I have tried everything. Changed screens on my computer, rummaged to the next page in newspapers and hummed la la la in my head when my staff mention it and to be honest, tried everything in the book to avoid hearing about it.
Twitter Smitter as I like to call it is on everyone's lips. From business leaders to celebrities. Think Ashton Kutcher posting a picture of his A-List Actress Wife Demi Moore bending over in her underwear, exposed for the world to see on Twitter. Lindsay Lohan just today ranted on Twitter that her girlfriend was having an affair and even Barack Obama has used this ultra cool social media to connect to the public.
Setting up a Twitter account takes about 2 minutes. They don't ask alot of information. I immediately decided to look up what Ashton Kutcher has been twittering. There is nothing too exciting there. Not sure why he has over 700,000 people following him. Power of celebrity I suppose.
I am not sure what to write, but know that I had better write something since I have gone to the effort of setting it up.
So I write that I am attending Carbon Expo on the Gold Coast in October 2009. The day is quite miserable here in Melbourne - cold, rainy and grey, so thinking of the Gold Coast's sandy beaches and blue skies is the best I could think about right now.
I am sure the more I Twitter, the more accomplished I will become.
My staff use it for business and they also set Twitter up for clients as part of their web 2.0 strategy.
Here are some ways that you can use Twitter to market your business and improve your sales.
1.Mix in a little personal life with your professional life. Twitter allows you to post snippets of information about yourself and your business on a blog. These short little comments need to be packed with interesting words that keep your customers interested enough to want to return to your blog. Keep your customers intrigued by including a little bit of your personal life in your Twitter blog.
2. Link your Twitter blog to your business website. Any successful marketing strategy considers ways to improve website traffic. If your business already has a website, consider linking your Twitter blog to your website (and vice versa) so that you can direct your customers to both.
3. Keep your Twitter blog up to date. Keep your Twitter blog up-to-date so that there is always something fresh and new for your customers to absorb. Log on at least every other day, if only for a few minutes. Whether you post about your new business services or where you had dinner last night, you'll keep your customers coming back. And that's a great way to market your business.
www.marketingeye.com.au
Monday, April 6, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
WHEN A TRADE SHOW IS A WASTE OF MONEY
Some trade shows really need to re-think their strategies. If other delegates walk out of tradeshows feeling the way I did today, then it's not a great sign for the tradeshow.
I have been to hundreds of tradeshows in my time and quite frankly, I quite enjoy them. You get to meet interesting people, find out about products and services you may in fact need or if you don't, your client does, and on the odd occasion, you identify companies in which you can possibly do work with in the future.
Today, I decided to go down to the Carbon Reduction and Trading Expo 2009 at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.
To spend 2 hours at a tradeshow, I must admit that I want it to be a worthy investment of my time. Sadly, this tradeshow was not.
The trade show that promised to be so much more than what it was - did not live up to my expectations.
I cannot open a newspaper without reading a story about climate change, carbon trading, carbon reducing products, government regulations on carbon emissions, carbon auctions - you name it, if it's about carbon, its in the newspapers, every single day.
We are currently at the height of carbon trading madness - so how can a tradeshow about the hottest topic on the planet (other than Obama!) be such a failure.
Firstly, I must define failure as it is at the end of the day my thoughts (and perhaps the general concensus of every person I spoke to whether they were an exhibitor or a delegate like myself)
A failure to me is:-
- Not an adequate number of exhibitors to visit
- Not enough of a cross-section of exhibitors
- Not enough investment in exhibitor stands - there would have been 4 or 5 acceptable stands in terms of marketing their brands and communicating what they do
- Not enough visitors. They said today was the most people that they had had, yet people were scarce. Many exhibitors where not even manning their stands.
- Exhibitors weren't sure if they would get a good return on their investment
- Exhibitors thought that there would be more people
The list can go on and on but I have chosen not to bore you further. That would mean that I too would have been added to the list of failures for today and I am not too keen to do that. Not right now, anyway.
Needless to say, I was there for 1/2 an hour and of that time, I visited 3 clients.
Why is such a topical event not bursting at the seams with people in the industry and in particular the Top 200 companies who are all going to have to be abreast of carbon trading by 2010?
Simple. Marketing. And a compelling reason as to why someone should give up a couple of hours of their day to attend.
To be honest, if my clients hadn't told me about it, I would not have known this event exists.
I have received no emails, no direct marketing pieces and certainly have not seen any advertising. To have a successful event, you need to let people know. They have great sponsors in Sustainability Victoria, Coffey Environments, Origin and PointCarbon. It's on at a time of the year that no other major carbon reduction and trading event is on so they are not competing with anyone. What is their excuse? I probably will never know, nor would they probably care to enlighten me on the subject (which is fair enough really).
For exhibitors, I know that last year it wasn't as big an event as other major carbon trading events held in Australia, so that may be why they were reluctant to exhibit.
The ones that did, didn't invest enough in their stands but they would be thanking their lucky stars that they didn't as in this particular case it may have been a waste of money.
When choosing which tradeshow to invest in, think about who is attending, who is exhibiting, how successful they were the year before and how many of your competitors will be there.
If it is the right tradeshow for your business, make sure you invest in your stand. Make it stand out from the crowd. Give people compelling reasons to visit. Invest in pre-event marketing to delegates. Have a post-event marketing and customer relationship management strategy in place BEFORE you attend. Work out what your ROI is on your tradeshow investment and make sure you do the sums. Work out whether the event was a worthy investment for you and your business.
With the economy how it is, I am hoping that those who exhibited at least walked away with enough sales to cover their costs. I can tell you, when I was there, it didn't look too promising.
www.marketingeye.com.au
www.marketingeyedigital.com.au
I have been to hundreds of tradeshows in my time and quite frankly, I quite enjoy them. You get to meet interesting people, find out about products and services you may in fact need or if you don't, your client does, and on the odd occasion, you identify companies in which you can possibly do work with in the future.
Today, I decided to go down to the Carbon Reduction and Trading Expo 2009 at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.
To spend 2 hours at a tradeshow, I must admit that I want it to be a worthy investment of my time. Sadly, this tradeshow was not.
The trade show that promised to be so much more than what it was - did not live up to my expectations.
I cannot open a newspaper without reading a story about climate change, carbon trading, carbon reducing products, government regulations on carbon emissions, carbon auctions - you name it, if it's about carbon, its in the newspapers, every single day.
We are currently at the height of carbon trading madness - so how can a tradeshow about the hottest topic on the planet (other than Obama!) be such a failure.
Firstly, I must define failure as it is at the end of the day my thoughts (and perhaps the general concensus of every person I spoke to whether they were an exhibitor or a delegate like myself)
A failure to me is:-
- Not an adequate number of exhibitors to visit
- Not enough of a cross-section of exhibitors
- Not enough investment in exhibitor stands - there would have been 4 or 5 acceptable stands in terms of marketing their brands and communicating what they do
- Not enough visitors. They said today was the most people that they had had, yet people were scarce. Many exhibitors where not even manning their stands.
- Exhibitors weren't sure if they would get a good return on their investment
- Exhibitors thought that there would be more people
The list can go on and on but I have chosen not to bore you further. That would mean that I too would have been added to the list of failures for today and I am not too keen to do that. Not right now, anyway.
Needless to say, I was there for 1/2 an hour and of that time, I visited 3 clients.
Why is such a topical event not bursting at the seams with people in the industry and in particular the Top 200 companies who are all going to have to be abreast of carbon trading by 2010?
Simple. Marketing. And a compelling reason as to why someone should give up a couple of hours of their day to attend.
To be honest, if my clients hadn't told me about it, I would not have known this event exists.
I have received no emails, no direct marketing pieces and certainly have not seen any advertising. To have a successful event, you need to let people know. They have great sponsors in Sustainability Victoria, Coffey Environments, Origin and PointCarbon. It's on at a time of the year that no other major carbon reduction and trading event is on so they are not competing with anyone. What is their excuse? I probably will never know, nor would they probably care to enlighten me on the subject (which is fair enough really).
For exhibitors, I know that last year it wasn't as big an event as other major carbon trading events held in Australia, so that may be why they were reluctant to exhibit.
The ones that did, didn't invest enough in their stands but they would be thanking their lucky stars that they didn't as in this particular case it may have been a waste of money.
When choosing which tradeshow to invest in, think about who is attending, who is exhibiting, how successful they were the year before and how many of your competitors will be there.
If it is the right tradeshow for your business, make sure you invest in your stand. Make it stand out from the crowd. Give people compelling reasons to visit. Invest in pre-event marketing to delegates. Have a post-event marketing and customer relationship management strategy in place BEFORE you attend. Work out what your ROI is on your tradeshow investment and make sure you do the sums. Work out whether the event was a worthy investment for you and your business.
With the economy how it is, I am hoping that those who exhibited at least walked away with enough sales to cover their costs. I can tell you, when I was there, it didn't look too promising.
www.marketingeye.com.au
www.marketingeyedigital.com.au
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