Show me, Don't tell me

If you read my last post, then you’ll know that Powerpoint has its place in communications if used correctly. However, at a recent trade show, I discovered an interesting phenomenon: on the show floor, Powerpoint does not belong. Like trying to avoid Medusa’s deadly gaze, attendees would quickly turn away whenever Powerpoint reared its ugly head.

Ok, maybe that is being a little harsh. As a title slide, Powerpoint works. Even as an intro slide that lays out the basics of what will be presented. But the trick is to get past the slide quickly.Why? Because on the show floor, you have only a few seconds to grab someone’s attention.

In the technology world, and especially in the game technology world where I spend most of my time, attendees want eye-candy. They want to see the application running. They want to see its benefits first hand. They want to see the content that has been created with the application. It’s the old adage – show me, don’t tell me. For trade shows, I would even amend that statement to “show me in three seconds, don’t tell me in ten.”

I was talking to a few exhibitors on the floor, and they even went so far as to tell me that they no longer use Powerpoint in sales pitches. In the fast-paced world of business, the customer wants to see the technology in action…quickly. They don’t have the time, or patience, to digest powerpoint.

So why does Apple use it, and why are they so successful with it? Because they have a captive audience. People gather in auditoriums to hear the latest news from Steve Jobs. They will suffer through. However, you will be hard-pressed to find it in use in the Apple store, on in their booth at NAB. They know where not to use it.

Food for thought the next time you head to a trade show with a Powerpoint presentation on your laptop…

I ran across this article randomly, but found it pretty engaging. As a copywriter and marketer, it reminded me of just how awful a presentation can be when it includes too many words, too many bullet points and not enough kernels of wisdom.

If you are like me – someone looking for a way to avoid the dreaded Flying Stink-o-Potami – this article is definitely worth a read. While it may not simplify the creation of presentations for you, it might just give you that little bit of advice needed to keep your audience from yawning. Enjoy.

Now it’s time for tactics, and one of the first things you’ll want to consider is your booth.

Location. Location. Location.

Like a storeowner, one of the first tasks you’ll want to complete is deciding on the size of, and location of, your booth. Ask the show coordinators for the most recent floor plan and discuss with them how traffic is intended to flow at the show. Floor plans are not always up-to-date, so also ask whether all the spaces that are shown on the plan as occupied are really taken. If the choices you have are not optimal, be sure to tell the coordinator which booths you’d like to have if another company’s space falls through. Sometimes you can get some real gems when other companies decide to back out.

Make Them Gawk

Trade shows are crowded places. No matter what kind of space you have – a 10×10, 10×20, 20×20 Island – make sure you grab the attention of those walking by your “store front”. This can be done in any number of ways. In the animation industry, great graphics and great demo reels can certainly help this cause. So too can unique booth design features. At one show, I created a theater as part of a 10×20 space, complete with curtains and marquee. The number of people trying to peak inside the curtains was almost comical.

You can also use unique or interesting give-aways to draw attention. We once used condoms to communicate the idea of protecting assets (to promote a digital asset management solution). The give-aways were the talk of the show.

It’s Not What You Sell, It’s How You Sell It

If your product requires content to demonstrate its benefits, start putting that content together long before the show begins. If you create something really compelling, make sure that content is as visible as possible. This will require some careful booth planning, but it will pay off.

One of my clients once created a video that we placed on a huge screen within the booth. It was the only graphic we had and it was visible to everyone walking by. The content was so mind blowing, it was videotaped by numerous people at the show and generated over 1 million views on YouTube.  The impact of that video lasted for months and included calls from Rolling Stone, The Times of London and others.

Draw Them In

Compelling graphics might make people stop, but your booth and your employees will draw them in. In the example above, the video stopped people. But it was our alert and friendly team that brought people into the booth to give demos and more information.

Surround Sound

Most companies have partners. If your partners will be exhibiting at the show, reach out to them to see if you can work together. This will help your message reach your audience from many different directions and depending on the size of the partner, it may also add to your credibility. Ask if you can demonstrate your product in their booth, or be part of their promotional material. You will probably have to give something in return, so be prepared to reciprocate.

This just scratches the surfaces of things to think about, but it’s enough to get you started. In the next post, I’ll discuss ways to get people to come to your booth with pre-show marketing.

Tradeshows Still Work

Trade shows are still a very vital form of marketing. Despite the growth of social media, there is no substitute for meeting face-to-face with your customers. It’s networking in its purest form.

What’s Your Hook?

Frankly, very few people really care about your business. You need to make them care. If

you decide that a particular tradeshow is the right place to reach your audience, then ask yourself this: Why should someone care about your company? Are you introducing your company to the market for the first time? Are you launching a new product? Are you announcing a strategic partnership?

No Hook? Consider Other Strategies

If your company is exhibiting with no real hook, you may be better served considering other strategies. Send your sales force to walk the floor. Set up meetings off-site. Work with a partner. Throw a happy hour at a local bar. But don’t spend the money on a booth and all the effort that goes into it.

Set a Goal

Unlike some forms of marketing, tradeshows are measureable. When thinking about the show, ask yourself how you will measure success. Is it in names or qualified leads collected? Is it in demo CDs you’ve handed out, or the number of people that showed up at your speaking event? Whatever it is, make sure you can measure it. (I know some of you will disagree, but the number of drinks served at your happy hour isn’t a form of measurement.)

Package Your Message

Once you’ve decided internally that you have something to say, it’s time to start thinking about how to say it. Or, put another way, how to package it into a campaign. The campaign does not have to be ground breaking, although ground breaking is nice. Short of that, clear and memorable is just fine. Think about it this way: If your customers could walk away with one message, what would it be and how do I make it stick in their heads?

Fund Your Idea

At the same time, you should be weighing your campaign ideas against your budget. You may have big news, but only a small budget to communicate it. If that’s the case, your campaign may have to be more guerilla than you originally intended. Better to know that going in than to have your campaign fall flat due to budget.

Start Focusing on the Details

If done well, your message (and the campaign you build around it) should provide you with a general roadmap for the tactics you need to employ at the show. In my next few posts, I’ll take a closer look at many of those tactics, including what to think about pre-show, at the show, and post-show.

Advertisers love it because they are no longer relegated to the oft-overlooked side bar. Online sites argue that their editors know their readers best, so who better to write the copy. Even if this is seems like a marriage of the long-divorced church and state, I argue that both advertisers and sites are missing the point. There is a reason why TiVo exists, why print ads are dwindling in number and why social media is gaining steam – consumers don’t want to be interrupted.

So what does all that mean for copywriters who have built their careers on catchy ad slogans? For the savvy copywriter who knows how to evolve, it can spell opportunity.

Consider these points:

Internet search is based on words – Web sites are ranked according to the fancy algorithms that google and other search engines employ. Those algorithms are based in large part on written content, e.g. how many times a word is used on a page; whether a word is bold or not; whether graphics and tags have descriptive text to support them; and so on.

Keywords drive awareness – In today’s 2.0 world, it’s all about relevance. Fancy graphics and classic TV spots might grab your attention (interrupt you), but well-chosen words written by smart copywriters can connect relevant messages to the right audience.

Social media is based on written conversation – Twitter and Facebook are based on written conversations. Copywriters should learn how to join those conversations for their benefit, and the benefit of their clients.

Traditional media is not dead – Even though some forms of traditional marketing are decreasing in importance, they are by no means gone. Flyers and brochures, press releases, videos, case studies, white papers, print and web ads – all of these techniques are still used across marketing departments and throughout agencies.

Companies still need messaging – I’ve saved the most important for last. Everything above is just a tactic. Crafting corporate and product messages, and ensuring that they are flowing through the right forms of media in the right way, is still critical to a company’s success.

Marketing is changing. There is no doubt about that. But with that change has come new opportunity, especially for copywriters who are willing to embrace the shifting landscape.

But what if it’s an early stage company that is just beginning to focus more attention on raising its visibility? What if it never really had an official marketing budget? If your company is in that situation, here are four budgeting approaches that can help:

Flat Dollar Approach
Particularly useful for early-stage businesses, the flat dollar approach bases marketing budgets on what the company thinks it can afford. This approach is usually most effective in budgeting for specific projects that are one-time expenses, such as exhibiting at a trade show.

Defining a flat dollar amount may be challenging in the first year of a business, since there are no past records of sales and marketing expenditures. To help you define appropriate budgets, contact others in the field, such as partners or consultants, to inquire about cost estimations. The last thing your early-stage business needs is large cost overruns.

Percentage-of-Revenue
Allocating a percentage of sales revenue is one of the most popular methods for developing a marketing budget. The average allocation can range anywhere from 1% to 12% of annual projected sales. If your business is selling to consumers, typically budgets need to be greater. If your business is launching a new product or service, advertising and publicity needs are greater, so the percentage will also increase.

The main advantage to using a percentage of revenue approach is that the marketing budget will increase, or decrease, with the sales revenue of the company. The marketing budget will never spin out of control and deplete sales revenue. However, your marketing budget can change from one quarter to the next, making it difficult to stick to long-term plans.

Matching Competitors
Another method for creating a marketing budget is to analyze and estimate what the competition is spending. This is another simple way to set a budget, since maintaining costs comparable with competitors keeps the business in line with others in the field.

However, this method also assumes the competitors are spending the right amount and have a comparable business philosophy and plan, product mix and target audience. Even if you do not use this method, it can be useful as a checking mechanism to ensure that your budgets are not too low or too high.

Marketing Plan Objectives
The final approach uses the objectives in the marketing plan (such as the number of opportunities you’re aiming to achieve, etc) to determine the marketing budget. The budget is developed by estimating the expenditures needed to achieve the desired marketing objectives.

Although this method of budgeting can be the most realistic way to align budgets with the needs of your company, it is can also run headlong into competing financial constraints for a given year. Thus, it may take a little more effort to defend it.

Good luck!

Not exactly.

Just because you can write does not mean you know how to write for marketing purposes, how to define corporate messaging, or how to pen copy that calls customers to action. Just because you can write does not mean you can advise companies on what to say to help them jump to the next step in their growth.

Messaging (for a client or for your own organization) is a learned skill and it requires in-depth knowledge of some very broad topics, including:

1) Branding – What are your company’s mission and vision? How are those defined in its culture, its structure, its products, its messaging, its design?

2) Positioning – How does your company position itself? Has it ever really defined its position? What are its objectives? What are its products’/services’ unique selling propositions and benefits?

3) Competitive Landscape – Who is the company up against? What are those competitors saying about themselves and their products/services? How does that differ from what you are saying?

4) Knowledge of the Customer – Which messages work in the market and which mediums do customers use to pick up on those messages? Which tone works best?

5) Marketing Communications – What are the specific rules of certain marketing communication mediums? How can you combine those mediums into an integrated messaging strategy? How do you write for specific mediums so that your words have more impact?

Hundreds of great books have been written about each one of these areas. Some of my favorites are: Crossing the Chasm, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, and The Copywriter’s Handbook. Just take a quick look at Amazon, and you quickly begin to understand how much there is to know.

So sure, everyone can write. But not everyone can effectively take corporate concepts and mold them into marketing messaging and messaging strategies that drive sales.

Here’s an example of what I mean: Executives at an early stage company want the company to have more visibility in the market. Their idea is to run ads, reach out to editors, do direct mail, re-design the web site, and other tactics – all of which can be effective tools for raising awareness and driving leads.

Problem is, the company has never really spent time defining its brand. It has no unique or compelling brand message that sets it apart from the competition, that captures a share of its customers’ minds, or that motivates the employees to do and the customers to act.

Strangely enough, this is a relatively common problem, especially among early stage companies. That is not to say that these companies are naïve or inexperienced. On the contrary, most of these companies have great products and intelligent executives; they’ve just been focused on a number of very pressing issues (like developing the product and securing revenue) and marketing has fallen on the priority list.

But there comes a point in a company’s evolution when it must start thinking strategically about how it wants to define itself. And it is then that the needs for copywriting and marketing intersect. Marketers can help companies define their position in the market, and strategize about how to reach those customers. Copywriters can help a company craft a truly differentiated message that complements the marketers strategy and that flows through all the tactics a marketer plans and implements, from ads, to PR, to web sites and beyond.