In this issue...

Watch Your Mailbox for NFDA Expo Contract!

Speakers Announced for 2005 NFDA Convention & Expo

Watch Your Mailbox for NFDA Expo Contract!

Contracts, rates and floor plans for the 2005 NFDA Expo in Chicago, October 2-5, have been mailed. Please call if you have not received your information. Remember that a key component of the exhibitor point system is based on receiving the contract and full payment by the priority space deadline of April 29th. After this date, booths will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. The complete point system criteria are online at: http://www.nfda.org/files/2005expo/exhibitors/2005ExhibitorPointSystem.pdf

For more information on exhibiting in Chicago, visit NFDA's Website at: http://www.nfda.org/page.php?pID=649.

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Urgent Deadline - Chicago NFDA Expo Preview Issue

The July 2005 issue of The Director magazine will feature a special advertising section dedicated to the Chicago NFDA Expo. Exhibitors who take advantage of this special section pay for a full or half-page horizontal advertisement and receive the same space of an "exhibit in print," otherwise known as an "advertorial," FREE! Advertisers will receive two spaces for the price of one. It's a great opportunity to get your message to our 13,500 readers at a low, very affordable cost. Details are online at: http://www.nfda.org/files/advertising/July05ExhibitPrint.pdf. NFDA's advertising rates are also online at http://www.nfda.org/page.php?pID=259.

Please don't miss this fantastic opportunity. The deadline to reserve space is Thursday, May 5th. Call Kellie Schilling today at 800-228-6332, ext. 1546 or email kschilling@nfda.org!

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The #1 Choice for All Your Marketing Solutions

NFDA is your one-stop shop for all your marketing needs. NFDA is the only funeral service organization that offers all major marketing opportunities: NFDA Expo, The Director magazine, the Convention Souvenir Program & Expo Buyer's Guide, NFDA Marketing Partnership Program, sponsorships, mailing list, and online classified advertising. The most effective marketing program encompasses a mix of all these marketing opportunities.

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Trade Show Fast Fact

Trade shows are 20% less expensive than sales calls in the field for meeting with buyers in the market. - 2003 Trade Show Marketing Guide

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Speakers Announced for 2005 NFDA Convention & Expo

“A Night at the Ballpark” on Chicago's Navy Pier among events planned.
To read more, visit http://www.nfda.org/pressRelease.php?eID=199.

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Download the Official Logo for the 2005 NFDA Convention & Expo

Start promoting your presence at the Expo by using the 2005 Convention logo on all your pre-show advertising and marketing. To download the official logo visit http://www.nfda.org/page.php?pID=690.

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2005 NFDA Convention & Expo Sponsorship Opportunities

Sponsorships continue to be a growing form of advertising for exhibitors looking to leave a lasting impression on attendees. Fortunately, there are a wide variety of opportunities for sponsorship. If you are looking for a UNIQUE, one-of-a-kind opportunity, the early bird definitely gets the worm when it comes to sponsorships at convention. Below are some of the more unique offerings for 2005:

Virtual Golf – Returning favorite, the Virtual Golf continues to be a popular attraction and great way to become a part of the convention experience. Each sponsor receives recognition throughout the on-site convention marketing and at the Virtual Golf site. As we learned, funeral directors are better golfers than doctors and based on the number of participants; golf is one of their favorite pastimes. The cost of sponsorship is $5,000 and is limited to a maximum of SIX sponsors. Sponsors can also donate prizes for top contestants that will be awarded daily. Call Julie Stanhope at 800-228-6332 ext. 1561 or email jstanhope@nfda.org to become a Virtual Golf Sponsor TODAY.

Online Expo Map – Take advantage of one of the more visible and interactive sponsorship opportunities available. Your company name and logo would be added to this highly visited section of NFDA's Web site, along with sponsorship recognition in the Convention Program and onsite signage. This opportunity is available on a first-come-first-serve basis for $10,000.

For more information on these or other sponsorship opportunities, call Julie Stanhope at 800-228-6332 ext. 1561 or email jstanhope@nfda.org.

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Trade Show Dos and Don'ts
By Jim Schakenbach, Managing Partner, SCT Group Inc.

Every year the trade show debate rages within just about every company that has the potential to include show participation in its marketing budget. To make the issue even more problematic, 9/11 has forced this debate to now include safety issues. But at the heart of the matter is the question "just how effective are trade shows, REALLY?" The answer is a definitive "it depends..."

It depends in large part upon what a company puts into it. While trade show attendance is certainly down, it doesn't mean it's out. In fact, the attendees who come to shows these days are there because they really want (and need) to be. The days of the free-and-easy, company-subsidized junket are over and any company worth its salt is demanding ROI on any travel expense, especially trade show attendance. What does that mean for the exhibitor? Fewer "tire-kickers" and more qualified, interested, potential customers.

OK, so now we've established an argument for participating in an industry trade show even though attendance is almost certainly going to be off what it's been in the past. How do you capitalize on this opportunity? Let's start with the most common mistakes exhibitors make:

Creating unintentional barriers. Ever notice that the booths with the most traffic are also the ones that are easiest to get into? They have wide, inviting spaces that seem to blend into the aisles so that attendees can pass easily from a common traffic area into a company's selling zone, often without even knowing it. That means removing those ubiquitous eight-foot folding tables that people erect across the front of their booth space, with carefully fanned out product literature and stony-faced sales reps sitting impassively behind this protective barrier, waiting for someone to stop and talk to them. Waiting and waiting and waiting...

The result is as inevitable as it is unintentional - "The show was a flop...nobody stopped to talk to us..."

Put the cell phone down. Let me say it again. PUT THE CELL PHONE DOWN. How many times have you walked past a booth, only to see a representative talking earnestly into a cell phone, staring off at some invisible horizon, usually with a finger pressed into his or her open ear in a desperate attempt to hear the other person. Totally oblivious to the hundreds of potential sales walking right past them just a few feet away, these clueless individuals instead are concentrating all their efforts on a single person they can't even see. Does that make any sense? Of course not. Instead, relegate phone business to a limited period of time, away from booth activity. Then every rep in the booth should be instructed, while working in the booth, to turn...the phone...OFF.

"I'm not sure..." Some companies, desperate for personnel to staff a booth, will tap employees with little or no product knowledge or, worse, because they have a pretty face. Then, when confronted with a question of perhaps even modest technical difficulty, they respond sheepishly, "gee, I'm not sure...I don't really handle that product....the sales manager will be here this afternoon, can you come back then?". If someone is staffing the booth, they ought to have at least a passing knowledge of what's on display so that they can provide potential customers with more information than what they came in with. There's no substitute for knowledge, even if it's just a little.

The bulletin board look. Also known as the College Dorm Display. You've seen them - a fabric-covered pop-up display covered in what looks like white paper reprints, some product photos, maybe a half dozen or so small graphics. They're confusing to look at, worse to decipher, and at best, a waste of time. The key word is "display" - this is a company's chance to show the world exactly what it has to offer in the best possible light. Throwing up a bunch of data and some digital photos does not do that. The best any company that puts up such a display can hope for is one or two confused people wandering through, peering quizzically at the myriad of prints and photos, half-heartedly trying to figure out what the exhibitor actually does.

Does all this sound depressingly familiar? That's because hundreds of companies commit these violations on an all-too-frequent basis. But that means opportunity for you, if you choose instead to maximize your trade show participation and create an effective, interesting lead-gathering sales machine.

Here are ways to do just that:

Create open spaces. Remember those eight-foot tables? If you must use them, stick them on a back wall or along the side drapes. Open up the front of your booth and you open yourself up to sales opportunities. Keep product displays to the side or back of your booth so that you can draw people in to view them. Use pedestals wherever possible to create islands of interest. Removing physical barriers also removes psychological ones.

Create excitement. Remember the College Dorm Display? Instead, work toward creating a single, exciting image or theme for your display. Opt for a single, large color image in your booth that graphically depicts what your company offers or does. Ideally, a person walking past should be able to glance at your display and immediately determine "oh, they're involved in (blank)". The added benefit is ease of set-up and transportation, lack of clutter, and often less expense - sometimes it's cheaper to create a single, larger graphic than it is several smaller ones.

Multimedia displays are even better, and can serve the added benefit of providing compelling "live" digital demos that might not be cost-efficient or even possible to do physically.

Leave sales literature in the box. Or even better, back at the office. Companies waste an enormous amount of money printing up beautiful four-color sales materials and stacking them in come-hither piles at their booths where everyone then scoops them up and unceremoniously dumps them in a trash can outside the exhibit hall because they've got too much stuff to carry. Instead, have just a few brochures or catalogs available discreetly under your table so that when you have a really live candidate, you can offer literature if the situation calls for it. Use your valuable literature instead as a response sales tool that you can mail to your leads when you get back home. This provides you with another reason to contact them.

Many companies are now opting to put sales and product literature on CDs as PDF files in addition to, or instead of, printing them. In the case of catalogs, there are certainly some substantial cost savings in both printing and shipping when you bring a stack of CDs instead of boxes of heavy catalogs.

Use real people. Remember, this is your opportunity to show the industry the breadth and depth of your company, so bring out your most talented, knowledgeable people. If that means engineers who aren't used to the light of day, make sure you pair them up with experienced sales people who can run interference for them if they become uncomfortable. Make sure you have the intellectual firepower in the booth to handle the kind of questions you're likely to get. The quicker you can answer a potential customer's question, the quicker he or she becomes an actual customer.

Don't be afraid to go out and greet people. The booths that are always crowded and active are the ones with better outreach. Staffers who greet people in the aisles with a smile and a friendly question attract more interested attendees than the walled-off booths with dour employees staring sullenly at the passing traffic.

Conclusion: Less is more. In short, the ideal trade show display has fewer barriers, less clutter, singular themes or images, and more opportunities for contact and prospecting. By using these guidelines and a little common sense, you can turn even today's diminished trade shows into the effective marketing tools they ought to be.

James D. Schakenbach is President/Managing Partner of SCT Group Inc., a high technology marketing communications agency serving clients internationally in fiberoptics, data- and telecommunications, medical technology, IT, and process control. He has a BA in journalism from Washington & Lee University, Lexington, Virginia.

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