April has continued to rocket Prizm Media up and out in to the digital media lead generation space thanks to recent events and a nomination for the BCAMA “Marketer of the Year Award”! From conferences to articles and everything in between, the Prizm team’s momentum continues to grow to all-new heights and we couldn’t be more thankful for it.
Here’s a short round-up of the most exciting moments in the past few weeks:
Prizm Media was nominated for the BCAMA “Marketer of the Year Award”! We’re thrilled and humbled to be recognized for such a prestigious honor, and we are excited for what the future may hold. Congratulations to all the nominees!
CEO and Co-founder Zeeshan Hayat was invited to speak at the “Industry Insights in Entrepreneurship” panel made up of industry leaders at UBC’s Sauder School of Business at the end of March. We’d like to thank all the panel speakers, attendees, and to Sauder for this opportunity to contribute to the business community.
Zeeshan also starred as a top “Forty under 40” entrepreneur in Business in Vancouver’s “Living-Working” video feature. In it, he discusses his methods to deal with Vancouver’s tough tech crunch and how he uses his martial arts training to get an “up” on the competition!
It was a busy time for President and Co-founder Karina too. She’s been busy meeting the best and brightest candidates for our career positions at Prizm Media but still managed to find the time to publish “Marketing vs. Feminism: Finding Balance.” It’s a fantastic article about the struggle feminists can find themselves in when marketing, and offers thought-provoking insights into the controversial topic.
We also attended BCTIA and BC Tech Jobs’ TalentFX event. Karina and Aliya, Director of Product Development and our newest addition to our team, represented Prizm Media as an innovative “Ready to Rocket” ICT BC tech company. The leading tech women had a great time and thank BCTIA and BC Tech Jobs for hosting and all the great candidates who came out.
Karina and Zeeshan also presented at Medtrade – you can read more about their lead generation compliance and scalability presentation in our last blog post (and all about meeting two boxing greats!).
Tricks of the Trade Show: Perfect Your Conference Presence
By Zeeshan Hayat, CEO and Co-founder of Prizm Media
The last few months has been “conference season” in our industry, with Prizm participating in LeadsCon and Medtrade Spring, both as exhibitors and presenters. Over the last couple of weeks, I have seen countless booths, heard hundreds of pitches, and gained some valuable insight into what makes for an effective trade show experience.
These shows can be an incredible asset to a growing company looking to break into any industry, but they can also be very expensive – so it’s important to make sure that you are making the most of your investment. That’s why I am going to be sharing some of my favorite “tricks of the trade” for making your time at the trade show count.
1. Be Prepared
When it comes to a trade show, location is everything, and securing that perfect spot starts with being prepared. Build a strong relationship with the conference planner and set a reminder for the day when the floor plan becomes available. You want to ensure that your booth is in a high traffic location that will also accommodate any space, power, or A/V needs you may have.
Being prepared also means making your presence known. You could have the best booth in the world, but if the people you are looking to speak to don’t know that you are at the show, it won’t matter! Promote your presence at the conference on social media, your website, and to any key stakeholders who you think might also be at the conference. You’ll want to send them an invitation in advance to linkup and not have them be surprised to stumble upon your booth.
2. Cater to the Show
Chances are, everyone who will be walking by your booth has been to their fair share of trade shows in the past. Realizing that it’s nobody’s first rodeo is important, and having a generic booth with the same materials and promotions you have everywhere else just won’t cut it.
Know your audience and be sure to center your booth, promotional materials, and most importantly your pitches, around that same theme. If you generate leads for a variety of industries but are at a conference for a very specific vertical, it doesn’t make sense to sell your entire product line. Tailoring your booth experience to the show itself is an important (and often overlooked) component in drawing in customers and keeping them at your booth!
3. The Display
In a perfect world, it would be a piece of cake to have a beautiful booth that is constantly being updated with each new media or tech trend. However, backdrops are pricey and if you are only attending a few conferences a year, keeping these materials up-to-date can be a struggle.
Here are my tips for a quintessential booth display that is both versatile and effective, without being overly generic:
1. Put your company first: This means name, logo, website, mission. Your backdrop should communicate who you are, what you do (core business), and how you can be contacted.
TIP: More detailed and catered information directly addressing current conference attendees can be presented on supplementary signs or banners. This not only allows you to communicate relevant info to the conference goers, but also shows that you are capable of staying relevant and not just presenting a tired, overused pitch.
3. Keep it simple: This means clean fonts, sparse use of imagery (no stock photos!) and a uniform color scheme.
4. Let the experts do the talking: I have found that it is more effective to have a clean and professional (read: simple) looking display than one that is overly saturated with information and design elements. This approach allows your best salespeople to shine through and deliver your message better than any sign or graphic ever could.
Those are my top three tips for going from a nervous first-time exhibitor to a seasoned vet on the conference circuit. Remember, face-to-face communication is still one of the best ways to convey your business’s mission and value to the consumer, so embrace the opportunity and make sure you are doing everything you can to capitalize on your time at the show!
Do you have any other great trade show tips? How about lessons learned from a conference that just did not go so well? Comment below, I’d love to hear from you!