As we continue to follow our roadmap to success, we come to the section on marketing. With the upcoming CeBIT conference less than a month a way, Enable decided to begin its marketing series with a real life example of using the Internet to get the most out of trade shows. Today, we take you through CeBIT's site and show you how it use it to hone your trade show savvy.
Deutsche Messe, the production company behind CeBIT, like most of its colleagues in the event business, maintains a comprehensive web site allowing you to do your homework before even boarding an airplane. And forewarned is forearmed.
Identify Your Goals
It is important before any mass market event to identify your own goals from the event, in order to be sure you maximize the benefit of time spent. The first order of business is determining who else will be at the exhibition, in order to plan your exhibit as well as what or whom to bring along.
The CeBIT site offers a variety of practical information that will help in that endeavor. The site offers statistics on previous CeBIT exhibitions to help catalog attendees. A key page to note is the visitor survey. Here we discover what percentage of CeBIT attendees make their companies' purchasing decisions (Hint: very high).
Arrange Your Stand
Armed with this information, we can now decide how to arrange our stand to make the most out of the one-week marketing opportunity. CeBIT is the place to focus on what your company can do for their company, how your technology saves them time, human resources, and, most of all, money.
The statistics page also teaches us which areas have been the most popular in recent years. If your stand isn't located in a high traffic district, consider having one of your people hand out leaflets or canvass in one, to ensure driving visitors to your stall. Just like on the Internet, the most effective publicity is where the largest potential target audience will see it. Consider everyone who takes your leaflet in one area an ad impression. Also, be sure your leafletters have studied the web site's map in advance so they are well-armed to give clear directions to your stall.
Make Hitlists
Having so many companies in one place for a week can also save you miles of travel and hours in other managers' waiting rooms. Use the listings of exhibitors to make hitlists: with whom you want to meet, whom do you want to check out.
Exhibitors are listed on the site according to product groups. For instance, at last count, 209 companies who consider themselves banking technologies will have stalls at the show. If you are in the banking technology business, you will have a great opportunity to check out your competition. Also, in this environment you will be able to identify potentially synergetic companies with which you may want some form of cooperation. Don't forget to cross-reference categories. If your company facilitates Internet banking, don't just stop at reading the blurbs of 209 companies that list under banking technologies, also check the 195 listed as Internet software.
For a more precise listing, the site's advanced search feature allows you to run a check on specific key words. Keying in "securities trading" will pinpoint the companies involved in on-line stock trading.
Read the blurbs on each relevant company and make a short list of those that interest you. Most participants will have their own web sites on which you can do further research and from which you can draw contact information. Chances are good these companies will send high-level representatives to CeBIT and those managers' time is also precious. Contact companies prior to the show and set up meetings with the ones that interest you.
Exhibitors are also listed on the site according to country. A quick glance at the statistics from previous CeBIT exhibitions, tells us that Israeli exhibitors have increased in numbers from 76 in 1998 to 98 planned booths at CeBIT 2000. If your next target market is a specific geographical reason, use CeBIT visit their booths and get to know players who will matter for your next strategic move, either as customers, partners, distributors or competitors.
Block Out Some "Free Time" Lastly, be sure to plan a good solid block of "free" time. Trade shows bring a variety of people, companies and technologies to one place and a good healthy trip around the block is sure to reveal one or two or ten new things you hadn't heard about or hadn't yet seen up close and personal.
I have tentative plans to attend CeBIT and if you plan to attend please send me an email. See you there.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on February 1, 2000.