Six Easy Ways To Achieve Greater ROI At Your IT Trade Event

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1. Ask the right questions............................................2. Be approachable and offer reasons to engage.......3. Know when to scan badges.....................................4. Follow up personally................................................5. Create a community.................................................6. Measure the right stuff.............................................Closing thoughts..........................................................About SITS..................................................................

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Contents

Contents

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1. Ask the right questionsQuestions are the golden rule of selling. However, many sales and marketing staff are used to working over phone or email and the unfamiliarity of an exhibition stand can often lead to them asking the wrong questions.

The reason why so many brands rely on trade events is because your staff can quickly build sociable, trusting relationships with prospective customers. Email and phone is very transactional, you only say or ask something to help you move to the next ‘phase’ of the conversation. Face-to-face is not like this, the motives are often less clear so you need to spend time socialising until the conversation organically turns into the business need.

Quite often when a conversation fails to do that, it is very common for the sales representative to blame the delegate for not being relevant or interested enough, whereas the real reason is often down to having asked the wrong questions and the delegate moves on to the next stand where they have more success.

Here is an example of a common, failed conversation:

Rep: Morning madam, how are you today? Delegate: Fine thank you. Rep: Great, would you be interested in finding out more about our fully ITIL compliant ITSM solution? Delegate: Not at the moment thanks, I’m just looking around. Rep: No problem at all, though would you perhaps like some help with any of your ITIL processes? We have some excellent consultants who have helped hundreds of other businesses. Delegate: Really, it is fine. We have lots of ITIL trained staff already. Rep: Alright then, have a nice day….may I scan your badge? Delegate: No.

What has gone wrong here is that the sales representative has assumed that the generic offering of their solution will be what the delegate is immediately interested in, and has simply softened the ‘this is what we do’ sales pitch with some questions. Nothing about the questions asked have been driven by the purpose of finding out more about the delegate.

Ask the right questions

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Here is an example of a more successful conversation:

Rep: Morning madam, are you enjoying the event today?Delegate: Yes it has been really interesting thank you. Rep: That’s good to hear, what has been of most interest to you so far?Delegate: I went to some seminars and also a round table.Rep: Round tables are so useful! What was it about? Delegate: It was about change management, I met some really helpful people. Rep: Excellent, is change management a big thing for you at the moment?Delegate: Yes definitely, we have stumbled on it a number of times over the past few years. Rep: That is a shame, why do you think that is? Delegate: I think we struggle with outlining accountabilities.Rep: Ah yes, that is a common issue we see also. Would you be interested in looking over this change management case study we ran with a large financial company?Delegate: Oh yes that would be very interesting!

2. Be approachable and offer reasons to engage

Be approachable and offer reasons to engage

We see it all the time; exhibition staff with their backs to the crowd, chatting with their mates, playing games on their phone, and these are the first companies to blame the audience for not engaging with them. If you have something relevant to offer, then you have a very good reason to discuss it with the event’s audience, but you must openly offer them a reason to choose you. Nearly every stand will have something like free stationary, clothing and gifts to hand out and this is great for getting your brand back to the homes and offices of your prospects – however they are not always the best conversation starters.

The reason this conversation was more successful is because the sales rep approached the conversation with the purpose of fnding out why the delegate was here in the frst place. Asking questions that allow the delegate to explain their problem, is the key to truly understanding their need and providing a real solution, which saves both their time and yours.

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Rep: Hey there! Would you like a free shoe shinning kit?Delegate: Sure, thanks. Rep: You’re welcome, can I scan your badge? Delegate: Nope.

Games, scheduled presentations, drop-in group workshops and activities are all very visually obvious methods for attracting people. The most important consideration is how to make it sit well with your brand. If your brand is playful and fun, arcade game, prizes and such like will work well. However if the brand is more professional and formal, a research survey or scheduled presentation will work better.

Rep: Hi there, did you see our schedule of presentations today? Delegate: I had a quick look, IT governance looks interesting, but I won’t be here then.Rep: Oh I see, well what are your current challenges around IT governance at the moment? Delegate: Well…. (Heart melting story about bad governance)Rep: I think we can help!

3. Know when to scan badgesNothing says ‘you are just a number to me’ like asking to scan someone’s badge before you have even come close to having a decent conversation with them, yet we see it happening on exhibition stands all the time. One of the issues is that sales staff will often have pressure on them to achieve certain lead generation targets at an event, which seems sensible enough but can lead to some quite damaging results in terms of how delegates perceive your brand.

One very simple trick is to explain to a delegate why you would like to scan their badge first.

Know when to scan badges

Whatever it is, you will need to have clear visuals, which explain what you’re doing and the staff need to be offering this to delegates at every opportunity as a way of creating reasons to engage, and lead into more meaningful conversations. Like this:

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Rep: It was great meeting you, would you be happy for me to send over a few ideas on how we could help you in the future?Delegate: yes that would be really helpful. Rep: Lovely, in that case please could I just scan your badge and I can use that information to stay in touch.

Scanning can actually be a great way to add value to a conversation that looks like it could be moving on too quickly. If a delegate is in rush to get somewhere or perhaps your stand is very busy, offering some kind of specific follow up to help wrap up the conversation can be helpful. For example:

Delegate: I am sorry, I must run as I need to get to my next seminar.Rep: No problem at all, which seminar is that?Delegate: It is about managing BYOD. Rep: Great topic, we actually have some really good guides on BYOD, if I may just scan your badge before you go, I will make sure we send them to you.

From a delegate perspective, they are not interested in staying in touch with you if it means just becoming an entry on a database, they want to know that you valued their conversation and that you will provide them with some interesting information that they can really use.

4. Follow up personally

In markets where there are a wide number of suppliers, providing similar products coupled with good service, the next discipline to compete on is trust and relationship building. When you get back to the office, take five minutes to find them on Linkedin or follow them on Twitter and send them something like an article you found that might

Follow up personally

Nothing is more frustrating that having a long and detailed discussion with an exhibitor, then receiving an un-personalised mass email from them days later, with no reference to what you discussed. If you know you had a good conversation, then you need to leverage and begin building the relationship. It may be that you are not the precise person to help them with their project, if that is so, then do a great job introducing them to the person who is.

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help them with ‘that thing’ they told you about. Once you have all the personalised communication rolling and they feel as though you genuinely valued their time at the event, then you can begin including them on the general marketing mailers.

“Hey Karen

Andy here from Super IT Solutions, we met last week at the show.

I was just thinking about the project management issues you mentioned to me and I found this really interesting article that covers some very similar problems. Worth a read:http://bit.ly/1wS5gaj

I hope we can keep in touch; I would really like to see if we can help you move forward with the projects we discussed. Having spoken to some of our consultants, they already have some great ideas.

I will give you a call next week and we can go over it in more detail.

Thanks,

Andy”

Of course it is still important to manage them as a lead and work them through the pipeline, however adding these steps and taking advantage of the fact you have already met them face-to-face really is your secret weapon. Continue with the tone of conversation you started in person and create bespoke sales messages for them through social media, telephone and email.

Every time you contact them, you want them to be reminded of the great conversation they had with you on your exhibition stand. If you can achieve that, then they will be far more receptive to meeting you again in person later down the line.

5. Create communities As a business it is important to create a feeling of community around your products. Events are perfect for this as you can quickly get a group of people together who have never met and start discussing something that is relevant and helpful to all of them. As a supplier you don’t always have to provide all the answers, just creating the environment where peers can help each other find answers is powerful and valuable enough for someone to choose your brand. Here are some top tips to community building at events:

Create communities

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1. Invite delegates into group discussions with other delegates

Bringing people together around common goals is often the most memorable benefit of attending an event. Facilitating those connections is really valuable. If you see people listening in to a conversation or notice that you colleague us having a similar conversation, bring it all together and start allowing everyone to share stories and best practice.

2. Have a series of smaller hosted events lined up afterwards that you can invite delegates to

Having met a delegate at an event, you have one great piece of intelligence to use, which is this person enjoys and sees value in attending events. A great follow up initiative is organise smaller, themed networking/learning events shortly after, which you can invite relevant delegates to.

3. Become involved in the vendor communities

This might seem counter intuitive at first, however befriending and learning from your competitors has some powerful advantages. Collaborating over industry wide projects and sling-shotting off each other’s activities can prove very successful. Also, your customers will perceive you to be far more generous, humble and approachable if they see you to having healthy relationships with other competitors.

4. Create a community between your business and theirs

6. Measure the right stuffIt is so easy to measure the success and ROI of an event on the basis of how many leads you collected. However, the easiest route is not always (perhaps rarely) the best one to take. If the sales strategy is simply to collect data and email blast it till it decides to buy, then of course you can collect masses of leads and push ahead. If you want to meet with contextually relevant leads face-to-face and have the opportunity to qualify them

Measure the right stuff

A simple first step is have blogs and newsletters coming from staff in the company, talking about key things your customers will already be talking about and want to hear more on. Then by working in the personalities of your own staff and coming up with quick and easy ways of communicating, you can start helping your prospects and customers feel more welcome and wanted.

By definition a community is a collection of people, assembling around a common interest. By demonstrating to delegates and prospects that you are actively offering them ways to do this with you and other industry peers. You are already successfully building a community around your brand and product.

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follow up or next step with?

Closing comments

Closing Comments

as potential customers before your html email templates even hit the sides, you need a better plan. Develop a way of your staff capturing conversations, recording topics delegates were interested in and what next steps to take after the event. This will help you qualify the quality of a lead before they even enter your sales pipeline and give you a much greater and immediate indication of your ROI from the event.

So a few questions you should be preparing your sales staff to answer after an event:

• How many of the delegates that you met engaged in strong conversations about why they were at the event? • What was the trending message from delegates as to why they were at the event? • What were the core areas of interest of the delegates you met?• How easy or challenging was it to meet the delegate's needs with our products and services? • How many delegates that you met have you promised a personalised

Following these steps and creating a more consultative sales culture on your exhibition stand is a sure fire way to ensure a strong ROI at an IT trade event. Your competitive landscape as a tech supplier is becoming fiercer by the day and the greatest advantage you will ever have in your market are the people representing your brand and products. Face-to-face selling will always be the most time and cost effective method of developing new business and trade events are the most focused environments for doing so. However, to be successful you must coach your staff on how to engage with a live audience and set clear strategies for qualifying and pursuing new customers.

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About SITSThis guide was created by the team that organise SITS – The IT Service Management Show.

Toby Moore,Event Managertmoore@divcom.co.uk01273 645 153

Alice FultonSales Executiveafulton@divcom.co.uk01273 645 138

About SITS

3 - 4 June 2015, Olympia, London SITS is the UK’s largest exhibition and conference dedicated to the ITSM sector. The event takes place every year across two days in London, and hosts over 4000 senior IT service management professionals. SITS visitors attend each year to discover and compare the latest ITSM products and solutions. For exhibiting opportunities contact the team today: