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March 2024
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What do you have to OFFER?3/29/2024 Throughout the spectrum of pre/at/post event campaigns, not only is it important to have a strong call to action and to make that call to action easy for your target audiences to act upon, but it is also critical that there is a compelling “why” for them to take that action. This is usually centered around the audience needing what you have to offer. But what is it that you are actually offering? You may think it is your product or service offering itself, but unless it is peerless and not available anywhere else, you’ll need to provide further incentive to get your audience to take action. Even if it is peerless, you still will probably need to clearly highlight that and still offer additional incentives for action.
Consider, if you will, some “offerings” to either highlight in messaging and/or provide during your events and related campaigns to help move the needle towards action… Product/Service Innovation: Highlight new or revised products/services, line extensions, updates to software or control platforms, partner products/services, new acquisitions, improved quality or delivery timeframes or other new aspects of your product/service offerings. Learning & Knowledge: Offer industry thought leadership, research, studies, white papers, experts, presentations, or keynotes, either during your event, or as gated content outside the event based upon desired action by your targeted audiences. Networking: At event, offer the opportunity to meet & greet with; key company executives, research associates, product developers, industry consultants or lobbyists, key opinion leaders, key customers, peers, celebrities, students, etc. Incentives: An offer of preferred pricing or event-related discounts, new product specials, BOGOs or trial offers can be provided to induce purchase action. Promotions: Desirable premium items, create-you-own personalized gifts/premiums, drawings, sweepstakes, contests, participation rewards, social media promotions/hashtags, or other promotional programs can help entice attendance and drive desired action during an event, or as a promise before or after the event. Hospitality: While some still practice “candy bowl engagement” to attract guests with a simple bowl of candy, more sophisticated hospitality is often necessary to encourage guests to drive desired activity such as themed refreshments, concierge services, guest lounge or working spaces, phone charging stations, invitation to off-site hospitality events, or other food, beverage, or amenity-related incentives. Entertainment: Attracting attention may involve entertaining guests through live or recorded music, artists, poets, performance art, entertainment-focused interactives or other performance formats or platforms. For those not able to partake live at the event, consider offering the content in gated format, live or on-demand, in exchange for key information. When considering your offer, keep in mind that just because it sounds compelling to you, does not ensure it will be to your target audiences. Whatever your offer entails, it must be relevant and engaging and represent meaningful value to your audiences. It may not need to be a significant cost to you either, it just needs to be of benefit to your existing customers and new prospects and enough to entice them into taking the actions that you desire from them. If your event campaigns need an infusion of strategic enhancement, consider contacting Ben Olson at the OLSON experience, LLC to help you take your show or your event program to the next level and drive desired action through the incorporation of strong, compelling offers wrapped in captivating campaigns to drive measurable results and meaningful value for you and your stakeholders. Contact Ben today at; [email protected] or visit www.theolsonexperience.com. Copyright 2024. the OLSON experience, LLC
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Where's the Brief?1/24/2024 Flying by the seat of the pants is not an efficient or effective way to lead creative, design and marketing teams when it comes to events, or really any multi-channel marketing initiatives. Without providing clear, concise, and strategic direction, stakeholders must either waste time and resources hunting for guidance, or even worse, proceed based upon hunches or suppositions.
Ideation needs to be driven by insight and a good briefing document is the best way to provide the necessary direction for all teams involved. These different teams may need guidance on diverse elements of a project, so briefs may take different forms, or be divided into different segments. Consider a few options… BASIC EVENT BRIEF: A basic document designed to inform internal and external stakeholders on the details of an event itself. Content may include; Event/Show name, date, location, organizer, general contractor, asset needs, staffing needs, basic metrics and other pertinent information to enlighten contributors. This brief covers the “what, where, and when” of the event and should come from the client side of the team. CREATIVE BRIEF: The creative brief concerns itself with the who, the why and part of the how. This brief captures the information to help the marketing, creative and design staffs create the right “experience” for the event. Starting with the “why are we doing this” the document should enlighten key team members with goals and objectives, how those will be measured, key audience information, including different segments and their respective needs and applicable product and service solutions. What are the key messages and branding elements that should be featured? How will we engage before, during and after the event? What assets are available? And what are the clear deliverables that you are expecting from team members coming out of this exercise? This document could come directly from the client side or could be created on the agency side after deep dives with the client. ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN BRIEF: The design brief provides the physical information necessary for event designers to design and create the event environment. In trade show applications, this brief includes the basic information necessary to move forward; booth size, booth number and placement, custom rental or hybrid, location of competitors, show rules and regulations, physical needs within the space (storage, demonstration, technology, meeting space, engagement space, etc.). Ideally, this brief is preceded by or included within a creative brief so this brief can also include information beyond just the physical space so the designers have a better understanding of the complete picture and ideally, the event experience is defined first so the designer can build the environment to facilitate the experience. COMPREHENSIVE INTEGRATED BRIEF: The comprehensive briefing document is an all-inclusive collection of all information regarding an event campaign. A vert basic format for this is a collection of Excel pages, each one covering a different aspect of the event. This should be a living, dynamic document that is updated on a regular basis with the latest information, as well as after the event, to document results and learnings to help guide future events. This document can be housed on password-protected intranets or other platforms that will allow access by all relevant stakeholders, internal and external. Each of the aforementioned documents can become pages within the overall briefing document and additional pages might include Metrics and Measurement, Hospitality Detail, Lead and Data Management Specifics, Exhibit House order form, Logistics Brief and more. Beyond providing the template and the platform, consistency and compliance are the next elements to ensure success. Teams should be on the same page, following the same rules with the same protocols. By doing the homework first, your teams will be better informed, save time and energy and ultimately provide solutions that are strategically designed to meet and exceed the objectives of the event or campaign. If you need help in creating, refining, or even implementing your creative briefs, we can provide the insight and resources necessary to give you and your stakeholders the strategic guidance you need to excel. Want to learn more? Contact Ben Olson at the OLSON experience, LLC at [email protected] or visit www.theolsonexperience.com. About Ben Olson: With over 20 years in creating great experiences that bring brands and audiences successfully together face-to-face and face-to-screen, Ben has helped some of the world’s most iconic brands, in B2B and B2C spaces, engage, enlighten, and evoke action with their target audiences. With senior leadership experience on both agency and brand sides, Ben has built strategic and creative experiential marketing teams and integrated marketing offerings in senior leadership roles at organizations as; Momentum Worldwide, mg/MG Design and GES. Currently, Ben is Chief Experience Officer at the OLSON experience, LLC, offering experiential and brand strategy assistance to agencies, exhibit houses and directly to brands. Visit www.theolsonexperience.com to learn more. Copyright 2024. the OLSON experience, LLC
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Engaging with your target audience well in advance of a trade show is crucial for a successful event. Building awareness, driving attendance, and encouraging action to visit your exhibit can be achieved through a strategic, multichannel approach. Here are some key options to consider as you build a robust, engaging, and relevant experiential strategy:
1. Email Marketing:
2. Social Media:
3. Paid Advertising:
4. Direct Mail:
5. Content Marketing:
6. Influencer Marketing:
7. Event Website and Landing Pages:
8. Engagement Campaigns:
Remember to track the performance of each channel and adjust your strategy as needed. The goal is to create a cohesive and compelling narrative that motivates your target audience to not only attend the trade show but also make a beeline for your exhibit. Want to learn more about creating compelling pre-show experiences and campaigns for your trade show program? Contact Ben Olson at the OLSON experience, LLC at [email protected] or visit www.theolsonexperience.com. Copyright 2024. the OLSON experience, LLC
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It’s important occasionally, and especially post-pandemic, that we take a deeper look at our event programs and challenge the status quo. Just because things have always been done a certain way doesn’t mean that they should continue. Audiences, shows, organizations, tastes, options, competitors, travel budgets, virtual options, internal leadership, and a host of other elements change with time, and that may mean tweaks are needed in your plans. Following are five things to consider challenging in your program.
One: Challenge your Calendar. Look at the shows that are on your annual tradeshow calendar. Are there overlaps with audiences that potentially allow elimination of certain shows? Are there underperforming shows that are trending downwards that may need to be reconsidered moving forward? Conversely, are there new shows or different shows that should be on your radar? Attending a show because you always have, is never a good enough reason. With costs escalating, and management demanding better ROI ‘s, the shows that you choose to spend your budget on need to perform optimally to provide the desired return. And if sales insists on attendance (which they have been known to do), be sure to get their commitment, shared with leadership, on their performance and accountability to results. Two: Challenge your Exhibit Space. Here again, because you’ve always had a certain size space, is it the right size, is it the right footprint, is it the right placement for what you’re looking to accomplish at a particular event? Is a large island booth bringing the returns you need from a square footage standpoint? Are there large areas within your space that are going underutilized? Rightsizing is more important than ever to ensure that you are maximizing the effectiveness of the space, and the efficiencies in your budget to ensure that your costs for the event, space, exhibit, drayage, shipping, and all related expenses are working as hard as they can towards meeting your objectives. Three: Challenge your Organizer. Many times, we think of show organizer contacts as we think of used car salesmen – out to sell us what they want to sell us. These reps though, when good relationships are cultivated, can become one of our greatest resources. They have their finger on the pulse of the industry, your competitors and seen and unseen opportunities within the event. Utilize these allies to garner inside information on the event that can help inform deeper insight and better decision making on event space, sponsorships, or competitor’s plans, trends, promotions, and other elements. Checking a box to do the same thing as last year can be a deterrent to growth. Your rep can help you think outside the box to drive innovation and improvement. Four: Challenge your Staff. Do you really need 15 people to work the space? Are they being utilized to their fullest, or is their presence not completely necessary? Even worse, do they not want to be there? Right sizing your staff can give you dollars back from T&E expenses that can be better invested in promotions to drive greater traffic for greater engagement to and at the booth. Also, those people that you are bringing, are they the right people? Are they the staff that are the most engaging and will perform the best in the space? Sometimes junior people are more eager and see the opportunity to be on the show floor more positively. Partnering great junior staff with seasoned staff can help grow stronger teams for the future. Five: Challenge your Promotion Plan. Where cost deficiencies are found in the other areas, consider taking some of those savings and rolling them into a more robust promotion plan. Pre-show promotions help to drive attendance, awareness, and action. Getting the right people to the right space helps encourage increased effectiveness of your program. Also, look at your existing efforts - are they paying the dividends that you need them to? Is that hospitality event providing any ROI that’s measurable? Or do you scramble for attendance and is it just an opportunity to share a few drinks with a few clients that may be done on a more cost-effective scale? Looking at your plan with a critical eye, and challenging each expense and each element, can help you weed out tactics that aren’t working as well as they could be, and free up dollars to put towards more effective trade show engagements. Finding the time to undertake these challenges can be, well, challenging in itself. Involve your team and stakeholders in brainstorming sessions that can help weed out the underperforming elements and replace them with up to the minute thinking, strategies and tactics to drive improved results from your program. Want to learn more about challenging your conventions and improving your efficiency and effectiveness within your trade show program? Contact Ben Olson at the OLSON experience, LLC at [email protected] or visit www.theolsonexperience.com. About Ben Olson: With over 20 years in creating great experiences that bring brands and audiences successfully together face-to-face and face-to-screen, Ben has helped some of the world’s most iconic brands, in B2B and B2C spaces, engage, enlighten, and evoke action with their target audiences. With senior leadership experience on both agency and brand sides, Ben has built strategic and creative experiential marketing teams and integrated marketing offerings at such organizations as; Momentum Worldwide, mg/MG Design and GES. Currently, Ben is Chief Experience Officer at the OLSON experience, LLC, offering experiential and brand strategy assistance to agencies, exhibit houses and directly to brands. Visit www.theolsonexperience.com to learn more.
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In the engagement game, even small moves can start to yield big wins. Take into consideration the term “attendee.” It’s a term that we all use and one that is standardized within the industry. But it’s also a term that tends to be rather transactional in attitude, and in nature. It can be a more mass-focused mindset; number of attendees at the show, number of attendee impressions, number of attendee scans, etc. To many, including some of your event staff, an attendee is basically someone who is present at a conference and may happen to enter your booth. That transaction may simply be a scan, or a brief conversation, and on their way they go.
Consider instead, the connotation of a “guest.” A guest, is someone you may welcome in to your own home, or your corporate home, which your booth is simply an extension of. Guests have inferences of warmth and welcome. Somewhere in between, there probably is the word visitor, but that’s not my point today. My suggestion today is to begin to think of, and refer to, those people who are entering your space as guests. As you start that subtle shift between transactional and welcoming, you can begin to coach your staff, or encourage your clients to coach their staff to begin re-thinking that term of attendee and replace with guest. By doing so, you place a greater inferred value on the individual and the all-important experience that you are creating for that person. Engagement depth should follow as your team builds deeper interactions and develops stronger relationships with those valuable parties. And regarding that value, if you’ve done your preparation, you should be able to share with your team exactly the value that that each guest represents, both in lifetime value to the organization, and in investment at each particular event. On the surface, this all may seem like a very small move, but re-thinking your vernacular will help your staff change their attitude and their approach and potentially improve performance at your next show. Want to learn more about creating great guest experiences and improving your efficiency and effectiveness within your trade show program? Contact Ben Olson at the OLSON experience, LLC at [email protected] or visit www.theolsonexperience.com. About Ben Olson: With over 20 years in creating great experiences that bring brands and audiences successfully together face-to-face and face-to-screen, Ben has helped some of the world’s most iconic brands, in B2B and B2C spaces, engage, enlighten and evoke action with their target audiences. With senior leadership experience on both agency and brand sides, Ben has built strategic and creative experiential marketing teams and integrated marketing offerings in Director and VP roles at such organizations as; Momentum Worldwide, mg/MG Design and GES. Currently, Ben is Chief Experience Officer at the OLSON experience, LLC, offering experiential and brand strategy assistance to agencies, exhibit houses and directly to brands. Visit www.theolsonexperience.com to learn more.
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an engaging comeback.2/22/2023 As we continue to go back to true face-to-face marketing, it becomes clearer that it will not necessarily be back to business as usual. The pandemic has taught us many lessons, including that there is a place for virtual events and there isn’t a place for virtual events. Many of us are glad to be back on the show floor, or back to an in-person conference. It gives us some time to escape the everyday routine and refocus on an area of interest that is relevant to our professional or personal lives.
There will be, however, those who will be hesitant to return, for one reason or another. Attendance numbers though, seem to be coming back strong, and the quality of attendees seems to be better than in the past. As such, it will be even more important for smart exhibitors to up their engagement game at every step of the attendee journey to ensure those right attendees know who you are, get to your exhibit, engage with staff and move further into the sales and relationship funnel. Start by designing a comprehensive engagement plan for not only your annual campaign, but individual events as well, allowing the ability to find commonalities in product/service offerings, audiences, messages, footprints, content, marketing and technology assets, even stakeholders that may provide budget streamlining, potentially allowing more dollars to be channeled into audience engagement. Employ engaging pre-event touches to drive awareness and attendance to both the in-person event and/or it’s virtual companion. Provide strong reasons for “why” your audience needs to attend. As you compete for more share of travel wallet, giving them strong incentives to attend with compelling offers, clear benefits and even using FOMO messaging can help to drive audiences to act. And don’t just rely on email touches to get your message across. Sure, marketing automation makes email a great centerpiece of a campaign, but sometimes traditional direct mail can create a bigger impression and engage audiences that are harder to reach through digital means. And of course, social media offers great opportunities for your potential attendees to engage, to build affinity and to act. At-event, look for opportunities with show organizers for effective sponsorship options, especially if your location is less than ideal. While a majority of attendees pre-plan their exhibit hall visits, it’s still possible to get on their consideration list at the last minute. Here too, provide a strong “why,” not just your booth number, logo and tagline. And, as always, put your best engagers at the aisle, whether that is sales or support staff, select the most engaging, most approachable and most fearless staffers as the first line of engagement. They can always provide a “hand-off” to a more qualified member of staff as the conversation becomes more detailed, but use people to their advantage and your advantage to get, hold and escalate the interest of qualified passersby. In future posts, I’ll go more in-depth about some of these suggestions, as well as exploring the full 360 degree spectrum of pre, at and post-event engagement. |