Archive for Trade Show Leads
The Quick And Easy Way To Build A Great Mailing List
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Lead generation can take on many faces. Many very sophisticated programs exist to capture qualified leads based upon things like trade show marketing, seminar training, creating white papers, telemarketing and web marketing. However, sometimes for many businesses the fastest path to having a responsive mailing list is to purchase or rent it from a world class direct mail marketing company.
Who is your ideal customer? What is their age? What is their sex? What interests do they have? Do they live in a specific geographical location? What is their income level? More importantly where are your customers hanging out right now at this moment? A world class direct mailing marketing company can collate, organized and deliver a mailing list of very targeted prospective customers to you based upon the criteria you provide them with. This is referred to as marketing demographics in the direct marketing industry.
One of the most used words in the marketing arsenal is FREE. However, as a business consumer it can also be the most costly. Many times businesses think that they can economize on their lead generation strategies. By doing this it can take them months or years to develop a responsive list. The smarter alternative is to contact an experienced professional who can access and acquire a list of very targeted prospective customers for you to start communicating with.
The Mailing List business has become as sophisticated and targeted as any industry. It is possible today for you to collate, target and segment a list based upon demographics of your ideal client profile. Acquiring such a mailing list is fast, easy and very affordable.
Mailing lists are often rented. When a mailing list is rented, the renter agrees to use the mailing list based upon only contractually agreed upon terms. Usually the mailing list owner will enforce this by peppering the list with fake names and addresses that can be tracked for each time the list is rented. Occasionally unscrupulous business will try to bypass this by renting multiple lists, merging them in an attempt to find the common valid addresses.
A good mailing list broker is worth their weight in gold to your company. They can locate hard to find information quickly and test the responsiveness of your offer quickly and affordably. Often times these mailing list brokers are the unsung heroes for organizations such as charitable groups, niche publications and many small businesses. Often times it is the mailing list broker than can offer powerful and profitable advice on how to maximize the value of the targeted list.
What many very successful marketers do is test their copy online and when the test have proven to be successful they roll it out offline. This makes it much more difficult for the campaign to be copied by competitors.
Lead generation needs to be an ongoing part of your marketing strategy.
Sometimes lead generation can be as easy as purchasing a qualified mailing list of prospects and having a strategy in place to follow up with them.
Some of the most successful customer acquisition campaigns in history have been initiated through the rental or purchase of targeted mailing lists. Why not make your company the next giant success story?
About the Author:
Carlos A. Correo is the webmaster for www.NorconMarketing.com a world class Direct Mail Marketing Company located in St. Petersburg, Florida. He has been helping business with their lead generation needs for over eighteen years.
Trade Show Lead Generation, What’s Next
Posted by: | CommentsOk so you say you did your part and generated lots of leads at your last show, now what should you do with them so they are the most effective.
For starters lets hope you collected your leads the right way with an electronic lead scanner. The other most common way is collecting business cards in a fish bowl. Did you offer a prize for those business cards? If so you probably have a mix of qualified leads, people that are actually interested in your product and want to learn more along with the others that are just trying to win that iPod you were raffling off.
Take my advice and go the electronic way, you will save yourself a lot of grief and extra expense in the long run if you just collect up business cards. Don’t forget you still have to pay for somebody’s time to type or scan all of that information into your database and more often than not it never gets done.
The main thing is that you have to follow up on those leads as fast as you can, preferably within a week or two after the show or better yet even while the show is still running. If you plan in advance, have a personalized marketing piece ready to send out and you can export your leads daily there is no excuse for not thanking people for visiting your booth the same day they stopped by. Imagine the power of that!
We can be an outsourced arm of your trade show marketing department, train your staff on lead generation best practices and follow up procedures.
You know you spent so much money on getting to the show, in this economy can you really afford to not make sure you get the most return on investment out of it? Take a look at our pricing plans and tell us that our system is not an affordable way to turn your leads into cash compared to the rest of the money you spent going to the show.
New CEIR Report: Top Tips for Retaining Exhibitors
Posted by: | CommentsNew CEIR Report: Top Tips for Retaining Exhibitors
Meeting professionals who plan trade shows know that when a key exhibitor pulls out of an exhibition, the impact can be significant. A new study from the Center for Exhibition Industry Research examines why some market leaders are being lured away from exhibiting and provides best practices for managing key exhibitor relationships.
The study, funded by the Professional Convention Management Association Education Foundation, stresses the need for meeting professionals to “make a fundamental shift in thinking in order to preserve relationships with key exhibitors and market leaders and advance the exhibition industry into the next decade.”
“No matter where you hold your show, what industry you’re in, or how small or large your event is, this report shows that everyone is seeing bigger exhibitors looking for more influence,” said Doug Ducate, CEIR president and CEO in a statement. “Our goal was to show how some exhibition organizers have dealt with this—both successfully and unsuccessfully—and provide a roadmap for addressing the issue.”
Tips and best practices for managing exhibitor relationships under this changing landscape include:
Allowing market leaders to invest in trade shows without exhibiting,
Collaborating with exhibitors on corporate exhibitions, and
Aligning goals of exhibitors with goals of exhibition organizers, among others.
For a full copy of the study Managing the Special Needs of Key Exhibitors and Market Leaders, click here. The report is free to PCMA and CEIR members and available at a cost of $160 for non-members.
The PCMA Education Foundation’s next research endeavor will be a study from CEIR on the development of a return on investment calculator for meetings and trade shows. The report is due out by the end of this year.
Best Trade Show Sites
Posted by: | CommentsBest Trade Show Sites
Oct 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Edited By Sue Pelletier
Highlights
The Society of Independent Show Organizers; The Jordan, Edmiston Group Inc.; and Tradeshow Week announced their picks for “best in class” trade show Web sites at the SISO Executive Conference in Atlanta in August.
You know the Web has come full circle when trade show Web sites start having their own awards. And now they do: The Society of Independent Show Organizers; The Jordan, Edmiston Group Inc.; and Tradeshow Week announced their picks for “best in class” trade show Web sites at the SISO Executive Conference in Atlanta in August.
“At a time when the event industry is evolving and implementing new digital media tools and technology, it’s especially relevant to celebrate the best-in-class Web sites,” said Mary Beth Rebedeau, executive director, SISO, in a press release.
While the biggest winner was DMG World Media, an international exhibitions company and a division of DMGT PLC whose Surf Expo Web site, www.surfexpo.com, won Best Navigation and Best Overall awards in the “Over $10 million in revenue” category, associations were also among the winners. The Association for Manufacturing Technology took the prize for best use of technology in the “Over $10 million in revenue category” with its IMTS 08 site, www.imts.com.
“The volume and quality of this year’s Web site submissions, and the difficult decisions we faced in the awards competition, show that the industry is clearly embracing the Web and using it to drive additional revenue, generate more leads, raise awareness, and build community,” said Richard Mead, managing director, JEGI.
The complete list of winners is available at www.jegi.com/SISO-WebProject.
Trade Show Tips – Oh, You Were Exhibiting?
Posted by: | CommentsIf you have ever exhibited at a trade show, you are aware of the outrageous costs associated with showing your face and brand to hundreds or thousands of potential buyers. You rent the floor space and create your extravagant booth; you swipe credit cards left and right to pay for electricity, labor, furnishings, and carpet. But that’s just the beginning. There are travel expenses, lodging, and meals for you and your staff, entertainment, shipping expenses and the list goes on and on. Yes, you are spending a lot of dough on the essentials….but what does that mean if your presence at the trade show is forgotten?
A trade show without promotion is like a vacation without luggage….short lived and quickly forgotten! Promotion is vital when exhibiting at a tradeshow. If you fail to create a lasting impression with your prospects, then you run the risk of spending lots of money and time for little return. Here are a few ways to promote your booth and leave a lasting impression.
Send out a pre-show mailer that is intriguing. Stay ahead of the game and be prepared.I’m not talking about a boring postcard or letter that can be mixed up in your junk mail…I mean a bulky mailer with a useful promo item that the prospect actually likes. I suggested to one of my Apparel clients to mail out a lightweight full color lanyard that is consecutively numbered to all of the buyers on the pre-show list. A note was included in the envelope that prompted the prospect to wear the lanyard and visit the booth during the trade show to see if they had the winning number. The prospect was not only wearing the lanyard, but they were drawn to the booth and received a 60 second sales pitch and a prize if they had the lucky number. Lightweight, inexpensive, and a moving advertisement all in one easy promotion.
Create a fun and interactive Booth to attract attention. 83% of trade show attendees have buying power, according to Merchant Circle. That’s a huge number of potential clients passing by your booth because you look and sound identical to the 5,000 booths surrounding you. So how do you create a fun and exciting booth environment? Well, start with the basics similar to when you were a kid. GAMES! You liked games when you were 5 and admit it…you still like games. For example, at a Food Hospitality Trade show, I suggested to one of my clients that they set up a “Wheel of Fortune” Game. Depending on where the loud wheel stopped rolling, the player had the opportunity of winning a branded prize or a USB drive loaded with the company’s information on it. In no time, the company would not only be drawing a crowd of people around their booth who wanted the next chance to play, but they were also receiving the opportunity to speak to their prospects and pass out information in a fun way!
Please stop cutting down trees! Brochures, flyers, business cards are all a great way to hand out information and a fabulous way to fill a trash can! If your buyer is not in an immediate need for your products or services then your piece of paper will most likely never make it to their office or be filed away in a cabinet for future reference. Instead of paper, try handing out a Micro-Fiber glass cleaning cloth with your information on it. These cloths range from 3″x5″ to 8″x11″ and can be used for many other things besides cleaning. If your prospect is not in an immediate need of your service, they will know exactly how to find you when they are ready because you’ll be branded inside their laptop bags.
Do something with your leads! Don’t wait too long to let your stack of leads wither away. Make sure to follow up every lead you received at the show and send a small thank you gift for stopping by your booth. I suggested to one of my trucking clients that they send a Key Klasp keychain, which they printed their logo on one side and a thank you note on the other side. This special keychain allows you to remove and place keys on your chain without struggling to pry the wire open. Show them that you DO care and you DO remember them, just as they should remember you.
Trade Shows have and will continue to be a successful marketing method because of the exposure you can receive with potential buyers. But you must keep in mind that there will always be competing exhibitors at the same trade show, and the extra “Umph” that you need to steal the attention of your prospect and to put YOU in the top of their minds will be your promotions.
http://www.PromoMarketingExpert.com
Karen Silvers is an Account Executive and Tradeshow Specialist in the promotional products and marketing industry. She works for one of the top 10 promotional marketing companies in the U.S. Mentored by another extremely successful A.E. in the company, she started as an intern, then moved to Business Development manager, and then to Account Executive in under 1 year. Something unheard of in this particular organization. Her biggest strength is relationship building and creating promotional marketing programs specifically to fit the needs of a goal or client. She currently specializes and assists companies in creating the highest ROI for tradeshows and events.
Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, Karen currently resides in Granada Hills, CA and owns & runs a mobile spa business on the side.
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