NEWS & UPDATES

June 27, 2007 In Archives By Advent

“Google-ing” on the Show Floor

by John Roberson

Per­form­ing a Google search in today’s age of tech­nol­ogy is almost sec­ond nature for us. Much like Band-aid and Kleenex brands have become rep­re­sen­ta­tives of their prod­ucts, “Google-ing” will be syn­ony­mous with a prod­uct of ser­vice. As the inter­net sets a new stan­dard for busi­ness lifestyles, many ana­lysts pre­dict that trade shows might die. In real­ity they con­tinue to increase in both square footage and num­ber of exhibitors. How­ever, we have seen that the amount of time atten­dees spend at trade shows has decreased.

What are the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of these find­ings? Since atten­dees have less time on the trade show floor, they approach it by search­ing for their key needs sim­i­lar to typ­ing in key words for an inter­net search. Part of the chal­lenge of any adver­tiser on Google is to iden­tify the search terms that are rel­e­vant to their prod­uct because they are used to fil­ter irrel­e­vant providers. An exhibitor has a sim­i­lar chal­lenge: under­stand their audience’s lan­guage, iden­tify crit­i­cal search terms and clas­sify them­selves against those search terms. Just as Google users fil­ter out irrel­e­vant responses, the show attendee, armed with key search terms, fil­ters out trade show exhibitors that are not rel­e­vant for their needs.

Pri­mary search terms are used by fre­quent trade show atten­dees who are aware of sig­nif­i­cant play­ers, ser­vice providers, and needs within their indus­try. They approach the trade show floor with very spe­cific goals. For exam­ple, an attendee look­ing for sur­gi­cal instru­ments at a surgery show will come with those pri­mary search terms. If you con­sider the trade show audi­ence from this per­spec­tive, you under­stand how crit­i­cal it is to develop a key mes­sag­ing strat­egy that will make you, the exhibitor, stand out among the clut­ter and say, “Hey! We pro­vide the solu­tions you need!” The next crit­i­cal step is for the exhibit­ing com­pany to effec­tively dif­fer­en­ti­ate from the com­pe­ti­tion in order to grab the atten­tion of their audi­ence. For exam­ple, what is dif­fer­ent about the way they pro­vide sur­gi­cal instru­ments? What makes their sur­gi­cal instru­ments special?

Occa­sion­ally, an attendee will approach the show floor with sec­ondary or “hid­den needs” search terms. In this case, atten­dees may be look­ing to sat­isfy spe­cific needs or to sim­ply keep them­selves abreast of what is hap­pen­ing within the indus­try. How­ever, they may also have latent needs that could become pri­mary if sparked by an exhibitor. When an exhibitor does an effec­tive job of com­mu­ni­cat­ing their prod­uct and key dif­fer­en­tial, an attendee may real­ize, “I also have a need here. In addi­tion to sur­gi­cal instru­ments, I need surgery cen­ter man­age­ment soft­ware. I should go speak with them.”

The over­rid­ing com­mon­al­ity between a Google search and a trade show is that the power lies with the searcher. It is the charge of the exhibitors to be aware of those search terms, to com­mu­ni­cate the way their prod­uct solves cus­tomers’ prob­lems and sat­is­fies needs, and to con­vey the unique dif­fer­en­tial that sets them apart from the com­pe­ti­tion. This is para­mount — it is most sim­ply stated as the term rel­e­vance. Our quest in effec­tive trade show and face-to-face mar­ket­ing is to make our key mes­sage and prod­uct or ser­vice offer­ing as rel­e­vant as pos­si­ble to the needs of atten­dees. Exhibitors are too often dis­tracted by their booth’s func­tion­al­ity, archi­tec­ture, com­pli­men­tary events, or (per­ish the thought) the dis­trac­tions of the host trade show city. What needs to be pri­mary in an exhibitor’s mind is “How can I clearly com­mu­ni­cate what we do and how we do it dif­fer­ently with rel­e­vance to the audi­ence needs?” This should always be a pri­mary objective.

Advent is in the busi­ness of help­ing our clients engage their cus­tomers with face-to-face mar­ket­ing using exhibits, events and envi­ron­ments. It would be our honor to part­ner with you!

Authored By Advent

Advent partners with organizations to help them visually express differentiation.