows this year and they’ve all been small. And the comment was, oh, these are really memorable. But the whole thing is to try to drive them and something they’re gonna remember about Titan TV, we’re from Iowa… feel the dreams.

So we’ve actually sent out our first campaign which ties right into it. Let me share my screen here.

Please share your screen and that’ll be good.

After I sent out an email communication, I always kind of do a blog or news of that same one, put it onto our website. So you’ll see here, we played with that field of dreams… is the NAB show in Iowa? No, it’s in Las Vegas, join us at our booth, you know, and it says, don’t forget about small market. Again, we’re promoting our free NAB guest pass and then we play off it even more.

So the big thing this year for us is next gen TV 3.0, um, let us help you hit next gen television out of the park with TitanTVs data service and rich media.

I know one of the questions had is I don’t have a big marketing budget. What can I do? I use Canva. I love Canva. So here is an example of what one of the signature images looks like, if you build it, they will come. And then the other one, I’m trying to use the same images over and over. I’ve got where our booth is. And then again with that, you know, get the free guest pass and how you can schedule a meeting.

So if I click on here, go ahead and schedule a meeting with someone on our team to talk about our guide products and media star. So we always to give them a reason why to schedule a meeting with us. So it goes to OnceHub, this is another thing, I think it’s $40 per user monthly. And you don’t have to do a year contract. You can just do a month. I add on two individuals that we normally don’t use this tool. It allows them… I want to set up a meeting with Heidi, we set it up. So the only time spots that show up or what were available for NAB. So you’ll see right here, I’ve got one. So let’s say I’m gonna pick this time slot.

OnceHub meeting example

It’s going to tell me where, and then the nice thing is this automatically goes into their calendar. I’d fill it out as a person done. Even as the person that’s setting up a meeting, if I need to change or cancel it, I just go back to this link to OnceHub and reschedule it. It’s been slick. It takes out a lot of that back and forth, you know, no, I don’t have this time and you have that time and you have that. It’s worked great for us. I love this.

We also use OnceHub. And I think if anybody’s interested in using it, I think we’ve got a link https://www.oncehub.com/pricing?referralcode=ejEzRV that gives a lower price than that, because I want to say we signed people up for closer to $12 a month. Ask my colleague Kristin, in the chat, if you want that, or you can just go to OnceHub and check it out yourself, they do a free demo as well.

There’s a bunch of people on this call who have booked calls with me. So you’ve experienced it. And there’s a couple of you on the call that use it for yourselves. And so this is a great way to make things really smooth. You get an SMS reminder and so you can set it up to maybe 10 minutes or 30 minutes before cause people get crazy at the show and this will help them get to the booth. I’m so glad you showed this Heidi.

So that’s kinda step one. We send out the email blast. So then step two is then our sales team then follows up with either calls or emails because as we know, we’re all busy emails get just slammed in there. We also then push those out to both LinkedIn and Facebook, which I had up here quickly. So one thing to really promote or push and to not only to yourself but your staff, you should put the initial image and call-out on your company page and then have all your staff reshare on their page.

NAB Show social post example

For one, it gives you credibility because coming from the company, but two, you’re going to get more views and interaction from your personal one, especially on LinkedIn, because that’s really a lot of personal. So I always, and it’s funny because I do both of these, but you know, do the ones for the company we posted it and I’ve learned over the years is that I get much more interaction on my personal one. Um, but I think I it’s even better that I showed a tightened TB. And then I did the same thing on our Facebook account. So here again, and doing that link so they can write from here, if they are to go ahead and schedule that meeting. So good and 110% agree with you, Heidi, uh, about the LinkedIn in terms of, you know, people like to, oh, you know, I w I want to, you know, use my company’s, um, LinkedIn and it’s like, well, that that’s fine and everything.

But the fact is, is that most of the interaction with everybody happens on their personal connections. And so that’s the way to do it is exactly what you said totally pro is, have it on your company page, you can reshare it then on your personal, and then you can also make your own new posts on your personal cause. That is where all the action happens. And it was just this year that LinkedIn now has a great feature. So soon as I posted on my TitanTV, it says, Hey, do you want to repost this on your personal one? And so I just say, yes, fill in the little thing I repost it. So I don’t even have to do it. Other stuff. They’re making it a lot easier for you to repost your own page through their new tools. So. Nice, nice love that.

Yes.

So now as we’re making these calls, now, one of the things, well, I’m not going to NAB. And so what we do is we actually then say, not a problem. I want to make sure that you still are able to see this stuff that we’re showcasing. How about we go ahead and schedule a meeting right after NAB for us, we’re really busy just before NAB. Let’s go ahead and schedule before NAB. So I think it really depends on your company, in your workflow and stuff. Is it better that you schedule those meetings for people that you’re not going to be able to see or not be able to attend before any of your after? So we’re looking to do it after, and we’re also knowing a lot of our users of some of our tools don’t attend NAB.

We are in the process of booking a webinar two weeks after NAB as well to showcase the things that we had actually showcased at NAB, because that’s kind of, I look at it as our launch to then roll it out to everyone else. It’s been very successful for us, especially people that maybe are going to NAB, but their schedule is so busy. I’m like, that’s okay, let’s go ahead and schedule right now for after the show. Then I still get their undivided attention and get to tell them everything. I would’ve told them at NAB, it’s not the same in person, but I don’t lose that opportunity to tell them, right.

You’ve got a system in place where you’re prepared to meet with them at the show or after. And you could, if you chose to, you could use that same system for before the show meetings. And so there’s no way to let a lead fall between the cracks because you have got the system in place and you’re dialed in. I love that. Yeah.

easy social media and missinglettr

One of the things you talked about is the fear of missing out. People have that FOMO and that you’re going to reveal something at the show. Will you touch on that again? That was so good.

Yeah. So a lot of times people I know, um, so I’ve been talking to people over the last couple years, especially since we haven’t had a trade show and a big one in a year and a half, and some of them are like, well, I’m really going to go to NAB this year because I don’t know where else to find this new information. I’ve got to go there because that’s where the new things come out. And it is, it’s just been known to be the place where everything’s come out. So they want to make sure that they’re always aware and they’re like, can you make sure I’m also on your email list?

And I said, great. And then I kind of give them, so here’s the highlights that we’re going to talk about. So I kind of like here I talk about here’s what we’re going to talk about. An additional emails or follow ups. I add a little additional info, or I really targeted towards that individual. So if I’m talking to a GM, the messaging and products, I might talk to might be a little different than if I’m talking to the digital guy, I might do more on our guides, or if it’s on the programming traffic, I target to them because that’s, what’s going to trigger that. Oh yes, I need to make sure I’m aware of that to get that information. Ooh, that is a great segue into our next part. I’m going to recap, and then we’re going to go on to talk about what our clients and customers care about.

Cindy Zuelsdorf and Heidi Stteffan on the NAB Show Exhibitors Webinar - Driving Traffic to your trade show booth

So my recap here, some of the steps that you talked about were:

1) being consistent with your image and I’m with you. Canvas is awesome. Although sometimes I go and use Photoshop or Adobe spark. I, a lot of times end up returning to Canva because it’s so great. You can get a free account. And even the paid accounts are like 10 bucks or something. That’s crazy cheap and they are beautiful and you can share it with your team. They can all log in. Right? So I completely recommend that.

2) And then you have a calendar booking link. OnceHub is the one we all use. So calendar booking link is really, really important as well, because then you’ve got a system for following up with people in a way for people to book, no matter what.

3) And then we talked about your salespeople, they go ahead and follow up no matter what. And they share on social too.

4) And then you’ve got your post-show webinar that you do as well.

So having a system in place for being consistent for booking and knowing what to do when people aren’t going to the show seems like, uh, amazing.

So let’s go on to our second point, which is what do people care about right now? You’ve been to some shows in person just even last week, tell us what people care about.

The big topics that I’m hearing… again, I’m kind of in a different segment than some other on the call… but one is cloud. Everything’s going, cloud-based, especially with COVID. It kind of kicks somethings into process and really moved some of those decisions further along. The other thing is next gen television, or ATSC 3.0, depending on how you call it, if you’re in consumer business side.

So I think that’s really where it’s at. And especially with some new technology, I think that’s where broadcasters, because they haven’t had that in-person interaction. They’ve had to sit on zoom calls where we know we always just kinda zoom out, um, that they want to know what’s new, what they’re not missing out. And so I think that’s where sometimes when you’re reaching out to your audience, um, you might need to segment it so that when you’re reaching out to, like I said, the GMs, and maybe it’s more important than you’re talking about cloud, um, technology and stuff like that. It’s less work, you know, you’re, you’re already thin with all your staff. We know it’s hard to hire right now. Here’s, you know, a benefit for you to we’re on the other side, maybe it’s scheduling, um, for us and it’s next gen, we’ve got this, you know, other tools that we’ll be able to help you do more with less.

So it’s just trying to look at think of where broadcast is or your clients are at and what products or services that you have that will help them. And some of that could be in the, and this is how we just reposition a product we already had and just, you know, did a paradigm shift. Yes. It’s we didn’t really build anything different. We’re just saying, Hey, here’s another use case of how you can use this tool that you have today because they never thought about it. And now we’re just making it relevant to what their needs are today. Versus they work two years ago. The last time we saw them in it.

Oh, it’s so good. You’re taking something. You already have making a new use case of it, new, new sort of application and putting that out there.

A friend of mine the other day talked about how marketing is a river, which I just love that at first. I’m like, what? But marketing is a river… if they’re passing by, right, when you say it, it’s all good, but they’ve moved on. And so you got to keep saying it because the next person will come by. And furthermore, uh, when it’s 18 months later, we need to say it again. And so sometimes we feel like I’ve said that before, or we already showed that, or we already talked about it. Yes. But your customers in a different place right now, they feel like they haven’t seen new technology in 18 months. They maybe feel like they don’t know what’s happening and want to be up to date and you showing them applications and how they can use stuff is wonderful. And that’s one thing I love about NAB. And I’ve learned over the years too, I’ve had long-time clients and I thought they knew everything that we did know.

And they’re like, I didn’t know you do this. And I’m thinking, I know we talked about it many times over the past years! But I tell my sales team, you have to reinforce everything. Even if you think you’ve gone over it with them at the time, it wasn’t of interest then. It wasn’t a need. And now it is, and it’s going to trigger something. Oh, I didn’t know. You guys did that. I’m like, really? So it’s like, and that’s what I tell. We literally, I have a list that I have them all go, or maybe talk about this. You talk about this, you talk about this so that you make sure that that client, even though they’re been with the company 15 years knows everything that we’ve been doing, even if the product’s 15 years old.

It’s so true. I remember being at a TV station and I’m talking with someone who had, you know, bought equipment from me for 10 plus years. And he says, and here’s a rack of something I just bought and my heart sank because it was something that I had available. And I, I didn’t know you had that. And I mean, it was so painful. And so I learned that even if I feel, even if I felt a little like, well, I probably said that before, maybe you guys don’t feel like that, but I would feel like, oh, I don’t want to, I don’t want to tell them over and over. No, I would always say, and you probably know we make this. And of course, if you ever need this, just recapping, you know, and then that became my habit and it helped, it was a good thing. So, well, well said, so for customers coming in, it seems like them, they don’t want to miss out and them not knowing what’s happened over the last 15 months, 18 months is a big deal.

And you saw that at the ATSC show and the TAB show. And that’s where, I mean, the question I got, so what’s new. I mean, that was the, uh, over the last, you know, three months, the show. So what’s new, you know, what have you guys been working on? And that was a question that was laying on the first thing that come on. And these are clients that I’ve had for years. And, you know, I know they’ve gotten my emails in the last two years, um, of us not meeting person, but I just think that face to face gives you a different, any different interaction. And I think they just absorb it more. Um, and so be able to showcase it and walk it through. And I was waiting. I was, sometimes you have a very limited amount of time at a show that you can talk to them.

So most of our meetings are about an hour long. We’re demoing in our booth. And so we’re very selective of what we go over. We try to go high level and if we need to dig deeper, we can. And there’s always a plan for a follow-up. So before that meeting is over, we set up next follow-up call after nav. And maybe some of it a lot of times, oh, I need to make sure this and this and my team showed, you know, shows it. Um, and then the other thing we do is kind of give them for our VIP is we do VIP gifts to kind of give them something to remember by. Um, I know somebody also mentioned, you know, well, what are some things I have a low budget that I can do for trade shows? And one of the things that I is great for us is we do, um, flat flash drives.

Um, it’s just a small one. We put all of our product sheets, PowerPoints press releases on it, and we only give it to key people. Um, and someone’s like, well, they’re going to erase it. I said, I don’t care. Every time they plug it in, let’s say they put their favorite pictures on it. Every time they plug it into that computer, it’s got my name on it, but they don’t have to carry all those papers. I don’t always tend to, I don’t need another product sheet to carry home with me. Um, so they have it there. And then the other thing too, is everything’s done via email. It’s electronic. They can forward it on to other company, you know, people within the company receive it. And then we normally do VIP. So our VIP this year is this mug and we’re going to fill it with, um, like bubblegum, Cracker Jacks.

So think what would I get at a baseball game? Um, and then for small market or SMT, we’re doing the little bats, um, species. So we always try to tie in, um, our promotional gifts with, uh, our theme of the booth that year. And the other one that was really went really well with the show shows I’ve done so far, um, hand sanitizer. It was a huge, you know, um, hit, it has our Titan TV. It’s a spray and it worked well. And every time I only bring a select amount, um, cause we want to say most of them for nav, they were gone, you know, and you can put the key force. There is that those are your select people. You’ve kind of decided, okay, some drives go to these people and my VIP gifts go to these people. So it’s not that you have a VAT of them in the aisle, in front of your booth.

No. The only thing we have a lot of his candy, which was so funny. So I was at the ATSC conference last week and I had mints just plain old mints there. And it was mentioned twice. Make sure you go to Titan TV to get your mints, you know, spelling your breath with your mask on. And I’m like, I could have paid for that promotion. And I don’t know how many people stopped by just from my mints. It was just, it was hilarious. So I joked with the team. We have to have an incident nav.

I like it. I like it. So we talked about how to get people to your booth and super actionable steps that you gave right there. And I’m totally on board with you because those are the things we’re doing with a lot of our clients as well. And so no matter what size your company is, if you’re small, if you’re medium, if you’re large, those tactics really, really work. And we talked a little bit about what customers care about, what they’re interested in right now, the fear of missing out. I love the FOMO thing. I think that’s super critical right now. And let’s just recap a little bit on our third point, which is what to do around people who can’t make it to NAB show. And you, you baked that in so nicely and so seamlessly, but let’s just touch on one or two things there around people who can’t make it to the show.

Heidi, I think the biggest thing is when someone says, no, I’m not going to NAB. It’s not the end of the conversation. For two reasons, one, you don’t want them to think that the only reason I’m calling you is to make that appointment. I just need to fill up my appointment card to you still want to make the connection. You still want to tell your story. You still want to showcase what you have. So take that opportunity at that moment. Not a big deal. Great. Let’s go ahead and we can set up a webinar after or a zoom call after before. Let me go ahead and show you everything. I would have talked to you at the median NAB because I think it’s essential. I think it’s important that you hear about this. What’s a good time for you. Um, and I have not had anyone said, no, I don’t want to, you know, um, more likely they’re calling, they’re talking to me to, because they have an interest and they want to let me know.

They can’t make it. Okay. Well that’s okay. Let me still go ahead and schedule that meeting and schedule it now, even though we’re six weeks away. So I can go on and tell you what I would’ve told you. If we didn’t meet at nav. And I love how you frame that up because you’re very, uh, what I like to think of as what’s in it for me and not me and not you, but the customer, the client, what do they care about? So all of your conversations and everything you’re talking about with them is really what do they care about? So what’s in it for them. And that makes a difference. Of course, they’re going to go ahead and book with you because you’ve got information and things that can help them and benefit them. So, uh, everybody on the call as you’re working on that, um, if you’re already kind of in that mode of what’s in it for me, great. And if it’s a new idea, uh, check it out because all of the language and everything that you talk about around the show, it needs to be focused on them and what they have, uh, instead of come see me, I have this, we’re all about this week. We have these things, you know, you need this and it, when you come to visit us, you can see how this will help your facility, that kind of thing. And it makes all the difference in the world. And you do it naturally. Heidi.

Yeah. It’s good and it’s worked very well for us. I like the memorable piece. And so that’s such a great challenge to think like what’s memorable and you’ve really taken something that somebody might say, oh, Midwest, I’m from the Midwest. I can say this. Oh, the Midwest, you know, it’s, it’s the middle of the country. It’s not, it’s not LA, it’s not New York. It’s not London. It’s not Dubai. It’s the Midwest. Yeah. It’s the Midwest. And we’ve got corn and you like took a thing and made it super memorable and fun. So I think you’re brilliant. Awesome thing. And can I ask about the shows you were at recently, the ATFC show and the tab show? How was the attendance? Did you see a lot of people or how was that? Yep. So actually my first show was end of may, was NTA.

So the NTA National Translator Association was in Salt Lake City. I was surprised of how many came because of, you know, things were still in known and even TAB and the ATSC conference last week, there were more people than they originally expected. And the interesting thing I did hear at the ATSC conference that I think is really relevant to bring up here. They were worried at first about attendance, but the last two weeks before the show, the attendance registrations just kept going up and up and up. And everyone that I talked to there, um, from broadcasters and there were some big broadcasters there, um, to, you know, exhibitors, they all plan and go to NAB. Now it’s might not be the same amount of, you know, from the broadcast as many of them normally send sending in a year, or it might be as big of a booth for exhibit, but they still plan on going because they have a mission.

So, you know, a lot of the talk was NAB this year is going to be over. It’s going to be quality over quantity. So it’s, and it’s because there are less people going and they have a mission. Um, as I’ve told my team, we have to reach out to them early, um, because their schedule is going to fill up quickly and maybe they’re not going to three days. If they never really go, maybe they’re only going two days. So we need to make sure that we find that time and we don’t miss that opportunity to be in front of them. Yeah, that’s great. And all the years I exhibited at NAB show probably more than 20. Um, you know, you get there and you unpack your crate and you start putting up your booth and doing all the work and you do expect a lot of people are going to be there the whole time.

With the shift this year, you’re totally on point in saying that, uh, we need to really get the appointments booked because people may only be there a day or two. And you’re right. That the quality over quantity is where we’re at right now, because anybody coming to NAB show is going to be a serious person for a reason. Yeah. For some reason they have a need, you just need to find it is my product services that need, and can I get in front of them to get the opportunity to help fill that need? Exactly. Exactly. So we looked at how to get people to your booth, what customers care about and how to work with people who aren’t coming to the show.

We’re going to go to Q and A, but before we go to that, Heidi, if someone was just going to do one thing based on our conversation today, what would you pick?

What would you suggest to them? The one thing I think would be to really reach out early, especially through email, what you’re doing and do that follow-up call and get those appointments. That’s the one thing, you know, and if you don’t have all the trinkets and you don’t have a big booth, you don’t need to, I’ve been able to do NAB on a small budget. Um, but it’s about that, that communication and really getting your message out to what’s in it for them like we’ve been talking to, but you have to do it early. Um, for most entities, we start February 1st for an April show. Um, now we’re just kicking off now with everything, but it’s one of those things and, and it’s the follow through you. Can’t just send out an email and pray. You have to email, follow up, maybe set another follow-ups.

We even have it set up. Okay. We don’t know these people are going. If people are already going, we take them out of our email list, sending them another touch point to get them to schedule those meetings. I always had a, my hot list, my dream list, where I had, I had this thing where if I only saw these 20 people at NAB show, I would go home feeling like it was golden. Of course, we’re going to see more than 20 people, but maybe that number is 50 for you, or maybe it’s a hundred, whatever the number is. It doesn’t matter have that list. And it just like, make it your mission to see those people. Right. And so in the chat, if you don’t mind tell me who’s got a dream list, hotlist hit list. And if you just want to do it to the, um, to me to the, to the host, then not everybody can see it.

That’s okay too, but I’m just wondering if you do. Cause I feel like that turned my life around when I started doing that at exhibitions. Yeah. And our hot list for our sales team is any renewals or working on our, any prospects, um, any of, um, their top accounts that they want to work on. Um, they’re also, um, for example, low powers has gotten big. So there’s this year we’ve added to some of their hit or some of those individuals. The interesting thing that hitless really has morphed over the years because, um, broadcasters have bought rock casters and things have changed, so your decision-makers have changed. But the other thing that’s interesting about it is, um, when you talk to a large bark hazard, it’s not just one person that you’re talking to. More likely it’s multiple people depending on the departments. So it’s really to narrow that down. And I know there’s years, I’ve had four separate court appointments with one broadcast group because of just our products and services and who you need to reach out to.

Definitely. And you know, things are going great when you’ve got an appointment with one, uh, station group, and then they bring someone over later that day or tomorrow. Oh, I just want to bring so-and-so over. Yes. Oh my gosh, this is working good. All right. We’re going to go to Q and a with Heidi and with me right now. And if we don’t make it through all your questions, we will circle back to you and Kristin, I’m going to invite you on to just tell us just we’ll just talk the three of us. And then after that, I believe Rachel Rochelle, Michael from NAB show is on with us. Michelle’s here and we should be able to bring her on and ask if you have NAB experience, NAB show, experience questions that you’d like addressed as well. So Kristin, do we have some questions that we didn’t get to, that we should go to? Yeah. Yes we do. I have a question here. Uh, as a marketer, I’m responsible for creating many trade show materials. What would you say are the must haves and just nice to have when you’re limited on time and resources?

So we, as far as booth materials, we have product sheets that we do. Um, but we don’t print a lot, uh, just because, like I said, a lot of times there, we normally hand out product sheets only to people that are tire kickers or it’s quick to talk about. And then that’s where I go to the flash drive and, and sign them out. So I would say if you have limited resource, just do maybe your key, you know, what are your key marketing things that you guys want to talk about and showcase should be the items that you then have for, um, your booth material. Nice, nice. That’s so good. I will weigh in on that as well. And jump in. I feel like having something that really clearly tells what problems are solved and that’s a takeaway and then has a clear next step.

So if you solve problems, A, B, and C have that on a one sheet, if you can, and then have a clear next step as to where they could go and get more info where they can book a demo where they can book an appointment, something that gives them a clear next step as well. And that can be super easy. You can do that with a printed, with Moo, do it in Canva, print it with Moo, like really inexpensively and quickly. I like also having an SMS choice as well. So, uh, if you’ve got somebody on the booth where you can say, are you interested in A or B? And they tell you, oh, I’m interested in product A or, you know, I’m a station owner or whatever the thing is that they’re doing, I’m a group owner, or I’m a director of engineering, then you say, oh, pull out your phone just a second.

Just text me at my number with the key word transmitter, or whatever the thing is, or ATSC, or something like that. And have a system in place to where now that’s going to automatically send them a PDF on your product, on your service, whatever. And it’s also going to capture them into your database so that you’ve just segmented them. You know, they’re interested in that product and you’ve got their information in the database and they feel happy because you gave them something that they actually need and care about. And so if you can have a system like that in place at the booth, uh, quick to set up, not expensive and super valuable, Kristin, any others we should go to and we will circle back to anybody. We must do. We’re going to look through all the questions just in case.

Yes, absolutely. Another question is any tips for getting attendees to a booth that is off the beaten path? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I’ve had so many 10 by tens off the beaten path. How about you, Heidi? Yeah. And I think it goes back to, um, and I tell my team doesn’t matter where your booth is. If you get those meetings ahead of time, you don’t need the drive by, you know, so it’s reaching out to them ahead of time, let them know where you’re at, um, and why they need to come. You know, what’s in it for them. Why do they need to come off the beaten path to come see you? And sometimes it’s to, oh, by the way, um, if you come to our booth, I’ll also have, you know, this giveaway or this white paper, whatever it is, another incentive to have them come to your booth.

I’ve learned for the most part, if, I mean, if you have the pre-appointment, it doesn’t matter what your booth located. We, I did a webinar with Jefferson Davis and he’s done some other NAB show things before, and he had such a good one and I’m trying to remember the details, but it was something like, um, that he’d shipped the golf balls to people in advance and tell them to come to your booth to get the club. So like, if you could do a two part thing, I thought that was so brilliant. And, uh, so something that gets them to come by, I think your selfies, there are really a nice way to do it. And simple things like water and coffee. I mean, people are just happy to have a little bit of hospitality and friendliness too. So it doesn’t have to be a set of culture clubs.

It can be something simple as well. I know there’s a big, uh, vendor that always has cookies, warm cookies. And so sometimes we’ll swing by there just to get the cookies, you know? So it’s things like that just to get them doesn’t matter again, wear your boots. Yeah. I mean, if you’ve got a booth off the beaten path and you don’t have a customer list, you can still do this, actually. There’s so many ways. And, um, hit me up afterward. I will happily jump on a 15 minute conversation with you about this. So just shoot your message over to Kristin and, and talk. I’ve done so many tiny 10 by 10 boosts off in the back 40. Um, but with everything in the central hall this year, um, or in central and north, I think people are going to be hitting all the boosts. And so that will help.

You could be doing a video every week on LinkedIn from now until then you can be reaching out to people on LinkedIn based on geography and title and connecting with them prior to the show, look for people with the word engineer in their title. And then the geographic on you want to connect with, you can do that manually or with automation, I’m a big fan of automation, but you can do it manually and connect. So there’s a million ways. Anyways, I get all excited about it. So hit me up if you want, what else, Kristin? And then we’ll go to Rochelle. All right. Uh, yes. I have another question here as a marketer, my role is to bring in more registrations. So other than email marketing, what kind of campaigns are critical or helpful in getting registrations? And I would say, say if it wasn’t a COVID here, um, mailings have actually worked really well for us to get out and get them there.

The only thing is this year everyone’s working from home. So my thought was, well, are they going to get, um, but I think it’s back to social media, especially LinkedIn is huge. I have made more connections, especially even through POBID I’m on there. And it’s one of those just to be able to connect. And I saw this, um, and it’s also not only are you posting, you need to interact on LinkedIn, you need to read the articles you need to like, you need a comment because one, that’s going to be better for you overall, but then too, you get that interaction. And they’re like, oh, I keep seeing this name, you know, and Hey, can I connect? And then when you do connect with somebody, don’t just connect, say, Hey, here’s why I want to connect. Um, you know, can we set up a call or just, I wanted to, you know, I’ve loved following your stuff.

I’d like to learn more stuff like that and using video on LinkedIn, if you can, if it just feels too daunting, don’t worry about it. Do do whatever. If you can use even just 22nd videos, I did a video about, um, an hour ago, right before we jumped on here, just saying, Hey, I’m going to be on here talking to Heidi. It’s going to be great because people, once they see a video, they feel like they know you already. And so they’re going to see you at the show. I’ve had people walk up to me at NAB show and be like, oh, Hey, how are you? Oh, I saw you on this thing. I haven’t met that person before. And I was like, oh, but it was great because it did what it was supposed to do. And people felt really comfortable. And so, you know, made a new friend doing that.

And if you can do that, on social as well, you can level up. And it’s actually a way to get ahead on some things and making so yes, and I want to throw one thing related to LinkedIn. I didn’t find, um, until, uh, so this is, can I, um, so this is my LinkedIn on my mobile phone. There’s a little thing right here in the search. Oops. I clicked the wrong one. Um, so you’re talking to someone at NAB. They don’t have a business card. You’re like, what do I do? Or do you want to connect with them? You click on that link, um, in there. And it brings up my QR code. They scan my QR code. It automatically connects us. Um, or I go to scan and I scan there. This has been slick. Um, our team has really used it over the last couple of years because allows, you don’t have to get, you know, one of those things to scan there, we’re connecting directly on LinkedIn, you know, and that’s where too, you can do a follow-up after NAB.

Even if let’s say you didn’t get their email, you’ve got that direct connection at LinkedIn, do messaging and then follow up from there to actually schedule. But you know, another follow-up, I love that. That’s such a great tool. So between using the LinkedIn QR code, and if you did have an SMS system set up where somebody could text and a keyword, or depending on your CRM, if you have got a CRM to where you can take a picture of the business card and it sucks the data right into the CRM, like all those things work. And then of course the NAB show reader is a choice too. So there’s no reason not to collect. I mean, you can collect names if you run into someone in the hall or at part of the, a different part of the event where you’re not on your booth or stand, you can definitely do this and collect it. So yes, yes, yes. To that. Heidi nicely said,

Rachelle, how are you? Welcome. Glad you’re here.

Thanks for having me.

Hey, how’s it going guys? I’m so great. So far. Thank you guys so much for this information and things, everybody for joining. Do

You have anything we want to add and you don’t have to, I just want to make space for it. And does anyone have questions specific? Um, for Rochelle because she is NAB show exhibitor experience, so she knows everything. So we have the person here. Yes. Please put

Any questions that you guys have in the chat. Um, as Cindy said, I, um, worked directly for NAB and have been curating your exhibitor experience. Um, I see you have some hands raised already. Um, happy to answer any questions that you guys have about your booth, any services.

All right. We brought Jim on so he can ask his question. Good morning, ladies. Good morning, Jim.

How’s it going? Uh, so we heard rumor that NAB was going to offer she virtual element to the physical food as a show like a virtual option, maybe for people or vendors that can’t, or don’t want to attend. Is that something that’s coming?

That is something that is coming. Um, we have been actively working on that and I’m looking, I’m checking on our website right now to see if it has officially launched. Um, but it is coming, it will be a hybrid offering. Um, and it is, let me see. Um, so we have it put the

Link in the chat if you feel like it, otherwise we can circle back.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, my sales rep Aaron has been great. Um, so he’s, I, I just didn’t want to blurt something else that, you know, uh, but, but Aaron had told me and Eric traffic probably something was coming. So I think that’s how we’re going to choose to participate. We I’ve kind of set up a little studio where I’m going to do virtual demos. I imagine we can book virtual meetings. Um, um, we, we use the one pub tool that, that Cindy mentioned earlier, um, physically at the show we would set, you know, uh, appointments, 15 minute increments, you know, to get people to book slots for our booth. So I imagine we would do something similarly, uh, virtual.

Yep, absolutely. So I just put the link in the chat for everybody, um, for those who cannot make it, um, obviously we would love for all of our exhibitors to attend in person, um, and have some programs if you can’t make it. Um, you know, we partnered with a company that can send and represent, um, you at your booth at the show, um, if your staff members are not. So, um, we do have some opportunities, um, and definitely follow up with your sales reps then Jim, thanks for calling that Aaron. He’s awesome. Um, so yeah,

That’s great. Thank you for that. And that’s super interesting or so that you’ve got a company that can go work on, uh, your booth and do that piece of it. If you can’t make it to the show. That’s good to know. Yes, absolutely. Nice other questions for Rachelle that you, that you would like to bring to her and do you have contact info where, um, people can reach out to you if they need? Absolutely.

Yeah, I will put my, um, email and then I’ll also put our exhibit services, um, email that you guys with any questions, um, I would suggest if you haven’t already, um, take a look at the exhibitor resources page, I will put the link in the chat. This is going to be your holy grail to exhibiting we’re constantly making updates. I literally made an update to it today. Um, this, this has everything, um, that you will need to have a successful NAB show.

Nice, nice. So, um, Marcel will put her contact details in the chat and then, um, Kristin, if you wouldn’t mind throwing details in for Heidi and for me. So if any of you want to reach out to us or connect on LinkedIn or any of the places, uh, happy, happy to, to chat, I get all pumped up about it. So I’ll just chat with anybody about it. So fun. And let’s see, oh, Rochelle, I think this one might be for you

Do, how are the built-in etools working? What does, what does that, what does that type of tool I’m not familiar with that and I’m going to throw to you if, if you don’t mind, Rachelle.

We will be using the same system that live exhibitors are using map your show. Um, so in essence, they have built in a way to schedule meetings. Um, they have virtual chat and they also have, um, live demos if you purchase an upgraded package. Um, so that’s kind of how that will be working. Um, and we actually have a webinar going through those specifics on the ninth of, um, September, I’ll put the, um, registration link in the chat as well. Um, but that will kind of be going through the new features for map your show, as well as, um, you know, how to help you populate your company listing and, um, new interactive floor plan features as well. So again that as on September 9th, um, and that will be hosted by myself and Matt for your show.

That is fabulous. What other questions? Anything else? Or should we call it a wrap here? I think we covered a ton of stuff. And with Heidi’s actionable item, one thing to do, you know, if you do nothing else, do this kind of information. All right. Do we want to plug your next webinar? We, oh yeah. We mentioned at the top briefly. Right? Good idea. So our next webinar will be on return on investment ROI. How can you justify spending money on a trade show and how can you show that ROI and really know that, uh, the show is helping you in your marketing and sales work. So that is coming up, I believe on the 16th, but we will keep you posted. And our guest expert is going to be Bryce button from Aja video.

Perfect. And I just posted the link, Michelle to the webinar registration, um, on the sixteenth. https://kokoroinc.com/nabshowwebinars/ Good. Oh, Karen, you made it – good!

All right. Thank you everybody. Thank you, Heidi. All right. We’ll say goodbye. See you all in October.