Spring Greetings from
International Training & Management Company

Welcome to our spring newsletter. In this issue we will tackle the all-important topic of getting measurable results for your investment.

Barry Siskind's article called Trade Show Accountability will overview the importance of finding your exhibit focus. Skip Cox, president of Exhibit Surveys and internationally recognized authority on the issue of measurement writes our guest column.

As always we welcome your suggestions for future issues.

Barry, Barbara, Joan and Krista

Feature Article

Trade Show Accountability Starts With Focused Objectives - Barry Siskind

Does this sound familiar? “We're here because we're here, because we're here, because we're here.”

It's not just the jingle we all sang when the big yellow bus with vinyl seats and a sticky floor pulled into the camp parking lot. It has also become the theme song for 80 percent of all exhibitors at trade shows.

Ask exhibitors why they invest in a trade show and you will hear:

  “We always do this show.”

  “My boss thought this might be a good place to be.”

  “If we don't go we will be missed.”

  “We're here because we're here ...”

Investing in a show without setting clear, focused, measurable objectives is like piloting an airplane without a flight plan. Without a focus for all your activities, there is no way to know if you have achieved your goal.

You must establish your exhibiting objectives before doing anything else. However, it is not as easy as it sounds. You may have conflicting goals among your exhibiting partners or your staff does not understand the value.

Objectives are the fundamental strategy of any business whether in the public or private sector. Business objectives must be set in all operational areas, including marketing, innovation, human resources, financial resources, physical resources, productivity and social responsibility.

Your first step is to gain insight into your “basic strategy objective.” This term, coined by management guru Peter Drucker in the early 1970s, is still something that organizations have trouble grasping. Your basic strategy objective answers questions such as: Why are we here? Who are we? What is our real purpose? Whether you are examining your purpose personally or corporately, the process is crucial because it examines the core of your being and establishes a logical beginning point for your discussion of objectives.

When your company was formed, what purpose did it serve? What were the factors in place that influenced this decision? Once you understand this, ask yourself if that original focus still has relevance in today's economy.

Setting basic strategy objectives is only the beginning. Unless you take the important next step—setting a clear direction on how to transform intentions into actions—basic strategy objectives will never be achieved.

Your marketing plan answers the question, “How do we communicate our intentions to those who will benefit from its message?” You have many traditional choices, including print, television, radio, packaging, direct mail, telemarketing, billboards, flyers, brochures, the Internet, seminars, community initiatives, sponsorships and, of course, exhibitions. Each marketing tool has its strengths and weaknesses. Each must be examined and chosen carefully to ensure that your message reaches its intended audience.

Exhibits hold a special place in the marketing mix. Doug Ducate, CEO of the Centre for Exhibition Industry Research, has referred to exhibitions as “the last vestige of face-to-face marketing.” While many marketing tools are face to face, exhibiting is a magnification of the process. At a well-chosen event, you can reach more people in a shorter time than all the other tools combined. Answer the following questions to determine if exhibiting fits into your company's marketing plan.

  Why do we want to meet the public face to face?

  Do we have the resources to do it properly?

  What return do we expect from the exercise?

  How does face-to-face marketing reinforce our overall marketing plan?

  How does our overall marketing plan complement the basic strategy objective?

As a result of answering these questions, you may learn that your exhibit program has more than one objective. At this point it is important to look at each one. You might discover that not all objectives can be satisfied at all shows. In your show selection you may now choose some shows to satisfy objective A and other shows to satisfy objective B. While it's possible to get more than one result from a particular show, with a diversity of visitors attending, the most likely outcome is that you will have to attend different shows to achieve different objectives. As if things were not complicated enough, we now look at exhibiting objectives on three separate levels: corporate, departmental, and individual.

Your corporate objective will dictate the overall look and feel of the booth and the message it conveys regardless of the number of internal partners that share the same space. When visitors approach a well-known exhibitor, they recognize the name or brand. Reference to individual departments at this stage can lead to confusion. For example, if you are IBM with forty or fifty different departments, your public knows your colors, and your corporate logo. At first glance, the difference between one department or another is irrelevant. Now here is where you have a delicate balancing act. Your objective at this level is corporate, but it must also be show-specific. While the corporate identity is crucial, it must also answer the question—What is IBM doing at this show?—which brings us to the second level of objectives—departmental objectives.

These are the ones that each department has to justify their investment in the show. Such objectives are often focused on a specific product, service, or industry need. Whereas IBM has a corporate brand to support, individual departments have their own focus. There are over 100 reasons that satisfy these first two levels of objectives—corporate and departmental. To get your copy simply e-mail me at barry@siskindtraining.com. As you read through these objectives, identify those that fall into each category for your exhibit program.

The third level of objectives is individual. Often your booth staff will look for opportunities for personal growth. Remember, staff will want to know what's in it for them. There are other ways to get leads than working at a show. Some staff come to shows feeling resentful about being pulled away from their territories, their regular jobs, or their families. Spending the time to find objectives that help your staff grow as individuals goes a long way toward creating a positive experience for them.

Once you have identified your real reasons for exhibiting you can develop performance criteria that will give you answers to the crucial question...Am I getting value for the effort?

For more information on trade show accountability, or to get your copy of Powerful Exhibit Marketing, contact Barry Siskind at 1-800-358-6079 or barry@siskindtraining.com

Guest Column

Beyond ROI and ROO:
Using Measurement to Enhance Decisions & Improve Exhibit Results

By Skip Cox, President, Exhibit Surveys, Inc.

Measurement efforts usually focus on bottom line results because the need for measurement is almost always driven by demand for return on investment (ROI). Management wants to know "What did we get in return for the dollars we invested in that show?"

While it is true that ROI is ultimately the name of the game for management, measuring results alone does not provide any feedback that helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a show or exhibit, or to make informed strategic and tactical decisions about your participation in the future. In other words, measurement programs aimed strictly at ROI or ROO (Return on Objectives) to justify the investment tell you nothing about how to achieve better results in the future.

Today's sales, marketing, event and exhibit managers need better and more predictive information to help them make key strategic and tactical decisions about their program. Measurement can be a valuable management tool to reduce risk and increase levels of success. Measurement is more than just gauging bottom line results.

Trade show decisions can be generally categorized into five broad areas. Decision-making begins with the most strategic of all decisions, show selection. It ends (or begins, depending upon your perspective) with deciding how performance can be improved at the next event. At this improvement stage, previous decisions may have to be refined or changed. It is a process of continuous improvement.

The process begins with having a good understanding of the markets your company is trying to reach, and of your corporate marketing objectives. Effective decisions must be in line with corporate objectives and markets. Understanding your corporate objectives and markets also ensures that your exhibit program is an integral part of the marketing mix.

Show Audience Measurement and Exhibit Performance Measurement are both instrumental in making these decisions. A comprehensive profile of the audience will give the background and direction for making decisions relating to show selection and investment, setting realistic and relevant objectives, developing a show strategy, and identifying the best tactics to execute the strategy. Exhibit Performance Measurement will provide feedback to help refine exhibit tactics and identify ways of improving performance.

Show Selection

The decision to exhibit, and the level of investment requires having a comprehensive profile that defines the show audience in the same way your company defines and segments its markets.

Other factors to consider are the level of interest in seeing your products, the buying influence level of the audience for your products, and the activity level of attendees relative to the size of the show (e.g., number of hours spent viewing the exhibits).

Setting Show Objectives and Show Strategy

Understanding attendees' expectations and motivations for attending the show is essential . For example, if a significant segment of the audience attends primarily to evaluate and compare products for future purchase, sales-related objectives (e.g., obtain leads, closing sales from those leads) might be the primary reasons for exhibiting.

In developing a show strategy, one of the key considerations is. The demographic profile of the audience provides some insight when deciding which products, services or solutions to exhibit and emphasize to make this decision.

Developing Show Tactics

Tactics developed to execute show strategy are generally based on the types of objectives set. For example, sales-related objectives generally require tactics more conducive to one-on-one interaction. This allows visitors to obtain the specific information they need to evaluate and compare products for purchase. Communications objectives are often achieved with "one-on-many" techniques (product demonstrations, stage presentations, etc.).

Improve Performance

Exhibit performance measurement should be designed to evaluate specific exhibit tactics and elements of your exhibit so that individual strengths and weaknesses can be identified.

Measuring exhibit performance starts with analyzing the show audience to define Potential Audience. The size and value of an exhibitor's Potential Audience (regardless of the criteria a company uses to define Potential Audience) is the primary basis for measuring performance. Potential Audience size and value is also the basis for determining whether a company should continue to exhibit, and if so, the level of investment justified.

The second (Exhibit Attraction) and third (Exhibit Efficiency) measure the effectiveness of the exhibit in attracting the Potential Audience (including the factors that control exhibit attraction, e.g. promotion, exhibit size, etc.), and measuring the effectiveness of exhibit personnel in achieving face-to-face contact with visitors (including factors impacting face-to-face contact, e.g., staff performance, number of staff, etc.) Identifying strengths and weaknesses here will provide direction for improving ROI and ROO in the future.

Measurement should include all three steps. If ROI or ROO is not good, what are the reasons? Is it the fault of the show (Potential Audience size and value), the exhibit (Exhibit Attraction factors) or the personnel working the exhibit (Exhibit Efficiency factors)? Using this as a guide insures getting a complete picture of performance leading to actionable recommendations for improvement.

In summary, measurement can provide much more than justification for exhibiting. It is the marketer's companion to making good decisions—decisions that will lead to improved results, and to better return on investment.

For further information contact skip@exhibitsurveys.com

Upcoming Events

Discover Your Exhibiting Excellence

We are pleased to announce our final workshop of the season. Discover Your Exhibiting Excellence will take place on May 24 th at the Park Plaza Airport from 9:00am – 4:00pm. The workshop is brought to you with the generous support of our sponsors Alphaform Exhibits + Design, Showcare, Executive Promotions, IqQuest, Canadian Professional Sales Association, The Canadian Marketing Association, Team Canada Inc and CCR Solutions. In just one day Barry will take you through 24 strategies that will invigorate and activate your exhibit program and ensure results that you thought were only pipedreams. Mention you read about this in our Spring newsletter and save $25.00. Registration $279.00 + GST. Call 1-800-358-6079 or on-line www.siskindtraining.com

MARCOM 2006

MARCOM, Canada 's Public Sector and Non-profit Marketing Symposium will be held June 7 & 8, 2006 at the Ottawa Congress Centre. Now in its 8 th year, this annual event brings together public sector and non-profit marketing professionals and industry experts to collaborate on the most effective ways to achieve greater return on marketing communications initiatives.

Positively Different , is the 2006 theme, signifying the unique approach to marketing in the public and non-profit sectors and the role MARCOM plays in providing actionable education and a positively different experience from any other event.

Visit www.MARCOM.CA to learn more about the 2 comprehensive days of sessions surrounding best practices, leading edge information and proven tools and techniques; integrated marketing campaign showcase; trade show featuring industry and government experts and roundtable discussions and presentations.

ExpoSystems 2006

This is the fourth year for ExpoSystems – Brazil 's premier conference for the trade show industry. This year it will be held at a new venue in São Paulo , the ITM Expo from December 5, 2006 - December 7, 2006. Visit www.exposystems.com.br for further details.

Industry News

Center for Exhibition Industry Research

The Center for Exhibition Industry Research will be releasing their next series of GURU reports in the near future. Once again CEIR has invited Barry Siskind to write three of these prestigious reports. . Topics include: Management by Objectives – Benchmarks for Exhibit Growth; The Right Place to Exhibit – A Strategic Approach and The Exhibit Manager – A Job Description. For further information contact www.CEIR.org

Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) has signed a landmark deal with the International Association of Exhibit Managers (IAEM) that will ensure its survival. Under the agreement CEIR will continue to provide independent research on the state of the exhibition industry, best practices and exhibitor behavior. The CEIR reports will be made available to members as well as the IAEM membership.

News from our sponsors

CCR Solutions Now Offers Aeroplan Miles® To Reward Client Loyalty:

Now you can turn your AV Staging dollars into valuable rewards. Clients who book business with CCR Solutions will be rewarded 1 Aeroplan Mile for every $4 spent. Aeroplan Miles, once credited to the client's account, are redeemable for Aeroplan rewards including travel, as well as for innovative Aeroplan Indulgence Rewards. For example, clients can redeem the Aeroplan Miles to fly in a guest speaker, enhance an awards ceremony with an exciting raffle, keep in a company pool and use internally as an employee incentive or donate to charity

Enrolment and participation is easy. At the time of booking, a CCR Solutions client simply provides an Aeroplan account number to their sales representative and Aeroplan Miles are transferred to the client's account upon payment for services.

For more information about CCR Solutions, please visit www.ccrsolutions.com or contact

Bill Guest, President, Ph: 416-675-2480 ext. 223

billg@ccrsolutions.com

International Training and Management -  Exhibit Management Services

This month, International Training and Management Company welcomes American Express Canada to our ever-growing list of clients for whom we are providing exhibit management services. For information on how we can assist you with your exhibit strategy, show promotions and lead generation as well as training your booth staff call Barbara at 1-800-358-6079 or visit www.siskindtraining.com

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