The #1 problem facing the trade show industry

No, its not the internet generally or virtual events specifically. Not drayage, not high costs or inconvenience of travel.

It’s poor boothmanship by exhibitors.

When attendees come to a show floor to shop, it is highly frustrating when exhibitors put barriers in the way of discussing and buying product. Whether its poor graphics and communication of features and benefits (how many times have I walked up to a booth and said, “what is it that you do?”), or lack of engagement with attendees (“I hate to interrupt your conversation with each other but…”), or the worst offense of all:

Not following up on leads.

So I totally agree with, and found interesting this post in the Bartizan blog, Tradeshow Organizers: New Poll Finds Show Attendees Frustrated with No Follow Up by Exhibitors.

All but 22% felt negatively about the exhibitor.  26% felt very negatively about the exhibitor, and 9% were annoyed with both the exhibitor and the event organizer.

Bartizan gives a list of ways to improve this situation (and while they are self-serving to a lead retrieval company, they are still in all of our best interests), I’ll add one we don’t talk about enough.

• Scan only true leads, not everyone who enters the booth

My theory: leads from events aren’t followed up on when the company gathering them does not sufficiently value them.  But if exhibitors truly differentiate between drive-bys and the people who were seriously interested, how could they fail to follow up with the seriously interested?

So here’s a challenge back to Bartizan: what more can you do to get your customers to use your lead retrieval systems wisely, track interest and conversation details (which your devices already allow), and follow up.

As a show organizer 10 years ago I remember looking for a service to offer my exhibitors to automate the initial email or postcard follow-up post-show.  Are any shows or lead-retrieval companies currently offering that?  Should I add it to Champion’s offerings?

 

Research says: Just apologize

There is an inkling of a beginning of a trend among doctors and hospitals to apologize for medical mistakes.  It is too  frightening  in our litigious culture for most doctors to try, but the results are very clear that for the hospitals doing it, apologies dramatically reduce lawsuits.

How does this apply to marketing?  A study by Abeler, J. et al., “The Power of Apology,” soon to be published in Economics Letters but quoted in today’s Boston Globe says, when a company makes a mistake people want an apology more than money.

Customers who gave a company neutral or negative evaluations [on eBay] were randomly offered either an apology, a small amount of money, or a larger amount of money to rescind their evaluation.  Even though the apology was nothing more than a self-serving corporate message, customers were twice as likely to rescind their evaluation if offered the apology than in offered money.

I saw this once at a conference I ran.  A surprisingly high number of attendees registered for this expensive conference on-site…so we misjudged the amount of lunches to provide.  We tried to bring in more, but hotels only make sandwiches as fast as they can, so quite a few went across the street to a deli or went hungry.  I made an apology to the plenary session immediately following the lunch break, and offered my email address to anyone wanting a credit for the value of lunch.  While many commented that they appreciated the thought, no one took me up on it.