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Conventions - Attending and exhibiting.
Attending a convention is easy and fun. You need a hotel that is relatively near the convention center. The Adult conventions also have 1 hotel that serves as the main center of activity. For the newbie, it isn’t absolutely necessary that you stay in this hotel, as it tends to be a more expensive place - - so the big boys can impress their clients. In Las Vegas, the hotel is the Venetian, and if you plan on entertaining clients this is certainly the hotel to be in since the bulk of your prospects will also be staying here. The treasure island and the mirage are right across the street (don’t even need a cab) - any farther away and logistically it might be more of a pain to cab it back and forth and stay in the party loop. (You don’t want to fall out of the party loop!!)
As an Attendee, you have a great schedule you can show up to the convention for an hour or two any time during the day. Then break away for lunch meetings (that hopefully you set up before you came). If you want to talk to people at the booth - the morning is the best time to talk to people at the company. In the larger companies, they don’t tend to be the big guy, but they can tell you about their program and who to email when you get home. 11-2 is hectic, people have finally come out of their comatose state and head to the floor - so getting good personal time with anybody is hard - but you can shake hands and see faces to recognize later that night at parties. By the afternoon, the floor has died down and people are getting ready to go eat and thinking about the parties…it seems like that would be a good time to talk to people…but they are pretty stressed from a long hard day on the floor. I recommend the mornings, 10-11:30.
Then there are the seminars… I have never attended one, so I’m probably not the best person to take advice from on them. But here’s my 2 cents anyway. If you are brand new to the industry (well you probably haven’t found this site yet…and so you’re probably not reading this…but these seminars were built for you). If you have been in the industry for a while, you have probably heard about everything they are going to tell you at the seminars…and probably aren’t going to get much from them. Say it’s on Search Engine Optimization. They’ll tell you that you can do it. You shouldn’t use auto submitters. You should put keywords in your title, Meta tag, and text on your site. And that you want to do link trades with similar sites. That will help your position. But do they tell you anything new? Anything you don’t know? If you have been around for 9 months or more…I doubt it. But, like I said I have never attended one, so I don’t know for sure.
One last thing, sometimes they have lawyers’ present topics. I know most of us don’t have a lawyer and can’t afford to retain one…so if the topic fits your company, that might be one that you would want to look into. But that seems to be commonsense. I hope I haven’t completely deterred people from attending the seminars - I’m sure they are a great place to start getting information, and a great place to hear some Key professionals talk.
Now Onto Exhibiting
Booths
Booths are great for the company that has something new to launch and you want some press. If you have girls at the booth, known girls, from vivid or playboy can get you press - but make sure you discuss that with the girls ahead of time. Say “hey, I know somebody from the Times is going to talk to you…I encourage it. It’s great. Get them to stick around and snap photos of you. Just please have the logo in the background and tell them what this company does. (Make sure they know what you do ;)
Freebies
Free candy brings in the chicks that are working the other booths. With out going sexual, the girls like to have something to nibble and suck on during the 4 hours they are going to be standing around. Jolly Ranchers work great. (Btw… free candy = chicks at booth = guys stopping by your booth)
Promotional materials
We are all suckers for the free t-shirt. Everybody does it. It doesn’t say much. But we’ll take them home anyway. Free boxers, doesn’t get your url around… but were you really looking for type ins? You will get a loyal person. A recent survey I did found that 60+% of webmasters smoke - maybe consider that in your promotion. Companies have handed out mints, matches, lighters and cigars. What’s it worth for a new person to sign up for your program? Now consider maybe only 1 in 20 of the people that take the free thing will test the program, service or recommend it to a friend.
Parties
Do you want to throw a rager? Have a lot of press? Have people talk about it for years? They are a great way to spend money. People tend to split the costs by hosting co sponsoring the parties with other companies. This can be a headache too…if the company that plans the event gets more billing than the other companies that are helping to pay for it. The # 1 thing that needs to be revived at these parties, is from ia2000 Vegas - the naughty party - we need to see somebody host a party again where women are serving platters (for sushi and chocolate covered strawberries). Typically there is a room full of guys grubbing on food; drinking heavily and gawking at women make sure there is plenty of all of the above. If you can’t, it’ll be a flop
Even if you can…is it going to accomplish what you want it to? For most of the companies, the best party is a small networking party thrown in one of the hospitality suites. Target the people you invite - still have the liquor, food, and women. But invite the top level of people. It’s true that 20% of your clients account for 80% of your business. Spend your money wisely and focus on the 20% !!
Employees at a convention.
These are your salespeople - everybody should know what you are selling and be ready to sell ALL the time to make it worth taking them. Since they are going to be working around the clock, make sure to plan ahead. Have snacks and water in the rooms and on the convention floor and have money allocated for them to eat when they can. Have a planned schedule of who works the booth and when. Always have two people working the booth at any one time. If at all possible have attractive KNOWLEDGEABLE women working the booth. Also let the employees go wild down there…and do what they want…as long as they are selling all the time. And give them at least two consecutive days off when they get back.
This artilce was contributed by Brett from www.dormangels.com
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