Trade shows are a wonderful opportunity to enhance your brand. Every chance you get to be in front of your target audience and/or the media is a great opportunity. 

Trade shows help level the playing field for smaller firms - even small companies can usually afford attractive displays. With creative marketing and booth design, small businesses can actually appear as substantial as larger corporations. 

Most companies choose trade shows as a marketing vehicle for a number of reasons including generating sales leads, enhancing your image and visibility, reaching a specific audience, establishing a presence in the marketplace, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing efforts, personally meeting your customers, competitors, and suppliers and prospecting for new customers.

It is a wonderful way to introduce new products and services, demonstrate your product in ways not possible with other marketing channels, recruiting distributors or dealers and educating your target audience. Trade shows also offer an opportunity to share your expert status by taking advantage of speaking opportunities. 

If prospects or suppliers feel good about interactions with your staff – they will tell others - creating a buzz about your company. Usually, your sales and/or technical staff will man your booth and meet prospects. Delegate someone to manage the lead tracking system. Your sales and technical team need to focus on the visitors to the booth. 

An executive should be in attendance, just in case media opportunities arise. Often, the media visit the booth and want a quick word with a representative of the company. You do not want an untrained employee speaking to the media – it can be a disaster. Booth staff should know what to say if media want information and should offer to contact the person best qualified to answer questions. 

Since trade shows generally take place at a single location, are usually one to three days only and bring together thousands of exhibitors and potential customers, they are a very powerful marketing medium that is, if you target geographies appropriately. Pick your shows by location, if it is an international show; evaluate the value of “being seen” as opposed to “making sales”. 

Invite attending media to your booth in advance. Work with the show organizers to see what branding opportunities exist. Get your company name listed in the pre-show promotion, sponsor a breakfast, lunch, break or after-hours event. Consider sponsoring the media room, or pay for and brand give-away bags. 

Look for innovative and economical ways to get your name out there. Leverage your supplier/partners who often spend significant resources in marketing and PR. If you participate in their booth or let them in yours, you will get a PR boost from the association with a strong brand. 

You are representing your company and brand, so your professional image is critical at a show. Look interested - captivate your prospects…make an impression!

Here’s how - have a good breakfast; you will need the energy and make sure your clothing is pressed and clean and your shoes are shined. Make sure to have a good night’s rest. Trade shows can be a great party time. The after-hours events are great networking opportunities, but don’t over do it – you will pay for it the next day! A tired, hung-over booth representative is not good PR! 

Don’t pounce on visitors as they approach the booth, instead smile and engage them. Spend a bit of money, thought and effort on your booth. If your budget doesn’t allow for a booth this year, attend anyways so that you can check out the competition and get some great ideas for your booth next year. 

If you search for information on Case Studies on the Internet you will find quite an array of different types, from academic proofs of concept to legal case studies. For the purposes of Media Relations we will define it this way: "A short (500 word) description of the application of your product or service with an actual client". 

Case studies can be used as you would any company collateral, except that it is infinitely more powerful than your other documents. Whereas other documents are in your "voice", a good case study is in the customer's "voice", which always has more credibility with media and other customers. 

In fact many times when you send out a Press Release or conduct a Media Pitch the media will want a case study to learn more about how the client is using your product or service. They will also want to know if the customer is willing to be interviewed, so when you are gathering information on the case study make sure you have the express permission of the customer.

Finally, ensure that your case study solves a general business problem (makes money or saves money, saves time, etc.) and use a consistent format for your case studies. It makes them easier to grasp -and also easier to write. 

Social media is the fastest growing medium to market your product and communicate with your audience.  And when it comes to branding your product it just might be the simplest and cheapest way to create awareness to potential clients.  Marketing is changing and it’s not always about selling something, at the end of the day it’s about creating and working on relationships.  But if you’re new to trendy online media activities, the following is sure to help you get on the right track to take advantage of what is right at your fingertips and a click away to branding success!  

Types of social media and what they can do for your company:

Blogs and forums

Used to gain new/returning business by participating in discussion forums and blogs. Become a source of information by sharing knowledge and answering questions.  Demonstrate your value for clients and potential clients.

Facebook

Creating Facebook groups attract interest and develop loyalty.

Online press releases

Make your website easy to find in search engines.

Online video

Posting videos on YouTube and on your company’s website can bring people onto the site and engage existing visitors.

Twitter

Using Twitter regularly to create and reinforce connections and to spread word of mouth about your business. 

Common Concerns:

Lacking time to learn and use social media tools

The best strategy is to pick one or two types of social media and focus on doing those well.  Have several employees share the updating duties on the company blog or contract a company outside to help with updating.  

Question the ROI?

Do you wonder if you will ever make any real business from using these social media tools?  Remember, it’s about making valuable connections and relationships with other credible business people and clients.

Worry about spam comments on blogs?

No problem, you can control and monitor inappropriate comments

3 Easy Steps To Help You Get Started!

Step 1: Finding and keeping your target

Position and describe your product. Blogging and posting updates about your product or service becomes a unique and innovative tool that can be used to spread the word.  It is a social media medium that keeps your customers aware and interested.  As long as you’re providing useful content for your audience, they’ll appreciate your effort and most likely visit again.  Social media is supposed to be conversational and casual, treat it as such and allow your audience to participate in your products.   

Step 2:  Keep it simple 

Make sure the content you post is clear, specific and something your clients can relate to.  Allow participation by making sure that the content being shared or discussed on the platform is relevant to your clients and their interests.

Step 3: Tools, Tactics, Techniques

Create peer pressure.  Get the right people involved in the beginning to encourage participation on a grassroots level, and then make sure the ongoing use of the platform is evident to your clients.

Keep in mind…!

If you do something great, people will find it. Nothing works better than word of mouse - one friend telling another.

I love the twitter dont’s  from PC magazine.  Twitter trends are changing all the time… some we love and some we hate.  I asked my tweeps (twitter followers) for ‘uncool’ twitter actions.  List below of mine + suggestions.  Get at me on twitter @BiancaFreedman and send me more.  Let’s make twitter cooler….

Uncool:

1. Auto-following.  Grow your tweeps organically ! Just so much cooler.  Follow people through friends, by keywords & content.  Go for quality, not quantity.  Quantity will happen naturally.  This is a general theme in coolness…  (I know you agree @2ammarketing )

2. Auto-messaging.  There’s nothing more irritating than the “Thanks for the follow! I look forward to your tweets” msg… especially when they are tricky and make you think the message was personalized.. not cool.

3. Wearing your heart on your twitter sleeve.  This goes for Facebook too!  This is the internet.  Be smart.  Don’t diminish the credibility of social networking by crying through your keyboard…. uncool.

4. PDA twitter pics. Thanks @akroupa  for this one.  Get your own reality show instead. Tonsil hockey on twitter=  Not cool.

5. Extreme self promotion.  We all know twitter can help you make money, generate leads.  It’s OK to promote your product/service/personal brand as amazing as it is… but throw in some additional stuff.  Don’t spam your own content. Not cool.

6.  Telling the world you brushed your hair.  Again, it takes away from the credibility of social networking.  Use twitter to learn more and share.  Unless you are an A-lister and people actually care what cereal you had for breakfast, don’t tweet about it.  Uncool..

7. Taking credit for content that’s not yours.  This is why tweeps invented the RT.  Give credit where credit’s due…. otherwise, the post is uncool.  I credit the 13 Dont’s for this. 

8. Not providing a link.  If you found a great article, tweet about it with the link.  Getting your tweeps all riled up on the brilliant article and then not directing them somewhere is uncool.

9. Being ‘too cool’.  Respond to @ replies and direct messages.  No manners=uncool.

10. #Hashtagging every topic.  I recently got a DM about something personal where words such as #happy and #sorry were hashtagged.  This is seriously uncool.