I’m very lucky to have a good friend who’s a designer - someone who knows me and my company well.  This saved me the tiresome task of finding and briefing a new designer.  Having been through that process in the past I would say it’s crucial to find a company that really understands your brand and what it means to you.  You don’t want to choose someone who will try to impose their ideas on you or just go for the latest fashion.  Brands should be enduring and not changed without considerable reason - something that is in fashion now may look dated very quickly.  

Before I met up with my designer I wrote down a list of reasons for changing the brand along side a list of feelings that I wanted the brand to convey.  I also sat down and itemised all the marketing areas that would need changing. It’s amazing how far reaching your logo is - it’s not just your website, letterhead and business card.  Updating your brand is a bit like redecorating - once you start, it snowballs and soon you find that you’ve painted the whole house.  Hence, changing the brand means I need to redesign business cards, website, social media sites, banner stands, promotional material etc etc. Hence you can take the chance to update all your branding and remove any annoying, inflexible or ineffective areas.  

It is important to uncover who your brand is aimed at, what feelings you want them to have about your brand, how you want to use your logo (ie colour or black and white, embroidery, print, pdf) and how you want to engage with your audience.  There is much that you won’t be able to get across in an initial brief so work closely with your designer and make sure you’ve budgeted for time to make amendments.  Don’t be embarrassed to update your brief or to say that what you’ve been given doesn’t fit your needs.  This is something you have to live with - the designer can walk away and just pat themselves on the back for creating a stunning image but you’ll be working with it for many years to come.

Over the past few months I’ve been working on a new brand for my company.  I’ll post up the results as soon as all the parts are in place.  It’s been an interesting journey and one which threw up many questions and issues that needed resolving before I could move forward. 

I’ve always liked the branding that Nutmeg currently has.  One issue was always how to combine the name with what we do without making everyone think we were event caterers.  In fact when we were designing a website many years ago we specifically briefed the agency not to include food on the site.  Hence it was a little surprising when we saw their first design with a slice of black forest gateau on the home page.  Isn’t it amazing how some people can completely ignore key elements of a brief?  Needless to say, we didn’t go forward with that company!

The grated nutmeg that makes up the word Nutmeg was a lovely idea, although it eventually had to be created with BBQ spice and not Nutmeg to get a good look.  I like it’s uniqueness but it’s always been a bit of  a pain when it came to printing the logo.  We ended up having a simple text format for clothing and other more complex printing jobs which did dilute the brand a little.  I really like the Nutmeg cut in half - the red stands out really well and it’s a lovely image to use for more subtle branding.  However, I wasn’t every completely happy that it was another unique element and not part of the logo.

As the company and our offering has changed significantly in the past 8 years I felt that it was time to refresh the look.  This was not just to reflect the current age but also to give us some new momentum for the brand. I will say this isn’t something to be taken on lightly.  Not only is there financial investment needed in change but also it takes time to work out what your brand means now and how that is reflected.  Having said that - taking time out to consider and really think about your brand is never wasted time.

My clients value the service I provide and in general sign back up year after year.  It’s a great endorsement that I’ve been working for some of them for 14 years and there are only 3% of clients who only use us for one event.  I love building relationships with clients as I really feel that you get better value the more we know about the company, it’s brand and it’s internal style.  By learning about these things we can tweak the services, save even more time preparing designs and documentation and advise on new areas that might expand their offering.

At Nutmeg, we’re specialists in business to business events and exhibitions.  This knowledge enables us to support and advise clients to the best of our ability.  Hence we bring on board other partners as and when we need them so that we can stay focused on the jobs we do really well.  Hence, I’m always a little disappointed when I see Event Agencies that profess to do everything - to my mind they’re the jack of all trades.  They may do a good job and cover off all the areas you require but are they really fine tuned to your event needs?  

Over the years, I’ve seen PR agencies, stand designers, venue finders and marketing agencies all take on event and exhibition management.  Some events have been fantastic but I know that others could really be enhanced by working with some event specialists.  After all, I’m not a PR specialist and my business is not driven in the same way so why should I start to do that?  I was trained in marketing and worked in the field for years, so in theory I could turn my hand to most elements and do a fair job but it’s not my niche, it’s not the job that I do standing on my head.

For example, venue finders are great for, guess what, finding venues.  They have knowledge of hotels and conference centres that surpasses my own - I’m not spending day in day out talking to hotels and researching new spaces.  Hence, I use them myself for that extra expertise.  What I do though is go through their results and make sure that they fit the requirements of my clients.  I can brief them all I like but I’ll know when going through the results, if they’ve found a gem or if they’ve struggled to find any venues that fit the last minute, tight deadlines of the client and then I’ll be able to evaluate if the compromise is worth it.

It’s by combining your specialists that you get the best services.  You don’t compromise on your product so don’t compromise on your suppliers.

I’ve been reviewing my marketing plan recently and realise that nearly all my marketing tactics involve social media.  It really did surprise me as I hadn’t realise that I’d become so involved in it.  I also took stock of the fact that there is so much I have to learn.  I’m a big fan of continued learning - I love listening to podcasts and audio books.  Even the most insignificant podcast on marketing can give you one nugget to work on and develop your business.

However, I now have a backlog of social media to learn.  I’m looking forward to it but am not sure how to balance my time.  After all, this is for the long haul - for the future and has to be done but equally it’s not bringing me immediate reward so how do I justify the time it takes?  One colleague suggested allocating one day a week to immerse myself in each topic and get on top of it.  Another suggests breaking down each working day and spending an hour a day on the topic.  I’ll try both over the next few weeks and see which works best for me.

In the meantime, my list of topics is growing and I’m looking online for webinars, You Tube clips, support documents and general discussions.  By giving myself a variety of information formats I’m sure I’ll pick up enough tips to get going and develop a good Social Media strategy.  So, if you’ve got any good sites/info on the following do let me know.  My primary subjects, for now are:

Google+: everyone is saying you have to be there and the segmentation is really useful but I’ve not seen any evidence of it’s growth and impact.

Pinterest: I’ve got my account and can see how this can be useful to event discussions but I need to spend some time working in and around it to really get going.

Hootsuite: As above, I’ve got my account and done the basic set up but I really need to set up a Twitter feed schedule and learn how to make the most of this great looking tool.

Mailchimp:  the time for Newsletters has come, I have the database I have some interesting content but I need to get them merged with Mailchimp. 

Wordpress:  I’m fascinated by this.  I use it for my personal and business blogs but would like to become more of a power user so I can make the sites more personalised.

Lots to learn about - I’m looking forward to it. Now where is that Time-turner...

I’m just preparing a presentation for a local group of businesses.  The nub of the presentation is about exhibiting - so far, so good, it’s my specialist subject afterall.  The showman in me has no problem standing in front of the audience and talking about things I’m passionate about.  The question is - how to I present a topic on exhibiting to companies who probably aren’t considering exhibiting?

I could regale them with tales of ghastly, ridiculously expensive designs that just didn’t work or I could take them through the proven benefits of exhibiting (if done correctly!).  Great topics but how I can get to the heart of this and engage my, largely non-exhibiting, audience.  Furthermore I’d really like them to go out and have a go at exhibiting - a table top display is all you need to present your company at a local event.  The same principles apply whether you’re designing a presence at a local exhibition or if you’re going to an international tradeshow.

Those of you who read my blog on Mindmaps may be amused that despite my dislike of them I actually found it useful in this case!  I shan’t regale you with the process but suffice to say that I did feel that it gave me the freedom to explore ideas and then bring them into some order.

Three areas came out at the end of this, subjects that I think appeal to anyone in business.  So in May come on down to Bournemouth and watch me present on the importance of exhibitions to all businesses, how to set objectives to monitor your ROI on your events and how to use your exhibition presence to promote your brand and your products effectively.

Two things that I do regularly get bad press - networking and exhibiting.  People complain about them both, saying that they’re a waste of time, they can be expensive and not worth the effort.  I agree - they can be.  If you go into them with a negative attitude it’s self-fulfilling.

Let’s take networking.  You’re basically walking into a room full of people, many of whom you don’t know, some of whom you really wouldn’t want to know and some who frankly look a little scary. What’s the point?  No, really, what’s the point?  What did you plan to do at the meeting?  If you say that you just like a chat over coffee I’m really disappointed.  If you say you want immediate sales I’m still disappointed.  I know, I’m hard to please but networking is expensive as it takes key people out of the business for hours at a time so you need to have a plan.  Spending time looking in on your job or your business is useful but networking may not be the best place to do that.  So what do you want?  Make a list of what you expect to achieve and set out to realise those objectives.  Don’t forget that a really important aspect of networking is to build relationships for future objectives - you never know who might know someone who can help you in the future.

What happens if you now remove references to networking and replace them with exhibiting.  I think they’re similar - exhibitions can be big, scary and expensive.  If you go to an exhibition without a plan it’s just a waste of time and money.  I often think that people spend less time looking at exhibiting in it’s entirety than they do with other marketing mediums. Would you send out a press release on plain paper or with typos?  Would you place an ad and not think about what your message is and how best to get it over?  So many people seem to exhibit without those basic considerations.  They  use paper posters stuck on a wall at the last minute with old Blutak. They have a meeting area which is covered with equipment and trailing cables.  Why do it?  What does it say about your brand and the way you care about your company?

Two really important questions to ask yourself before you network or exhibit:

What do I want to get out of this activity?

How do I make this activity fit into my marketing plan?

Technology is moving so fast nowadays it's interesting to see how it impacts on the way you deal with your trade show leads. You do deal with your trades how leads don't you? A few companies I've known simply put them in a drawer or leave them as a single excel spreadsheet with NO actions.  OK, so leads may not be your primary objective for attending but surely you recognise that they could still be a gold mine.  Add these to your CRM system and you begin to build a better a picture of your clients from interest to purchase, and you are able to contact them with suitable offers in the future.

Bar Code Scanners

So do you invest in a bar code scanner at the trade show?  On the positive side, they allow you to do a quick scan to get key data which can be beneficial when you're overloaded with visitors or when you simply want to log everyone in and out of a theatre or demo session.  On the downside they're not cheap, and you’re reliant on the visitor entering correct data. How many times have you opened up the database to find a batch of half filled information and a tick in the box saying - do not contact.? 

Most standard exhibition lead scanning systems aren’t tailored to your needs.  Some will allow a simple adjustment to log answers to a few questions but they're not ideal.  How many times have you been to a tradeshow where you have to wait whilst the staff repeatedly try to scan and edit your data?  It’s not the best way to build a rapport with your visitors.

So could you develop your own system?  I've worked with companies who have had proprietary systems developed - these allowed immediate synchronization with their own CRM system and of course, personalised and specific questions.  A great solution but it’s not a cheap option for everyone.  With so many CRM systems in the Cloud  nowadays I’m sure there are solutions out there to allow you to use your iPad or iPhone to import directly.  Any system has to be quick and allow good sales staff to hone in on the key data they need and record this seamlessly.  I’m not sure we’re there yet.  Pen and Paper/Business Cards still have their role.

Quality vs Quantity

You do also have to think about how much time you want your sales staff entering leads.  Are you after quality leads or just a quantity of new contacts to deal with later?  Tradeshows are a big investment so it’s up to you to plan your objectives and analyse whether or not your team can divide and conquer - having a couple of people filtering visitors and passing on promising ones to other sales people. 

An alternative is to get bar code scanner data sent back to base each night for review and adding on to the CRM system.  Good office staff can refer back and make sure that immediate follow up is sent out.

Inbound Marketing

A more promising solution for new leads/contacts is to get them to log onto your website and enter their own data.  You may have to develop your Social Media systems around this but with a dedicated landing page on your website with an unrepeatable offer you could have a QR code on your stand literature or even the stand itself.  This way you’re starting a relationship and not just gathering data.

There are many solutions but as long as you have a plan which you follow through, exhibitions are a goldmine of contacts.

Once again it was a real pleasure to work at ISE. It's the 3rd year I've been to this AV and Systems Integration tradeshow and I'm interested in the way it's growing, the quality of the exhibitors and the sheer number of visitors.  This year they surpassed expectations and increased visitor numbers by 17% to 40,869.  Pretty impressive figures for a very cold week at the end of January.

This year I was working with a client in the Residential systems area in Hall 1. They had a good presence and made full use of their space and surrounding areas.  But more of that in the next post, for now I want to concentrate on the positive ways that ISE attracted visitors to their show. 

Organisers can no longer assume that they’ll automatically get the footfall they, and their exhibitors need.  They need to engage their audience and really work to pull them in - not just to register but to actually turn up.

Encouraging exhibitors to market the event for them

The organisers engaged with the exhibitors on a personal level.  Even with 825 exhibitors at the event, every time I phoned to speak to sales or admin I was treated like a friend and colleague. I accept that my client has been part of the association and exhibited at ISE for years but they're not a major exhibitor, so it was good to know that I had the organiser’s ear when I needed it.  This was just the start of building a relationship that engaged the exhibitors and really them become part of the exhibition.  I really think this is key to how exhibitions should move forward - it’s about working together to promote your investments.

Marketing Plan

I’m sure the organisers had a comprehensive marketing plan to draw in visitors, both directly and via their exhibitors.  However, this is my take on the elements that I saw and felt were effective.

Exhibitor Newsletters: regular information to exhibitors outlining key information and deadlines.  It’s easy to forget deadlines when you’re caught up in many events or marketing projects so these newsletters were a bonus for many exhibitors.

Visitor Newsletters: this one was sent to registered visitors and previous attendees.  These newsletters built in frequency as the show approached but didn’t seem to push the “TOO MUCH” button.  Exhibitors could sign up for advertising slots on the newsletter and submit their press releases for inclusion.

Pre-show Magazine:  another opportunity for exhibitors to promote themselves via PR and advertising as the organisers produced and sent out this valuable and informative magazine.

Show Daily:  I’m never sure how useful these are as I see so many littering the bins but they’re always popular with exhibitors keen to get their latest information in and encourage people to visit their stand on the day.

Partners: A series of key partners built a good sponsorship marketing campaign enabling the partners to promote the event, their presence at it and show how important they feel the event is.

Customer Tickets: exhibitors could download free branded entrance tickets for their customers.  The exhibitors show goodwill by sharing these, help save the client some effort and money as well as using them as the basis for their own marketing campaign.

Banners and Logos: These were readily available, again enabling the client to incorporate the exhibition into all their current marketing plans.

Mark your Diary:  How simple!  A button on the home page of the show website which automatically put the dates into your diary - with one click the date is marked.

Connecting on LinkedIn: some of the key staff connected with their exhibitor contacts enabling them to be visible on their contacts profiles.

Show guide app:  This app was downloadable onto Smart Phones and enabled visitors (and exhibitors) to get basic info, find exhibitors and plan meetings.

Twitter: if there was one weak area then it might be Twitter.  I had to work hard to find their Twitter feed and they only had around 800 followers.  Twitter is a great way to communicate with your fans.

We’ve already covered when to look at using a stand designer and how you find them but now you’ve got to sit down and write a detailed brief that covers the key facts about the client, their brand and their requirements.  This can be quite a tough job when you have all the information in your head but need to pull it together into a simple easy to understand format.  I’ve outlined below some key areas that I use - each section includes hard details but also some more personal feedback and obviously an open invitation to come back with questions.

Event Information

Facts:  When? Where? What exhibition? How much space you’ve booked? Stand number?

Hall Layout (with relevant entrances/features)

Stand Floor Layout (is there anything on there that you need to cover or make a feature ie a column)

Rules and Regulations for the hall incl. height restrictions.

Personal: Is the event up and coming with halls packed with Rolls Royces where the stand will really have to work hard to stand out?  Are there many other companies with similar products exhibiting?

Background Information

Facts: Name of client.  Why they’re attending?  Have they attended before?

Personal: Background on the event and the client presence at it.  Why is the client putting the stand design out to tender?  What do they expect out of a stand designer?

Stand Requirements

Facts:

Are you selling services or physical products? How do you sell these items? ie small demo areas for 5-10 persons or one to one briefings?

How many demo/sales areas do you need?  What product is on show?  Incl. dimensions and product literature and other relevant info ie it must be shown with a 42” Plasma fixed to the wall and a computer with at least the keyboard and mouse on a shelf.

Do you need a storage area? Do you need a meeting room? Do you require a relaxed coffee area?  If so, do you need water & waste or just an area to serve?

Do you need a raised floor to allow for extensive cabling to each area of the stand?

Personal: Do you have any past pictures of stands that can outline areas the client like or disliked?  What are the key issues that the client sees?

Branding

Facts:  Do you have branding guidelines that you can forward to the client?  I would recommend that a stand design reflects all other marketing and branding but there may be particular elements that the client wants to see.

Do send logo files and links to online marketing as well as brochures.  As much as you can to give the designer a feel for the clients brand.What colours are key?  Is the client after a black/dark design or  light, bright clean lines?

Personal:  What’s your instinct on what the client likes and dislikes?  Do they like creativity or are they more staid and formal?  How open will they be to new ideas?

Budget

Facts: How much do you have to spend?  You must give the designer a ball park figure so they know if they’re building a Jaguar or a Honda.Be clear about what this budget should include.  At this stage I wouldn’t expect a quote to include electrical installation,  AV and internet but I would expect to see a list of graphics, lighting, furniture and finishes.  Things can be fine tuned later on but you must make sure you’re comparing Apples and one quote/design includes AV hire and another doesn’t.

I’ve recently been exploring options for a client who wanted to put his stand design to tender.  This is always a fascinating experience as I usually start from scratch.  I may know a great bunch of stand designers who can quote but are they the right people for this job.  Are they going to provide the right level of service at the right price?  Do I need to look further afield and bring in a fresh pool of talent?

This blog series is going to explain the processes to go through and outline some thoughts on how best to brief the stand designer to get the quote and stand you want.

In my role as freelance event manager I sit in an interesting position.  My priority is the clients needs, but I also maintain relationships with the suppliers so they feel motivated and part of the team.  I manage politics and different cultures - would a European stand builder understand the constraints and issues of an America corporate? Would an American corporate appreciate the creativity of a European stand builder?

My preference is always to pay for quality - of products and of service.   Some clients don’t want this and cost is the number one priority.  I’ve let clients skimp on costs previously and it never works out well in the end.  The direct contact may feel good that they’ve got their budget down but then their bosses come along and are not happy about the way the brand is displayed.  Even in these times where everyone is fighting for new business, you have to pay for quality.

So why would you change designers if you’ve been working with someone for a couple of years?  After all you’ve built up a good relationship with them, you know how to get the best out of the staff on site, they know what the client needs and how they react to new ideas.  Change isn’t always easy but it is usually refreshing and opens up new avenues.

For most clients we put the design out to tender every couple of years, not to annoy the stand designers but to make sure that we’re getting value for money and that we’re not in a design rut. I’m always open and honest with the companies making them aware of the situation so that they know that  it’s not quite an even playing field but that there is still a fair chance that the business can be won.  I then leave it up to the designer to opt into the process. Once they opt in, they’re briefed and their every move is mentally noted to make sure that we’re getting the right level of service from the beginning.