Attack of the Tradeshow Zombies
You may notice an increasing breed of attendees at your next tradeshow, if not already. Tradeshow Zombies. It’s a frightening epidemic that has been fueled by a mutated ‘Tradeshow 2.0′ virus. What’s equally scary is that these zombies have done a fair job of fitting in. They even look like other attendees, with one major appendage: Smartphones.
Resistance is Futile
Unfortunately, there is little you can do to stop tradeshow zombies. They’re slowly evolving and quickly multiplying. There is one major difference between a regular zombie and a tradeshow zombie. While your traditional zombie feeds from your flesh and brains, the tradeshow zombie’s biggest threat to you is not knowing that you exist.
This new strain of attendees poses a hazard to your tradeshow exhibit. Exposure and saturation is critical to developing new connections and lead generation, but with the considerable increase of smartphone usage, your visibility is threatened. While most attendees come to an event to be social with each other and you, the exhibitor, you are now fighting for their attention from other social networks that exist in their hands.
One of Us…
Despite your cries for help, it’s best to just let this virus infect you and transform in to a tradeshow zombie yourself. Become aware of your attendees’ new agenda and their thought process at your tradeshow. Understanding what networks and why they’re using them at an event will help you adjust your strategy and reach them through the new streams in which they are gathering information.
Twitter has become increasing utilized at tradeshows. Most will set up an official hashtag for the event, creating a filtered stream of dialogue with participants. Additionally, many events will create sub-events for the virtual audiences to connect, like Tweetups. Be a part of these channels and network with these groups of individuals. Many will be tradeshow zombies.
Create a landing page for your event and optimize it for mobile viewing. Develop videos and photos from your event and publish them real time. Using tools to connect with them, give your zombies a virtual feast and draw them in to your exhibit environment.
Embrace the fact that tradeshows are becoming shaped to fit mobile structure. Apps are being developed for specific events to include floorplans, conference schedules and social integration. Location based and geotagging apps have become flexible and can be formatted for tradeshows. Discover a level to be involved in these technologies, via sponsorship or development and find new ways to fuel your zombies.
Tradeshows and events will continue to evolve and organizers are introducing new layers of virtual environments for audiences to connect with each other, on-site and off. Understand what elements exist at your next event and transfer those ideas to your exhibit marketing strategy. Don’t let a tradeshow zombie feed on your anonymity.
Trade shows are all about interacting with your customers, your potential customers, your future customers (students), and as I like to call them, your referrers (people who will never buy your product or service, but will talk about it to their friends and colleagues). It is up to an exhibitor to attract and engage these 4 types of attendees…not only live on the trade show floor, but also through the networks you mentioned and any others that will be developed in the future. In order to be successful, an exhibitor must interact with their “trade show zombies” no matter if they are standing in front of them or not.
As the old saying goes “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!”