Cindy Zuelsdorf:
It was my first or second show, I remember being in the central hall, looking across the aisle and seeing couple of big companies… I got my Makita out, was opening up the crate that I had boxed up myself and shipped off to the show… I had just grabbed a bunch of stuff from my car and brought it in on a dolly, and I’m standing there thinking, “I wonder if anyone’s going to come to my booth.” I had no idea, I felt worried about it, I wished I would have done more. I HAD done stuff, it’s not like I hadn’t – but I felt unsure like, “Had I done the right things?”
I wonder, has anybody here else has felt that way before?
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
So, if you have a smaller booth, maybe 10 x 10, 10 x 20, whatever size, just, you feel on the smaller side, and you feel like it’s challenging to get traffic to your NAB booth, I’m glad you’re here at this interactive session, welcome. And during this small group, but community building session, we can all talk and share, and we’re going to dig into budget-friendly tactics that really work, and you get to know a few other exhibitors too. So. I want to welcome my special guest and co-host, John Davis. He’s the sales and support manager at Logitech Electronic Systems. Welcome, John, how’s your day going?
John Davis:
Doing great, and glad to be here.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
So, so glad you’re here. All right, here’s the format for today; John and I are going to be hosting the session. That said, you guys can have your cameras on, have your mics on if you have something to say, and you’re all welcome to join the conversation. I’ll look in the chat here. Fallon’s going to give you a link to a web page, and there’s a downloadable worksheet, you can download it now, and that’ll give you a plan. When you leave at the end of the session today, you’ll have an action plan.
Today’s worksheet (PDF download)
Let’s just jump right into it – getting traffic to our booth on a budget. John, when we talked the other day, you said, “There is one thing everybody should do.”, and I wanted to ask you about that.
John Davis:
Well, one thing that we discussed was, we call it a hit list. It’s, who are the people that you need to see, who are the people you want to see? And ultimately, you end up with a list of people that, if I get to see even half the people on this list, it’s a good show, that they all feel like, “We got our money’s worth if we see X, Y, and Z,” because these are either important existing customers, or their future customers we’re trying to get, or somebody whose business we’re trying to get away from somebody else, and … So, the key to having a successful show, in many ways, it’s less about how flashy your booth is, and more about the homework you do before you get there to make sure that the people you want to see come see you, and they know where you are.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
How many folks on this call … You can use the chat, you can raise your hand and jump in, who’s done that; made a hit list, or, I sometimes if I don’t want to call it a hit list, I’ll call it your top 20, or top 100, that kind of thing? Is anybody done that before?
John Davis:
Every year.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Every year, okay. And, Paula, you said you do it. Nice. Okay. Is anybody interested in hearing some tactics on how to do it? I do it also now, I used to do it before when I worked at a small manufacturing company as well.
Emily:
Because I know most exhibits won’t give you the list of attendees just for privacy concerns, so how do you find out which of your customers are actually going to be at the show?
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Yeah, yeah. You want to jump in first John? Go for it.
John Davis:
Sure. One of the things is, I mean, you can get from Experient attendee lists. The thing is that you’re paying by the name and there’s a lot of attendees. So, one of the things that you’d want to do if you’re going to order an attendee list from Experient is, know who your customer is, and that’s something we’re going to get into in a bit here, but … I mean, and I’ll dive into that, because it’s a good segue. It’s like, you look at your persona of who this person is. In our business, we make audio consoles for TV and radio stations. So, our primary decision maker is a chief engineer of either radio or a TV station. Sometimes we’re dealing with a corporate or a engineer, and sometimes we’re dealing with the individual. It’s just, who’s the person who’s going to sign the PO? So, we tell Experient, “Give me everybody who has checked that they are interested in radio products, TV products, and that they have these job categories.” And, they’ll come back to you with, “Here is x number of names,” and you get it.
John Davis:
I don’t think they sell you the email address, but you do get their station, and you get their mailing address, and from there, you can suss out a lot of that. And you can, with a little bit of Google, call them up and set appointment. But it’s really key to know that target, know who your buyer is before you start, because that helps you focus that, and it also helps you focus your booth in general.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Perfect. Yeah, go for it, Emily.
Emily:
I had one more follow up. So, actually never mind, just answered my own question. Nevermind. Okay?
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
No worries, no worries. I want to take what John said and jump off on it a bit, and actually break it down a tiny bit. So, two things: one is, knowing your persona, your ideal customer avatar, your … Avatar or persona are the two that I think of in terms of what I’m going after. And so, what we do is we actually sit there and define it. So I’m going to go, “Okay …” I’m here to think about a last sale, a recent sale, and go, “The person who purchased was Paul.” I’m going to pick on you Paul a little bit, but just Paul. And he’s an engineer, and he’s 45, and he works at a, call it, a station on KOW in Madison. He’s been in the business for 25 years, and he goes to NAB every other year. Maybe that’s my kind of customer. And so, I think about that. I even whiteboard it up I have Paul, I’m going for, but I also have Bob, and Bob works at CNN, and he’s 55, and he’s been in the business 30 years, and he goes to every tech conference, I see him at every single one. He always wants the cutting edge technology, that kind of thing.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
So, I’ve got my Paul and I got my Bob. And, I think about that in my booth, and what I’m doing and stuff. So, that’s the first piece. And I literally name them. I might write down what they say. Paul says, “I read TV technology every day, and I’m trying to find out how to bring IP into my TV station.” That’s the thing that Paul said. I heard him say it, I wrote it down. And maybe Bob said, “I need to know about the latest SMPTE 2110 standard,” or something like that. And so, I maybe write down one or two sentences that person actually says and think about it. So that’s the avatar persona piece of it. And then the second piece is like John said, then we do a little bit of, if you’ve heard of old school, Jay Conrad Levinson, guerrilla marketing, we’re just going to do our smart tactics. And, one of them, and you can log into your Experient portal, Emily, I think you’ll like this, Mary, we’ve talked about this, Aurora, I think we talked about it, where you can go in there, click the thing that says, “Send a promo email”. You don’t have to send it, but you click that.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
And then you can use the filters. They have some filters, not as advanced as LinkedIn, but a little bit. You can put in a name for a title, some stuff like that, and bring up a list, and now get your favorite high school student, virtually assistant, or just get a cup of coffee, and go through there and pick the people you think, “That person, that person, that person, I’m going to add them to my list. Now I jump over to LinkedIn, I connect with them.” And you can have your virtual assistant, high school student, or a cup of coffee, and do it yourself, and just say, “I’m going to do 10 a day, I’m going to do five a day.” Whatever you pick. “I can do 20 a day.” And you make a plan with maybe three messages; “Hi, we’re both in broadcast, just want to connect.” Maybe something super simple like that. The second one’s going to be something you can help them with; “Hey, I’ve got this audio article on something about audio and stations. It’s really cool. Click here to read it. I just want to share.” If you have that article on your website, now you drove them to your website. There’s a whole bunch of benefits around that like retargeting and stuff. But now you’re starting to build that know, like and trust that gets them into your booth.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
So that’s the first bits and pieces of that. There’s other ways to do it, but those are your ways that you can get started. Has anybody tried anything like that, or do I just sound crazy? John, you do that?
John Davis:
Yeah.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Anybody else on the call feel like jumping in? Do you guys do that?
Paul:
That doesn’t sound crazy to me at all, it’s just not something that I’ve had to do in the past.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Okay. Paul, with your new company, do you feel like that’s a tactic you could actually try out? I don’t know.
Paul:
Yeah, I think so. I’ve only been with him for a week, so I’m just on my way through that, but with a lot of contracts, none of them are filtered, so I don’t think they’ve ever really put together a persona of who they’re trying to attract and how. I’m on because I’ve always worked for big companies before. This is my first time in a small company. So, I’m learning, but I always had other people who took care of that for me.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Right. Totally true. And for your persona, is it going to be like the chief engineer at the station or the media manager, or something like that?
Paul:
It’s going to be a chief engineer or a general manager, because our story is highly technical, but also very much a cost saving thing, so the general managers always get involved.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
So that works well. LinkedIn has awesome filters where you can just go and pick your geographic area, put some stuff in, and you know a ton of people in the industry, so you’ll be able to do that. Nice.
Paul:
Yes, that’s sounds cool.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Anybody else, thoughts about that? Would you try it, that building a hit list?
John Davis:
We’ve got a question here in the chat from Emily, asking, “How early would you suggest ordering that list late enough for the attendees to register a bit early enough for the research and outreach?” And, it boils down to how much time you’ve got and that. I mean, if you order it too early, then you’re not going to have that many attendees, but if you wait until the very end before the show, how much time are you going to have to devote to it. So, just try to pick something in the middle that you think that there’s going to be enough people that have already signed up for the show, and that you’ve got sufficient time to be able to go after these folks.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
And, Aurora, you said when you log into your Experient portal, you don’t see the thing that says, “Send an email” to your people. So, I’m curious about that. Maddy, not to put you on the spot at all, just, if you have any info about that, here’s what I’m not sure about; does every level of Experient give you that chance to send that email? I thought they did. I could be wrong about that, but we can circle back to you on that. And, Maddy, if you happen to know, that would be awesome. Aurora … Go ahead, Maddy.
Maddy:
I was going say they should, but I can look into that for you.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
That’d be awesome. And that’s Maddy from NAB Show, so we’re super lucky to have her on here today. So, Aurora, I’m going to make a note on that, and then, if you … I’ll tell you what I would do; for one thing, I probably wouldn’t order the list, I would just use that, because it’s free and you can go scrape it. Between that and LinkedIn, you can build your hit list and talk to your dealers. Who’s your dealer? Who’s your rep? And get them to give you like five names; “Hey, who do you think … Who are you going to try to get to come to the booth?” That kind of thing. Aurora, if you know somebody else in the industry, I would be like, “Can I jump on your portal and take a quick look?” Because I always make friends who try to do that kind of stuff. We are…
John Davis:
And Paul makes a comment here that folks make appointments and don’t turn up. And yes, that is a thing that definitely happens. But, what it boils down to is your law of averages. If you set five appointments and two of them show up, it’s okay, because the show is big, and the key to getting people by your booth is inviting them. And just because they didn’t show up at their appointment time, they may still show up, but you’re just trying to get at their top of mind, so that when they get to the show, they know that, “Hey, there’s this company I need to go see. I’ve got …” Because, they’re going to come to the show with a list of, “These are the things I need to see before I leave.” And you want to be on that list somewhere, because no one has enough time to walk the entire NAB hall. There’s only so much your feet can take. But things happen, they get called into meetings, they spend too much time somewhere else, but at least you’ve made the effort to try to get them by.
Paul:
If I may – years ago, I worked for Sony and I was lucky enough to be allowed to go to NAB without booth duty. So, I just want to emphasize what John just said; when you put yourself in a customer’s shoes going NAB, it’s such an overwhelming experience. The idea that you’ll catch people as passing trade is a total fallacy. Nobody has the time to just wander, unless they’re very lucky or very low down the totem pole, and therefore, have no decision making capability. These people don’t go to the show and just walk around to see what they can see. They go to see a very specific things, very specific companies. And so, to John’s point, you need to invite people. I found that, even at companies like Sony, and Abacus, and Pinnacle, and … You have to invite people, because the idea of a passing trade is a total fallacy.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
You guys segue right into our next points, and the two things we were going to dig into next, and we already started, was, having a promo to drive appointments, and having a promo to get just traffic onto the booth. And so, John, let’s talk about your appointments promo that you’ve used before, and then you guys can see if you can apply this in your case. And we also have some tools we can suggest on how to get people to show up. We use the kind of texting thing that reminds someone before. All right, John.
John Davis:
Well, I mean, one of the things I did at a very small software company, and we did it for a few years and it really worked well for us was, we went old school, partially because this was the ’90s and this was what we had available to us, and even in today’s marketplace, because so much stuff that comes in email can’t just get overlooked as you get into the onslaught of stuff every day. I mean, every morning I’m wiping out 50 email messages from people trying to sell me things for the show that I just don’t want to read, and anything unsolicited unless you’ve tried to make that personal connection first, is going to just get dumped too. So, we did a good old fashioned postcard mailing, and we had our list of people, and we would send out five, 600 postcards, and we’d print them up at Kinko’s on the cheap, and have a mail house do him for 20 cents a card. And, it said, “We’ll give you the shirt off our back if you come see us.”
John Davis:
And the whole thing was you had to bring the card back to the booth, and if you brought the card to the booth and did a demo, we gave you a shirt. And you print up 50 shirts, and if you run out of them at the end, then you had a really good show. But the other part of that is, we could take that same tactic, if the goal is not so much quantity, but quality of those people that you are inviting, and you’re trying to get them to set an appointment, one of the things you can do when you reach out to them is offer them a spiff that … Like, we ordered battery chargers with our logo on it; those power packs that they use to keep your cell phone going. And we ordered those, and if you set an appointment with us, when you came for your appointment, we gave you the gift. And, that’s one of the things that helps … I mean, people are still going to blow the appointment off if something really important comes up, but on the other hand, they know that if there’s something in it for them that they’re going to really try to get by you, and maybe they’ll let somebody else’s appointments slide a little if something goes wrong.
John Davis:
And it wasn’t like we were, “Hey, you’re 30 minutes late, you’re not getting your stuff.” But it was just a nice way to nudge people along, and, for that matter, these were people that we’re friends with, and we want them to feel valued, and it was an inexpensive way to do that, and a lot more effective than just putting a box of pens out on the table and everybody grabs in the first 10 minutes.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
That tactic can be used in multiple ways, since we all are doing email, mail, text, trade shows, phone calls, all those multiple touches that we have to do, we have to be everywhere that all of our prospects and clients are, that works great. We can take your tactic with a postcard, totally mail that out, and also can do it in multiple touches across those other mediums. So, if you have your hit list, so you got your top 20: “If I just see these 20 people, I had an amazing show.” Well, those people, you’re going to keep track if they responded, and if they didn’t respond to the postcard, shoot them an email. If they didn’t respond to the email, shoot them a LinkedIn message. Because, if those 20 people are that important, you can take a little bit of time every day to do that, even if it’s like, “I’m just going to do this every day from 8:45 to 9:00. I’m going to do my top 20 hit list, and stuff.” And then it gets easier once you do that.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
You can take that tactic and apply it digitally. And so, Johnny, did you use that for appointments or driving booth traffic, or … If you could talk about that.
John Davis:
The first company I used it with, we were just trying to drive traffic. And so, we were doing postcards and T shirts to drive traffic. And we did that at multiple shows, and it got to the point where when we stopped doing it, people came by the booth saying, “Hey, I didn’t get a postcard this year. Where’s my shirt?”
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
I love it. You know it’s working.
John Davis:
And then, another company where we did it, where we were just setting appointments, we targeted it, we went after them, we made it where we could set up a web based system for them to set their appointments, so it was very easy for them to respond. And, we got the key people that we wanted that year. Because, really, there’s multiple thousands of people attending the show, but the people that are there to see things that aren’t yours aren’t going to make you any money. It’s the people that are interested in you, and that you’ve got a chance of getting closing a sale with, those are the people you care about. I mean, one of the things that always happens when you go there at the show, is somebody walks up and they look at your booth, then look at you and say, “So, what do you do? What do you guys do?” And you know that they’re not your customer, and they’re not your persona, they’re not that avatar.
John Davis:
They’re probably a student or somebody that’s just involved in a different part of the industry. We make equipment and somebody who’s interested in building and sales has no use for us. And yes, we have nice flashy things, but you’re not our customer. So, everything that’s in your booth comes back to attracting that persona, and everything that you do to reach out to them has to be speaking that person’s language, has to be relatable to them and make sense to them.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
So who’s got an email list they use where they could go and use that as a piece of their top 20, or top 50 list? Who has some kind of database, CRM, spreadsheet, Excel?
Paul:
Well, we have Zoho apparently.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Zoho?
Paul:
Yeah. And, I was just taking a look at it, and it’s one of those things where I’m not convinced that actually the data is not useful, because it’s not being deduped. And, frankly, in the database as a name, and again, to John’s point, now, we’ve got to know that these people are in the market, and what they’re in the market for. Unfortunately, our database doesn’t have any of that, so I can’t really cold call people and say, “Hey, we’ve got your name, don’t know what you’re interested in, can I spend 20 minutes with you?” That’s going to be a bit more difficult. I’m trying to get that on locked down, so I can do exactly this sort of thing, and you find out who’s got budget, who’s looking for our kind of products and go target them, which on the show floor, when you engage with people who do walk in. Some of them may end up being customers, but you need to find out, upfront, how they’re in your part of the business, are they just tire kicking? And you’re never rude to them, but you got to get them out of the way, so you can talk with people who do have a budget, and are interested in the product.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Paul, you can take that list, and look through it, even if it’s 2000 or however many people. You can a quick-
Paul:
48,000.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
48,000, okay. Here’s the thing you can do; you can upload that list into LinkedIn, assuming you’re all GDPR compliant, which, as long as there’s some privacy policy on the website and stuff, you can upload that list into LinkedIn guys, and then you can actually run a piece of sponsored content to that list. And so, what I want to suggest for that piece of sponsored content … And you can spend $50 doing that, or a couple 100 bucks. This can be done for a small amount of money, and you can send it to just that list, for example. But I would suggest, Paul, you might get on a 30 second video that talks about who you’re for and what you’re solving, you might do it as a quick story, because the story is really good. So, like my silly little story at the top of this session. Maybe not quite like that, but you can be like, “Hey, so, I was at a TV station last week, and they have this workflow issue that came up and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, and I talked with the chief engineer, and by the end of it, dah, dah, dah.”
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
And so, in that 30 seconds, you just said who you’re for and what you solve, but you didn’t do product pitch, and you talk about technology, and they see your face. And we all know that video helps people know, like and trust you. And so, now that you have that 30 second video that goes on your LinkedIn profile, it’s nice to have a company page on LinkedIn, but the action’s with you. And, if you can use your LinkedIn ad account and now run that video to that 48,000 people, and you’ll get some comments, and then you can start looking at who’s commenting the stuff. That same video can go on in your NAB portal, because you guys get to upload videos there into your NAB portal and stuff as well. And, that’s a good thing to have videos there as well. So, I wanted to mention that. And then, now when you start to see that engagement, you can start to see if people want to book an appointment and go forward.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Can I mention about appointments? I think for $9 a month, there’s a tool that we use, Fallon’s going to stick the link in the chat here for you, that let’s you, when someone books an appointment … I know some of you guys on this call like Mary, you’ve booked an appointment with me, and you get a, “Hey, you’ve booked an appointment” confirmation, then a reminder the day before, and a text message. Like when we met at IBC, you had got a text message from me maybe an hour before.
Mary Elder:
Super convenient.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
And so, for people like Paula, who you’re saying they don’t show up, that’s a great way, because I’ll get someone message back and say, “Oh, I can’t make it, but could I come later today?” And so you’ve got that as a way to help make those appointments stick. Nothing’s perfect, but it works really well. I don’t think I missed a single appointment at IBC, and I think just one or two at NAB last year, because people reply back and rebook, which is super cool. Were you guys able to get onto the web page and download the worksheet just now? Fallon put the link to our website in there, and I made a worksheet based on the outline that John and I had. So we’ve got that. What questions you guys have so far, and is this useful, or, I don’t know, how is this?
Paul:
Certainly useful to me. Absolutely. As I said, I’ve had the luxury of other people who did this for me before, so the legwork is foreign to me, frankly.
John Davis:
And I’ve only worked for small companies, so I would be lost at a company like Sony where there’s somebody to go do all these things. It’s like, there’s only four people in our entire company. So, if I don’t do it, who’s there to pick up the slack?
Paul:
Well, that’s where I’m at right now. And, to your point about Sony, just for what it’s worth, we used to take 1200 Sony employees to NAB.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Oh, man, oh, man. So …
Emily:
Did we ever resolve the issue of trying to find that “Send a promo email” link on the NAB exhibitor dashboard, because I’m also having trouble finding it? I may just not be looking in the right place.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Let me ask you this, are you willing to share your screen, and so we can all look at it, or if that’s too personal, you and I can take a look at it also?
Emily:
I don’t have any windows open right now.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
No, no, no, it’s okay, it’s okay.
Emily:
I’m more embarrassed about the cleanliness of my desktop than anything else.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
It’s all good. All good. I would say, because I have … I mean, we work with clients, so I probably have a couple dozen client logins, but I feel like I can’t do that. But I’d be happy to jump on with you afterward privately. If any of you want to hit me up, I think my contact info … Well, you have it, because you got emails and stuff from me. And then, I’m going to also ask Maddy if we can find out about that. I’m happy, if you guys put it in the chat, follow up with me, I’ll circle back and find out. If you can’t get in and do that in Experient, find a friend in the industry who will let you log into their stuff. I don’t know, a lot of us have friends, or maybe there’s someone on this call, not to impose on anybody, maybe we can help each other. If not, LinkedIn’s pretty awesome, and using that technique that we just talked about, or use their filters, search for broadcast media, chief engineer, the geographic area you want, and you can start looking in there.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
It doesn’t guarantee they’re going to the show, but it’s cool. Who’s has the Facebook Pixel on their website, and is doing any retargeting either on Facebook or on LinkedIn; if someone goes to your site, you can run an ad to them? Has anybody tried that? It’s almost for free. Okay, I’m going to-
John Davis:
Tell us about this. This does sound cool.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Okay, so, everybody knows Google Analytics. So, there’s some code on your site, Google knows who goes to your site, and they’ll tell you, you had 50 visitors, 500 visitors, 5000 visitors, 50,000 visitors this month, whatever. So, we all know and do that. So, when I tell you the next piece, it sounds creepy, but it’s really similar to Google Analytics. So, Facebook has a thing called Facebook Pixel, LinkedIn has a thing called LinkedIn Tag. It’s all the same kind of stuff. And so, for Facebook, for example, you go to your ad account, this is free, you take the code, it’s free, you put that in your website in the same general area as the Google Analytics. And now, Facebook will say, “Hey, we know who visited your website in the last three months. I’m not going to tell you the names, but we know who they are.” Just like Google would. And now, you can spend $5, $50, $500 on Facebook, and say “Facebook, run that 30 second video Paul just did to all these people, and invite them to like my Facebook page, and invite them to the cocktail party I am having at NAB on my booth. Invite them to have coffee with me on Sunday morning at NAB.” That kind of thing.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
LinkedIn, same exact story. LinkedIn Tag actually did a NAB show webinar on this. So, on our blog post on the Kokoro site, there’s one about Facebook Pixel that shows step by step how to use it, and there’s another LinkedIn video where I run through how to do it. And that was part of the NAB webinar. Same thing, LinkedIn knows who went to your website, and they can run ads and posts back to them. You can also run an ad on Facebook that says, “I want to run an ad on Facebook to anybody who’s interested in NAb show and is traveling in Las Vegas.” That’s kind of cool, huh? So, those are really great guerilla marketing tactics that you get to choose the budget on, and pretty cool. If you use video or use a lead magnet, like a white paper guide or something cool that’s super helpful to your audience, something you’re helping them with and not pitching, you’re going to get better responses. This’ my cat. He does not want to go to NAB, but he would like to meet you all.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Okay. What other questions do we have? Do any of those tactics, as basic as they are, sound like something you could do today? Are one of those things you could do today, anybody?
John Davis:
One comment here in the chat from Travis is saying that, “Just committing to a little bit of work every day, even five minutes is a good idea, because half the battle is fighting the inertia.” So, just pick a couple of things that you can do and every … How do you eat an elephant? You eat it very slowly. So, start now and just work your way through the show.
Paul:
I found that to be true in just about every part of the business actually. If you got some large task to do, whatever it is, just do a bit of it. I would do the simplest bit of it first, so you’ve got something achieved. And then, I go for a little chunk every day, So you got something that you can say every day that you’ve moved that ball forward.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Brian Tracy says eat the big frog, or there’s the, I’m good to great forward, big, hairy, audacious goal, but all of it starts with that one thing. What I used to do when I worked at the manufacturing company I did work at, I had a piece of tape or a yarn, or something like that I would put on the floor in front of my desk, because I didn’t really have an office, I just had a space I worked in. And I put a piece of paper on the floor that said, whatever I was doing, “Making sales calls …” That’s usually what I said, “Making sales calls, please come back at 9:30. If you really need to talk to me, come on in.” Well, most people take a look at that and they are like, “No, I’m not going to bother you.” But it made me do it. I made my own self accountable. So, if anybody has a friend, maybe somebody on this call you want to buddy up with, or a partner, where you just say, “Hey, every day from 8:45 to 9:00, well, let’s both of us do this together.”
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
You can be online, you don’t need to be on the same continent. And then, accountability partner come back and go, “Hey, I contacted five people on LinkedIn today.” Have a Zoom screen open while you’re working, so you feel like you’ve got a buddy. So, those sound silly, but they actually work. They will help you get that done. Sara, we’ve got a worksheet, and Fallon put the link in the chat there that lets you have a plan. And so, I wanted to tell you about that, Sara, because I know you just jumped on.
Sara:
Thank you.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
John, if somebody was going to do one thing, because we laid out, probably, I don’t know, close to 10 things that people could do, if someone’s going to do one thing based on our call today, what do you think it should be?
John Davis:
Well, I have two things that I roll into one, and one is to create that persona, that avatar of your ideal customer, of the person that brings you your business, and the person that you are targeting in that booth. And then, from there, is going to follow the list of important people that you want to see at the show. So, define that persona, know who you’re speaking to, and then that will help you speak to them.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
I like it. So, who here, if you feel like it, unmute or whatever, who here could spend 10 minutes … We don’t need to overthink this. Don’t go for perfection, just go for a step forward. Who here could spend 10 minutes writing down two of their avatar or perfect customer profiles?
Paul:
For sure.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Paul. Anybody else in? John, I like it. I actually spent time redoing that yesterday for my own business. I’m like, “I want to think about that.” Anybody think-
Paul:
Well, it depends on who your target is, and how can you possibly put together a message for them. You’ve got to know who you’re talking to.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Right.
John Davis:
And if you don’t know that, then your entire booth could be off target.
Paul:
Oh, exactly. And all of your marketing materials with everything you did.
John Davis:
Right. It all comes together that way.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Steven, just unmute in the lower left hand corner.
Steven:
Hey, are you there?
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Hi.
Steven:
Awesome.
Steven:
So, here’s my question; NAB has put us in an area where we have a lot of our competitors within eyesight of us. So, Paul, your point’s very well taken, getting drive-by traffic just to pull in is not something that you should ever count on, but we do feel like it is something that will happen, just … Any appointments they set up, they’ve got to come right by us on their way in. This is my first time ever designing a booth space for NAB; we’re 10 by 10. I’m trying to think of some ways to design the booth and the graphics in the booth to grab somebody, even if it’s just where they pick up a brochure on their way walking away. And I’ve, in my mind, thought, I need to stray away from company logos and things like that, and go to more actionable phrases like, “We do this.” or, “We do that.”, or, “We have this.”, or, “We have that.” And I’m just curious if you have any tactics around that, or suggestions, or if you’ve seen anything in the past that has been successful.
John Davis:
From-
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Yeah.
John Davis:
You go first.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Okay. So, can we ask, what problem do you solve? What one or two top problems do you solve for people now?
Steven:
So, right now in television, the big push is your OTT platforms. I mean, also leveraging all this free social media content that’s out in the world that you don’t have to pay to produce. So we have an automated system that grabs that from online and throws it onto OTT very quickly and very efficiently. So, essentially, we’re an automated system that fuels OTT platforms and fuels television stations with content. And there are several other booths just from researching the companies around us that offer similar products.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Okay. So, I know we’ve only known each other 20 seconds, but, to me, something around that, who you’re for and what you solve, has to be visible in that first three seconds, you’re totally right on path with that. So, it needs to say … And so, who’s going to buy? Who’s the decision maker or top influencer in that buying?
Steven:
They’re editorial managers.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Okay. So, this is oversimplified, but you’ll get my drift. Editorial managers need to grab social content and put it to air, so you want to talk about who you’re for and what you’re solve, and as much as possible, take out of your language, we, us and I, because nobody cares about us, they only care about themselves. So, the whole, “What’s in it for me?”, that’s all customers care about. So when they look up and say, “We do this.”, it could be okay. Sometimes I say that, I’m not saying it isn’t perfect, but they want to know about them. So, if the problem they have is up there, that’s what it’s going to be. And so, if you did the last couple of sales, think about what the person told you, “Why did you buy from me?” If they tell you that, that goes up on your wall. And then, if you can have some way, instead of them just grabbing some literature and leaving, if you can be like, “Hey, can I scan your card. I’m going to send you the top three …” I don’t know, whatever. “Top three fails in grabbing social media for OTT, or top three things to avoid,” or something like that, because I want to know what that is.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
What’s the top three pitfalls in grabbing social media for OTT users? Something like that. And so now they’re like, “Oh, you’re going to give me something I can use? Awesome.” And so now you’ve got their contact details and you can start that conversation. Anybody else, jump in, that was just me.
Steven:
Awesome. Thank you.
John Davis:
The other thing is, the images and the words, everything is going to come back to telling that story as quickly as possible, so that in the three seconds that they’re walking by, they know that it pertains to them, and they know what it is that you do. And, if you can take that elevator pitch and distill it down to three or four words, so that you can read it within three seconds and understand that you’re talking to me, I should be looking at you. And that’s both a combination of the images you use, and the words you use. You’re basically making a billboard, so don’t put too many words on the Billboard. And, again, asking for the scan is everything, because they may not remember you because they’ve got the appointment with somebody else, but you getting their scan and then coming back to them with something, is going to create that relationship.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Anybody else want to weigh in on that, because you guys, a lot of you on the call have a ton of experience, and somebody else may have a thought?
Mary Elder:
One of the things we do, I think, pretty well is every time we get a scan, there’s a function where you can add notes. We add notes about the conversation, so when we follow up with an email, we send them all of the notes we took, even if it’s the most arbitrary detail, just to make sure it’s highly personalized. And our response rate for those emails is really, really great. And we gotten a lot of positive feedback on that.
Paul:
That is value for any kind of CRM system too. I know, getting contact info from somebody in the show, if you have four or five different product lines, or four or five avenue approaches that you can give a customer to solving whatever set of problems, you have to note down somewhere on that card, on that email when you get back to them, “The conversation was about this …” Because then they know you listened to them. Because, again, to send this point, way too often, particularly in a technical sell, people jump into the, “We do this, we make this.”, isn’t that great. Customers don’t care. They’ve got a problem that they need solved, and if you can prove to them that you understand what their problem is from the outset, and especially in the follow up emails, I think you’ll find you get way better response than just putting up blanket emails, “Hey, we talked, can I get a chance to call you?” That’s to your point.
John Davis:
One of the things that we do is, we use those survey questions in the portal, so that you can just check different things so you don’t have to spend a whole lot of time making notes. But, it is good to be as detailed as you can. So, have some general, they’re interested in this product line, and this feature sets of it, and then have a general catch-all questions so that you can note any particular problem they need solved, so that when you’re going back and doing your follow up, you can have a very informed follow up.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
And, we’re all challenged with time and getting those notes down and stuff like that. And so, if you’re just working low tech, here’s two quick ways to get those notes: you got the person’s business card, maybe you didn’t buy the scanner for the booth, not everybody buys it, it’s expensive. So, if you have their card, my friend taught me this, if it’s a hot lead, he would take his thumbnail and dig it into the card, because you can feel that on the card. And if it’s a really hot lead, he might dig it in twice. If there’s no mark, it’s not hot. And then, you take your phone as you walk away and go, “Just talk with Steven, he has budget, he’s going on air in November, I promised I would do X, Y, Z and we’d meet at the next local SMPTE meeting, or whatever.” And then, later, when you’re at home later, then you’re going to, quick, put those notes in and stuff and tie them together. So that’s a really low tech, but super efficient way to follow up and get your lead notes.
John Davis:
And, these little notebooks save your bacon at the show.
Cindy Zuelsdorf:
Guys, we are going to be wrapping it up. I want to invite you to reach out to John or to me if you need anything, also to Maddy from NAB show who’s on the call here. Does anybody have any final questions you’d like to do on here? Anything you want to touch on? If you like this session, tell NAB Show. They always ask me, “Do people like the sessions, do they like the calls, do they like the webinars?” Tell them if you like this, and there’s a LinkedIn group you can tell them on, or you can reach out directly to Maddy, either way, but let them know if you like this stuff, so that there can be more of it. And, all right. Who can take time, who can take 10 minutes on their avatar or persona today? Whoo-hoo. Okay. All right, we will wrap it up then. Thank you, everybody.
John Davis:
Thanks, you all.
Paul:
Thanks Cindy.
Resources and helpful links:
Today’s worksheet (PDF download)
Join the Broadcast Media Marketing Group here
Register for the next NAB Show Webinar here
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