Convincing exhibitors to invest in your show at a time when spending is taboo and profit margins are razor thin

By Elizabeth Ingram, Editor-in-Chief

Making the sale today is about being customer-centric, says Melanie H. Wood, Director, Sales Training for Boston-based Advanstar Communications. Wood should know. Through spending her days on sales training at a company that produces 100 trade shows and 100 magazines,

Wood recognizes that a salesperson’s job today is much less about presenting a menu of marketing opportunities and much more about identifying a customer’s problems and offering products that can solve those problems.

“When you’re perceived as a problem solver/consultant to your customer, the game of selling takes on a whole new face,” says Wood. “They recognize that you’re not there to just sell an ad or a booth. They don’t look at you as just a commodity person.” Those personal relationships are vital in an environment where spending on trade shows fell 3.2 percent in 2001 and is only expected to grow 1 percent in 2002, and when spending on exhibit space dropped 0.7 percent in 2001 and is only expected to grow 0.5 percent in 2002, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson’s Communications Industry Forecast.

Making the sale today means doing what it takes to keep current exhibitors, then finding creative ways to capture more of the marketing dollars being spent. The challenges are significant: Convincing exhibitors to invest money at a time when spending is taboo and profit margins are razor thin, and finding the right offer to attract marketing dollars without giving away the store. But it is possible, with the right tools, to be successful even in the face of so many obstacles.


Today’s unique environment
Exhibitors are skittish in the wake of Sept. 11, says Helen Berman, President of The Helen Berman Corp., which specializes in sales training and consulting. They’re watching economic indicators closely, especially those they see as fundamental for their industries. In addition, with all the cost-cutting measures in place right now, exhibitors are “having to make really down-and-dirty decisions,” she says. “People say, ‘I could hire a salesperson or go to a show.’ That’s the type of decision they have to make.”

Companies are getting back to business, says Sherb Brown, Group Publisher for Bobit Publishing in Torrance, CA, but, “we have to work harder to get the same thing we got before. We have to do a better job than we ever did to justify the marketing dollars we’re asking for,” he says. “There’s not really any easy money out there any more.”

Being responsive to customers is key today. “The new economy has forced all of us to give great customer service,” says Eric Udler, CEM, President of FSI in Rockville, MD. “At the end of the day, if your customer service isn’t there, it doesn’t matter how good your event is, it will suffer.” Udler says the new economy means salespeople need to be reaching out and talking to customers and prospects every 30 to 45 days and making face-to-face visits with the top 20 percent of customers at least once a year.

Keeping current exhibitors
Frankly, exhibitors aren’t looking to the future the way they once did. “Exhibitors don’t want to plan far in advance,” Berman says. Exhibitors are leery of commiting to a show nine or six months from now because they can’t foresee where things will be then. But, don’t look at an exhibitor’s participation in the show as an all or nothing proposal. “The most important thing is to keep them in. You want to do what you’ve got to do to keep them as a client,” she says.

With her 89 percent re-sign rate for the 2002 show, held just one month after Sept. 11, Clair Kilcoyne, Director of Metalcon, knows how to make renewal sales work. Seven years ago, she decided the show, which is owned by PSMJ Resources Inc. in Newton, MA, needed a better way to reserve booth space. So she set out to create an Excel spreadsheet containing the complete history of all the show’s exhibitors since its launch in 1991. Exhibitors receive points for exhibiting, booth size, sponsorships, association membership and more.

Two months before the show, Paula Parker, Director of Sales for Metalcon, puts together a list of the top 50 VIPs. Then she and a hand-picked staff of four outside sales professionals begin following up with those companies to lock in booths for the show that’s still 14 months away. Parker is careful not to move on to the No. 2 prospect until the No. 1 has a final plan.

Kilcoyne says their goal is to get to as many exhibitors as possible before the show starts. But it’s impossible to book them all in advance, so Metalcon sets up a 60-by-60 office in the convention center, containing a lounge area with phone and fax, tables, and food and beverages. They’ll even let exhibitors have a brief company meeting or make sales calls from the booth, which features a Plexiglas wall to intrigue exhibitors passing by. “We want them to see the people standing in line and all the floor plans,” she explains.

Exhibitors get 15-minute appointments to lock in their space. With a show that fills 70,000 net square feet of space, Kilcoyne says it’s very manageable to handle renewals onsite. If there are any exhibitors they couldn’t squeeze in at the show, Parker follows up immediately afterward.

Amazingly, this renewal selling process nets Kilcoyne an 89 percent to 98 percent return rate. “It’s a very personalized process. We’ve created this type of relationship, and exhibitors know it’s coming,” she says. 

Integrated sales
Essentially, integrated sales involves putting together a marketing package that gives an exhibitor so much incentive to spend money on the show, the offer is impossible to resist. But a lot of variables affect the equation. For example, integrated selling may work better when a show enjoys a strong relationship with a magazine in its industry because the manager can package booth space and magazine advertising. If you don’t own a magazine in your industry, a good alternative is forming an alliance with one. Try to choose the strongest one in your market to bolster your position even more.

But, before you can offer an exhibitor any type of solution, you must know the problem. That’s why Wood says salespeople today have to be problem solvers. Instead of looking at the products they have to sell, salespeople need to say, “What do I have that is going to help this customer achieve what he needs to achieve?” These products may include custom publishing, a custom program at the show and advertising in the directory or show guide.

Wood teaches salespeople at Advanstar the process behind integrated sales: First, they brainstorm on the top five or 10 customers and all the ways they can help these customers do the things they do. Then they put together a proposal and choose a lead person to present the proposal. Because different people sell magazine advertising, shows and ancillary products, they have to be flexibleand work in unison to receive results that benefit all three groups.

Wood says the commitment is worthwhile because they see a higher retention rate. However, she warns that the extra time involved means you must invest your time wisely. It’s important to focus on the effort vs. the return, without missing out on opportunities.

“The exposition industry does a better job of integrated selling than the publishing industry,” Berman says. To promote integrated sales, she encourages companies to develop a master list of what more they can do and what resources they have available. Berman also recommends mixing and matching products to come up with a strong package. “Special programs could be the tail that wags the dog,” she says. “An exhibitor may think, ‘Ahh, this is very interesting, and to do that I have to have a booth.’ ”

Brown with Bobit Publishing knows the value of a strong integrated marketing proposal. Realizing his company was in danger of losing a major chunk of revenue, he put together a proposal for a major automobile manufacturer to explain why that company should stick with his magazines and shows. “We put together a professional-looking marketing presentation rather than just a sales pitch,” Brown says.

The proposal included information about the company’s current position, the importance of b-to-b media advertising, and a package that included a full schedule of advertising in two of the company’s magazines, a direct marketing campaign designed to reinforce and supplement the magazine ads, sponsorship on both magazines’ Web sites and being labeled the key sponsor of one of the magazines’ corresponding shows. Needless to say, he won back a valuable client. “We’ve had a lot of luck with presenting total packages to companies,” he says. “And we have better luck when we include sponsorships, Web banners and booth space all together.”

For Udler with FSI, integrated marketing isn’t quite as cut and dried. “It’s important to provide a marketing solution that includes space and sponsorship, but that solution only lets you go after the top 10 percent or 20 percent,” he says. Instead, Udler looks for ways to get a valued exhibitor even more exposure than promised. For example, if it’s a consumer show that’s doing a lot of radio advertising, it doesn’t cost anything to add the exhibitor’s name to the end of a 60-second commercial. Or he may add an exhibitor’s logo to an advertisement on the back of a bus. “It doesn’t cost me anything, and it gives the exhibitor a tremendous amount of exposure,” Udler says.

Integrated marketing for the American Society of Association Executives is primarily a tool to draw new companies, says Dick Bray, Director of Expositions. “We’re working on marketing both magazine ads and the show to areas that didn’t exist last year,” he explains. He’s hesitant to try to forecast the future — “I work in the future, but I never try to predict it,” he says. But, he thinks the after-effects of Sept. 11 have worn off on the travel side, with people traveling again and hotel occupancies on the rise. 

Regardless of what happens in the future, today is the time to focus on your sales offerings. “You never want to miss an opportunity to give that customer more exposure because if you don’t, someone else will,” Wood explains.

Elizabeth Ingram is Editor-in-Chief of EXPO magazine. She can be reached at eingram@expoweb.com