After a 12 hour post-AD:TECH day and still catching up on messages and emails, the show already feels like ages ago. The exhibit was once again-- encouragingly for the space-- “bigger and better” than the last time. There’s nothing like the instant rapport you build when finally putting a face to the voice of a long time client or the little tidbits you gather from informal social gatherings. As an attendee however, you may have felt a small case of information overload from every exhibitor with middle-child-syndrome crying for their share of attention.
A trade show exhibitor has about five seconds to catch the attention of an attendee’s eye before he or she passes their booth. Five seconds. This year’s AD:TECH SF was no exception. More money being made in the space meant not only the reemergence of hired models and free flowing chachkes, but the dozens of small first time exhibitors who think booths are where deals are closed. Here’s the truth: people do not make purchasing decisions based on the information and data you force feed them while walking by.
I know this comes as a shock to those of you who regularly stand at booths at trade shows and pitch your hearts out. But, pitching product and making data about your product available, will not make a sale. Don’t get me wrong, it will definitely help close the sale once the buyer is at that point in the sales cycle where he/she needs information to complete their decision, but it will not make a sale. A sale gets made when a buyer decides to make a purchase. For some reason, sellers falsely believe that if they sell, buyers should know how and why to buy. But that’s not true.
Take for example the innumerable presence of new affiliate networks or list management or SEM analytics companies. Yeah sure, they’re all the next big value add, but I’m sure each and every one of you were thinking the entire time whether it would cost an arm, along with both legs to give it a try.
I read online once about a baker who earned a small place in history when her recipe for Fudge Pecan Pie was published in Good Housekeeping Magazine. Her product was good-- she knew it and so did her customers. Yet they still hesitated over the $12 price tag. The baker could have easily taken the obvious routes of slashing prices or a big budget propaganda campaign. She would have either tarnished her brand’s premium or potentially run into cash problems. Instead, she did two things: she served pieces by the slice. At $1.50, it was easier to swallow. And swallow they did, often walking out with a whole pie. And once the peach cobbler or blueberry pie was already cut, she offered thin slices from the remaining pie to people humming and hawing over a purchase.
The next AD:TECH you attend, don’t waste your energy filling your red Casale bag with every one pager in the exhibit hall. And don’t waste your breath regurgitating the same shpeal you practiced over and over in the bathroom mirror of your hotel room.
Attendees: Listen. Learn. Have fun.
Exhibitors: Tempt them with a taste.
Cool people: Stop by the YFDirect booth ;)
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