October 8, 2024 • 39 mins
Unlock the potential of trade shows to elevate your brand with insights from our guest, Mike, a seasoned Amazon seller who has shifted gears towards this exciting avenue. Discover how transitioning from the competitive Amazon marketplace to harnessing the power of trade shows can become a game-changer for brands, especially in niche markets like professional pool tools. Mike shares his firsthand experience of entering this arena, with a pivotal event in Dallas setting the stage for expanding brand visibility and connecting with high-value customer segments.
Get ready to master the intricacies of trade show participation and learn the clever strategies that can optimize your booth's success. Whether you're dealing with food products or other offerings, Mike breaks down the complexities of navigating venue restrictions and the importance of obtaining the right permits. Learn how to measure your impact beyond immediate returns by engaging customers through sensory experiences, capturing on-site data, and balancing short-term tactics with long-term brand-building strategies.
Find out how partnerships and creative collaborations can amplify your trade show presence and beyond. By teaming up with other vendors and organizing engaging activities like the "Poollympics," Mike demonstrates how to draw attention, build contacts, and boost brand visibility. Get inspired to think creatively and collaboratively, leveraging your expertise and forming meaningful connections that enhance your brand presence not only at trade shows but across various sales channels, including Amazon. Join us for a lively discussion and arm yourself with the strategies needed to expand your brand's reach and profitability.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Brand Fortress HQ.
This is another Tactics Tuesday, and today we're really excited
to be talking about trade showtactics.
So this isn't something thatyou would necessarily think of
with an e-commerce brand, butthat's where it's important to
branch out beyond Amazon andlooking at other ways you can
amplify your brand.
And this is kind of how thisconversation got started and we
wanted to share some of ourinsights as far as what we've
(00:23):
done so far.
Specifically, I'm going to turnit over to you, mike, because I
know that you have a big event,that you put a lot of time and
effort into taking advantage ofa trade show for your product.
So if you could give listenersa little bit of background as
far as why you chose this eventand kind of what your game plan
is going into the event to getthe most out of it for your
(00:46):
brand.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Sure, yeah, I think actually that's a good place to
start, in the sense that tradeshow might not be where you end
up in this process, but it'swhere we ended up, and but there
may be some other avenue thatgets you to that same place.
And what I mean by that is whatwe're finding is our Amazon
(01:09):
presence is being, we'll say,diluted by a lot of different
factors, not the least of which,of course and we've talked
about this a lot a lot of verylow-priced Chinese sellers
coming into our category, whichno violence or anything.
It's just the nature of themarket, right, it's what's
happening.
So it's not you know, but butit is what it is, and so it
(01:31):
makes it really hard to competethere.
If you are a premium priceproduct and, reasonably speaking
, if you're trying to build abrand, then in most cases I
would say you really would wantto be a premium price, you price
, you don't want to be sellingat that low price point.
Otherwise, then, are you reallya brand?
Yes, you can be, but thereshould be a difference.
(01:55):
Why are they buying your brand?
Are they willing to pay morefor it?
And that's the thing, right.
If they're not, then it's notreally a brand.
So the problem that we're seeingthere, though, is we, we can't.
We we no longer are in aposition where we can make
massive headway on Amazon,unless we start making
significantly more headway offAmazon.
We need a lot more brandedsearch, we need a lot more brand
(02:17):
awareness for our product inorder to then start pulling some
different levers on Amazon thatwe haven't yet been able to
pull, and so then it became aquestion of how do we do that?
How are we going to gain thatbrand exposure off of Amazon and
get that branded search up andreally reach more households?
Amazon was always the play forvolume, because there's so many
people there.
(02:37):
Well, what it came to for uswas we sell pool tools, and we
sell essentially a professionalgrade tool that, up until now,
we've primarily directed at theresidential market through
Amazon.
Now, we discovered that weactually have sold to quite a
large number of pool pros overthat, you know, the last 10
(03:00):
years, and many of them are veryhappy with our product, and so
then it was well, okay, howcould we really capitalize on
the Pool Pro market?
What would that do for us if weshifted our focus a little bit
there?
And so that's where we starteddialing in on and it became the
situation where, because ourwarranty is different for
(03:22):
residential customers, ourwarranty has lifetime unlimited
free replacement, which meansessentially beyond cross-sells
and upsells and things like that, once we bring a customer in,
at least on that specificproduct that they purchased,
they now become a liabilitybecause I have to fulfill.
On warranties Now we've talkedabout before.
A very small percentage of ourcustomers actually take
(03:43):
advantage of them.
We can easily accommodate that.
It still builds enough profitmargin.
But it is still true that oncethey buy that product, for that
product anyways, they are now aliability because it's all
expense from there on thatproduct.
With warranties.
With a pro that's not the casebecause we don't do lifetime
free replacement for pros.
We do lifetime 50% off andthere is profit in a 50% off
(04:06):
sale for us, which means it'skind of like a consumable.
They keep coming back to us forthat same product and buying
parts or buying that full unitat 50% off and there's profit in
that.
So for me I was looking at itas okay.
This customer is a profitcenter.
This customer over here is alittle bit more of a liability
once I bring them in.
So why not focus here?
It's also because they buy inbulk.
(04:28):
A lot of our expenses arefulfillment expenses.
Well, if I ship in bulk, then Idon't have as high a
fulfillment expense, so there'smore profitability on each
individual sale and on thoserecurring sales.
But the interesting thing is aswell once we focus on pros, we
can then use them as brandambassadors with their clients,
(04:48):
which means we can actually pickup more residential customers
as a result of focusing on thepool pro market.
So we get both.
By focusing on the pros, wehave an opportunity to not only
bring in more pool pros, butalso to bring in more
residential customers pros, butalso to bring in more
residential customers.
So it's a long way of saying.
(05:09):
Then it became how do we getthose pool pros?
And we really felt like thebest way to make sure that we
had our name out there and thatpool pros started to recognize
that we were a serious player inthat space was to go to a trade
show, and so this is our firsttrade show.
The choice of the particulartrade show that we're doing,
which is in Dallas, really hadto do with just two things.
One of them was justopportunity.
It was the first one that wascoming up.
That was a fairly large tradeshow that we thought that we had
(05:31):
time enough to prepare for, andso we just kind of pulled the
trigger and said, okay, we'regoing to do this, and we bought,
we leased booth space and thenwe've kind of gone from there.
So that was that's kind of theway that we ended up at this
place and how you might end upthere as a brand thinking
through how do I reach more ofmy market or how do I reach a
new market?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, and I think that backstory is so important
because one of the things and Imean I've had brands before and
we've done trade shows and Ithink unless you've done a trade
show before, you don'tunderstand how expensive and how
time intensive they are.
So they can be an amazing wayto connect with a key audience.
(06:10):
So, mike, you did a great jobof calling out hey, we really
want to go after pool pros,which is why we're at this trade
show, and so they can workreally well for that.
But you do have to take intoaccount that when you're looking
at different marketing efforts,it's very different from doing
something like Amazonpay-per-click, where you're like
, hey, I'm going to test outthis audience over here with
$100 in ads or something likethat.
(06:31):
When you're talking about tradeshows, there's a lot of prep
that goes into that.
There's a lot of expense whenyou start looking at, okay, I
need to build up my booth, whatam I going to have in my booth?
Things that you think are easyout of the gate, for example,
hey, I'm going to have something, anything that has electricity
in your booth.
Well, most trade shows and mostconvention centers, it means
(06:53):
that they're going to charge you, usually a couple hundred extra
bucks, if not more, just forthe privilege of having power
and basically somebody comingover there and dragging the
extension cord from the outletin the floor somewhere to your
booth 10 feet away, and that'sprobably going to cost you a few
hundred bucks.
So things like that.
(07:14):
I would say my personalexperience though at that time I
was working with a food brandand so having food at a trade
show because obviously wantedpeople to sample it, that was a
lot more complicated than whatwe could have ever anticipated,
because now you know we have tomake sure that we're not
competing with the venue,because they have their own
(07:36):
caterers and that type of stuffand that's all locked in almost
any convention center thatyou'll go to, convention center
that you'll go to.
In addition to that, anytimethat you are serving any sort of
food item, whether you're doingit because that's what your
brand is or I know, mike, youknow we've been discussing this
over the last couple of monthsyou were talking about.
You know, having popcorn atyour booth, because you know the
smell brings people in and kindof not only do you get the
(08:00):
visual, but also you know othersenses that you're hitting at
the same time, which I think isgenius.
When you start looking at thelogistics of that, though, if,
like now, I need a food permitin whatever jurisdiction that
convention center happens tofall in, and if that's something
that's not within yourwheelhouse, then that's another
thing that needs to go into thatplanning in order to pull that
(08:21):
off at a trade show.
So there's a lot of movingpieces at these trade shows.
With that said, again, they canbe fantastic if you've done
kind of the mental work and thestrategy like you talked about.
Mike, you know why am I at thistrade show and what is it going
to do for my brand.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
One of the challenges of this type of marketing
essentially is what it is isthat when you're spending money
on a PPC campaign, you getalmost instant feedback on if
that worked or not.
At a trade show, it's a muchmore delayed response.
I mean sure you might get acouple of people that you're
certain, as soon as they leave,are going to go to your website
or going to go to Amazon, butit's a lot harder to track that.
(09:03):
So while you're spending all ofthis money in the beginning to
get to the trade show and all ofthe things that surround that
that you mentioned, John, it's alot more challenging to track
that, to track the effect ofthat, than it is with other
types of advertising.
Now, that's not to scare peopleaway or brands away from doing
that.
It's just something to takeinto account that you won't get
a nice clean spreadsheet reportthat you can download to say
(09:26):
this many people showed up, thismany people came to my booth,
this many people purchased.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, it's definitely the case that it's a very
different way to operate.
And if you are an individualwho essentially started your
business online on Amazon orsomething like that, and you
don't really have any otherprevious business experience
with Amazon or something likethat and you don't really have
any other previous businessexperience with kind of an
offline environment, then it'sreally difficult to kind of wrap
your brain around what thatlooks like.
(09:52):
You know when you're investingall of that money and you don't
get that kind of immediateresponse that is almost assumed.
You know when you'readvertising online, so you know
that's a big aspect of thisadvertising online.
So you know that's a big aspectof this.
And I think there's two thingsabout it that I think are
important to recognize.
(10:12):
One is that you won't, nomatter what you do, you will not
get all of the data back interms of being able to connect
the dots and determine how muchreturn on your investment did
you get.
You're not going to get all ofthat data in a nice easy
spreadsheet.
And also there is a sideportion of that that, I think is
(10:34):
how can you get as much data orslash immediate result from the
trade show to the greatestdegree possible.
Right, you're not going to getall of it, but what can I get so
that at least I can evaluate insome degree how effective was
this trade show without havingto wait six months to see how my
(10:56):
brand awareness improves overtime as a result of it?
Right?
And so I think it's kind of atwofold process.
So, for instance, with ourbooth, you know, and with any
booth, I think if you're notdoing something really
significant to make sure that, ayou're generating a list from
the people who show up at yourbooth in some way and giving
them a really significant reasonto be on your list, and, b
(11:21):
finding some way to actuallytake immediate orders on site as
a part of that process, thenyou're missing out on those
opportunities for some immediate, instantaneous feedback on how
productive were you right?
So make sure that you'reimplementing that to the
greatest degree that you can,while also recognizing you're
only going to see a small pieceof the success of that trade
(11:44):
show in that moment.
You know, following that tradeshow or during the trade show, a
lot of the result is going tocome afterward.
And also I would say and thisis we haven't even completed our
first trade show.
So this is what I expect to betrue and what I've been told is
true by other people who havedone trade shows is that it's
also cumulative.
It's not.
It's kind of like when you'rerunning ads online, you know
(12:05):
that whole idea that most of usknow like sometimes it takes
five, six, seven, eightexposures or impressions to a
potential customer before theyactually engage, right.
That same thing is going to betrue in a trade show situation.
You know people are going tosee your booth, they're going to
see your booth, they're goingto see your booth.
They might not show up at yourbooth, or maybe they will show
up at your booth but they don'tbuy.
But you're going to have tohave this repeated exposure,
(12:27):
which means more trade shows orsome other way to interact with
them, whether it's through yourlist or whatever that is, so you
have more opportunities to sellto that person.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, I would just say so kind of along those lines
.
My experience with and again,I'm not saying I'm a trade show
expert I mean we did a handfulof them with mixed results and
what we really learned out of itas far as timing was that first
day of the trade show is themost critical, because most
trade shows are two to threedays long.
(13:01):
Typically what happens iseverybody's super excited,
especially you know thebeginning of that first day, and
when we are able to grab asmany people as possible, you
know whether that was themtrying our product or getting on
our email list as part of agiveaway or buying.
You know actually buying aproduct we probably saw about.
You know 70% of our activity onthat day one and then, if it
(13:26):
was like a three day show, we'dsee the other 30% kind of
dribbled across the other twodays.
So I think that's the otherthing that, at least with my
experience, was hey, be preparedto be, you know, very active
that first day becauseeverybody's excited and take
advantage of that, and thendon't be disappointed if it's a
three-day show and by day threeyou're seeing essentially
(13:51):
crickets.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
One of the things that I've learned over the
course of the years and we canall attest to that is investing
early on for your Amazon listing.
Investing in great photography,graphic design, awesome copy.
That's table stakes.
At this point, you have tolaunch with an optimized listing
in order to get any sort ofattention or conversion of
(14:18):
attention or conversion.
What I've learned, being a partof the convention or the show
that Mike is getting ready to goto, is that the same is true
for your trade show booth.
If you go to a trade showexpecting to cut corners on your
booth like, you're not going toget any sort of, you're not
going to get the level ofengagement at the booth that you
want, and that's.
I learned that with my mealdelivery service.
Like their first couple, wedidn't go to trade shows per se,
but we went to CrossFitcompetitions and you know, the
(14:40):
first, the very first one I wentto.
I was trying to cut costs, so Ihad a table, I had a unbranded
tablecloth that I got in Walmarton the way there, and then we
had our you know our foodwarmers.
But then, as I learned a littlebit later on and saw other
vendors come to these, theseevents that I I didn't look
anywhere near as trustworthy asthose other, those other brands
did.
So as I started to buildbranding out on, you know, it
(15:02):
wasn't just the table but it was, you know, a little bit of a
booth and some marketingmaterials that they could take
back.
Like then you could actuallystart to see that not only were
people excited to come over andtalk to you, but they were
actually acting when you gavethem something to do, especially
when you're serving food, likeI learned that lesson really,
really quick is that you have toportray professionalism when
people are buying food from you,and it took a couple of events
(15:24):
for me to learn that.
So that's one of the thingsthat Mike and his team are are
putting a lot of emphasis on ismaking sure that the booth is is
really sexy and that there's alot of activities there that
people can come, get engaged andbe involved in.
That it's going to make themremember your brand name.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, we.
So I.
One of the things that I didand I would actually highly
recommend this is there was agentleman that that I became
friends with down in Puerto Ricowho they do trade shows all the
time and they've been doingthem for years.
So I actually scheduled to goover to his place and have
dinner with he and his wife andjust pick his brain, you know,
for the evening about tradeshows and what they've done,
(16:01):
what they what worked and whatdidn't work and what not to do
and what to do.
And I learned a ton you knowfrom from just talking to him.
So if you know anybody who'sdone trade shows especially of
course if they've done itsuccessfully you know I would
pick their brain, you know, takethem out to lunch or something
and really just kind of get anidea of what's worked for them
and what hasn't.
Might even be worth talking tosomebody who didn't have a good
experience at a trade show andfigure out what did they do.
(16:23):
So you know what not to do.
But we it became obvious fromthe beginning that if we were
going to do this it was really asituation where it was kind of
go big or go home.
You know, don't walk in thereand just you know, throw up a
table with.
You know, as you said, Matt,you know it's got a tablecloth
on it and maybe I've got a fewpool skimmers sitting there and
(16:43):
you know a couple of peoplemanning the booth.
Just you know, in case somebodywalks by and decides to talk to
you, then you engage with them.
You know, we knew we need tofind a way to make sure that
people want to come to our booth.
And what are all of the waysthat we could engage this
situation, this expo as a whole,to try and accomplish that.
So, for instance, we areactively contacting other
(17:08):
vendors who are at other boothsin the expo, who are in a higher
traffic location than we'regoing to be.
We're trying to partner withthem in order to encourage them
to send people our direction toour booth.
So you know, paying acommission, like anybody who
purchases through there.
Like we're going to give themflyers that they can hand to
people, they can comeparticipate in our event.
(17:28):
And you know, anybody who buys,they make a commission.
You know, whatever, like we'retrying to engage those
partnerships to bring thattraffic because we're not
located in a high trafficlocation, because we got in the
expo late.
You know there were a lot ofpeople who are already
registered.
We also weren't sure that wecould afford to pay for
something that was kind of on amain trunk line within the expo.
So, you know, we decided to paya little less and be in a less
(17:52):
trafficked area.
How are we going to get trafficthere?
You know we're going to have.
So it's important.
We're running a competition.
So we rented two booths, onenext to another, 10 by 10s next
to each other, so we have atotal 10 by 20 space, and so one
space is going to be the showbooth and the area where we're
talking to people.
We're intentionally not puttinga table up front of the booth.
(18:14):
We're leaving that open.
There's going to be a smalltable off to the side where
we've got coffee, but then it'sgoing to be open to the booth
and we're going to have tablesinside the booth where people
can come in, just stand and talkto us, and so we're trying to
make sure that we don't put abarrier between us and the
people in the aisle, so thatwhen they show up they'll just
kind of step in and or we canstep out.
So but on the other side, inthe other booth, that's right
(18:36):
next to us, and there's nodivision between we're doing a
competition, and so the ideabehind this competition is it
uses our products in thecompetition.
So it's an opportunity for us toput our products in the hands
of the people who might actuallyuse it, to feel the durability
of the product, to recognize howeasy it is to assemble and
(18:57):
disassemble, how strong it is,how well the locking mechanism
works, all of those things.
So we've created thePoollympics, which essentially
is we've got five stations, youdo the rotation, you can compete
in one or more stations and ifyou, at the end of the day, if
you have scored the best in thatstation, you win that product.
So we have some assemblystations.
(19:18):
You're going to disassemble andreassemble a pool net,
disassemble and reassemble ourpool brush and our pool pole,
and the idea being to helpcustomers to know, because this
is a we have a lifetime warranty, but it's a parts replacement
and so we want customers to knowhow easy is it going to be to
replace those parts, Because weall know there are certain
(19:38):
things that we've tried toassemble and disassemble and it
was just a real pain in the rear.
So that's great if you've got alifetime warranty, but if it's
a pain to replace the parts andthat's all the company's going
to send you, well, maybe, Idon't want that.
So we're trying to give themthe experience not only the
people who are participating inthe competition, but the
audience, the people who arestanding in the aisle watching
the competition and seeing howpeople are doing.
(19:59):
They get to see how easy andhow fast it is to assemble and
disassemble our prop and howdurable it is.
We've got a couple of otherevents that are in there as well
.
So the idea is we've got thiscompetition.
People have to register for thecompetition.
So that's how we're building thelist.
Everybody who competes is goingto get a ProTuff branded sun hat
, and we're not really skimpingon that.
(20:20):
We're going to try to do adecent quality hat, and so if
you compete, you get something,regardless of whether you win or
not.
But if you win on your event oron the whole event, there's a
number of different prizes thatyou can win from that.
So we're hoping to build thelist out of that.
But we're going to be walkingaround.
We're always going to have oneperson walking the expo wearing
a shirt that has our Poollympicslogo on it, Basically, hey,
(20:43):
come, compete, or whatever.
We haven't decided exactly whatit's going to say but then a QR
code that you can literallyjust scan and it will give you a
map to get to our booth so youcan compete, and it'll tell you
about the competition and whatyou could win and about our
products and whatnot.
But the idea is we're trying totake advantage of the whole
expo and bring people to ourbooth instead of just sitting
(21:04):
there waiting for somebody toshow up.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, there's a couple of things that you said
there that I think I just wantto double click on because I
think they're so important.
The first is just showing up isnot good enough if you want to
take advantage of most tradeshows.
So make sure that you have somesort of hook.
And you know, mike, I thinkyou've got a great concept here
and I'm really excited.
You know, we'll do in a couplemonths, after you're done with
the trade show, kind of afollow-up on this, just to see,
(21:28):
hey, what worked, what, whatdidn't, what, what, what do you
wish you'd known?
What would you have donedifferently?
You know that type of stuff,but I mean what you have so far.
I mean you have at least have ahook.
You can't expect.
You know it's just like the.
You know the old, you know ifyou build it they will come,
type thing.
You know just the same withyour brand.
That doesn't work.
It doesn't work at a trade showeither.
(21:49):
You do need to have somethingto bring people in.
The other thing that I wanted todouble click on that you were
saying that I think is soimportant, and you know
something that we ended up doingand found a lot of success with
which is you know, don't beafraid to sell your product at
the trade show, because there issuch a big difference between
someone who is willing to giveyou an email and someone who is
(22:11):
willing to give you their hardearned money.
Those people that are willing tobuy a product for you
hard-earned money, those peoplethat are willing to buy a
product for you, even if it'sjust out of curiosity, are worth
10 times more than somebodywho's just giving you an email
address.
And there's a lot of differentways you can do that.
We had success selling directlyat the trade show, but then I
(22:31):
think the other thing that wedid and again it's going to
depend on your brand, depend onyour product that was also very
successful was you know, we rana pretty significant discount
for people that put in theirfirst order and we actually
would ship it to their house,because you know they're flying
down to this event and they'restaying at the hotel and they
don't want to pack it in theirsuitcase or whatever, and so we
would give them a really gooddiscount to buy their first
(22:52):
product.
Now, the nice part about thatwas not only was it easier for
them, because they didn't haveto worry about lugging it home
with them.
But the other thing is that nowwe're collecting an email
address, we're collecting aphysical address, a lot of
different customer data that wecould use for future campaigns,
as opposed to if somebody justbought a product or just gave an
(23:12):
email address.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
So I've never personally been to an industry
trade show like this, but I havebeen to a lot of Amazon
conferences and if you speak toa lot of the service providers
that are in booths and the onesthat are actually paying to be
at that trade show, where theyget a lot of value is in the
events around the actual tradeshow and there's a.
(23:36):
There's so much value in that,like the conversations that I
have with people over drinks orat, you know, networking events
and things like that.
That's really where you're ableto have a conversation at a
booth.
You have people lined up we'regoing to.
There's going to be people, youknow, in the pool Olympics,
like you don't really have anopportunity to as much as you
would, you know, breaking breadwith someone.
(23:57):
So that's another thing to payattention to is you know what?
What other sort of outsideevents are they happening around
the show?
You know what are the things,how, how can you get involved in
conversations with the peoplethat are at the show outside of
the actual vendor area?
So that's that's another thingto really pay attention to.
Is how can you, how can youinject yourself in conversations
(24:18):
outside of just at a booth onthe other side of a table.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Well, I think too, you know, like you're speaking
of those outside events.
So for us, the one thing thatwe recognize is that there are
some pool service companies outthere that literally are
managing, you know, 2,000, 3,000pools, which means they have
(24:43):
numerous techs out in the fieldand need a large quantity of
pool tools.
So, you know, signing one ofthose large pool companies could
be the same as, and they'remore, profitable.
Remember that because we canship in bulk, we save a lot of
money on fulfillment, we save onAmazon referral fees because we
(25:04):
don't have to push them throughthe Amazon system.
So they're a much moreprofitable customer for us, even
on just a few units.
But if I pick up a pool pro,that's going to buy 50 sets.
They're not just buying a pole,they're buying two nets,
they're buying a brush, they'rebuying all this and they need it
for 50 different techs.
That might be the same profitas me selling to 150 residential
(25:28):
customers easy and just one go.
And so attending one of theseevents, say for us, like if
there's an after party or thingslike that where we can network
with people, who knows what sizeof pool pro you know, we might
sign in just a half hourconversation with somebody you
know and make as much as wewould have made you know with
with 150 customers, and we getthe long-term value out of that
(25:50):
because they're going tocontinue to come back and buy
those 50% off replacements.
So we have continual value outof that customer and so I would
pay attention to that.
But as an extension of it, yourproduct if you are primarily
selling to a residential marketright now, it might be worth
considering is there acommercial market for your
(26:12):
product, and would it behooveyou to start thinking about how
could I reach that commercialmarket for this product?
Because it's possible that it'sthe same type of scenario where
in a commercial environmentthey might need a hundred times
as much of that product as anyresidential user does.
You already have the product,it's just a matter of marketing
it differently and they may bemuch more profitable than
(26:34):
selling to that residentialmarket.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, and I would say I mean I think because you know
, if you look at Accelerate,amazon's Accelerate Conference
and some of these other thingsthat where you have a high
presence of marketing nerds, youknow you see this a lot of
really in the weeds marketingfolks there's probably an
opportunity for some of thesetrade shows for you even to host
(27:02):
your own event and it'sprobably not as expensive as you
would think and that providesanother opportunity to have
maybe a little bit deeperconversation or to kind of
filter which people are yourbest customers to bring in there
.
So there's a lot of things.
Going to an event is a goodstart, but also an opportunity
to host your own events aroundthese conferences as well could
(27:24):
be another way to really engageat a deeper level If you have
kind of those, you know, keycustomers that you're trying to
attract and trying to win.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
You know it doesn't even have to be an event.
I actually over here in my TVstand, right here, I have a
notebook that I got at one ofthe other conferences that a
good buddy of mine, abe Chamali.
He has an Amazon PPC agency.
It's a notebook that hesponsored, having his brand name
on a notebook, and I see thatevery time I pull out that
(27:57):
notebook I use it as a littlebit of a journal of what I did
that day and what I have to dothe next day.
Every time I bring that I seehis, his brand name, and you
know it takes how many times sixor seven times for someone to
be able to look at your brand,to be able to make a purchasing
decision.
In a lot of cases, like, I'vegotten that seven times just in
pulling out that notebook.
So it doesn't always have to bean event, although those are
(28:19):
great to do because again, youget that face-to-face contact.
But even sponsoring somethinglike swag or having a you know
your brand logo on some sort oflike sponsoring a lunch or
something like that, that one ofthe networking lunches, like
there's a lot of ways to getthat another one of those
exposures to your targetcustomer at one of these very
targeted shows.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Well, and it just it's a matter of being creative,
right, just kind of.
You know, think outside the boxa little bit.
You know, like I was, I wastalking about we're trying to
partner with other booths at,you know, at the venue to try
and, you know, encourage peopleto come toward our booth.
But one of the other thingsthat we're doing is, you know,
we're actually attempting topartner with and I think it's
actually going to happen iswe're attempting to partner with
(29:00):
another company in the space.
They're not competitive to us,they sell a completely different
type of product but to the samemarket and they are not at this
point set up to go to the show.
They had considered it didn'tbuy any booth space, whatever.
So we're looking at partneringwith them, buy any booth space,
whatever.
So we're looking at partneringwith them, maybe having one of
(29:20):
their reps at our booth.
But then the idea, of course,would be, if they're going to
get that exposure, they wouldkick in toward the cost of the
booth, which is considerable.
So it's a way to maybe reducethe expense.
And then we're thinking aboutmaybe having some sort of a
joint venture there whereessentially you buy a pro-tough
toolkit.
You know, maybe it's two poles,two nets, you know two brushes,
(29:43):
whatever, and you get it's.
It's a software that this othercompany offers to pool service
companies.
We're thinking the possibilityof maybe having it set up where
you know you buy this kit, youget a month or two of free
service from this company andthen, you know, maybe we make
some sort of you know smallaffiliate commission on those
sales that go through orwhatever.
But there's a connection therewhere we both win.
We both can utilize the booth,but we can save some money.
(30:04):
But you could go in reverse tothat too.
Right, if you don't want tospend the you know tens of
thousands of dollars that itmight cost you to really show up
and have a good presence at youknow in space there at a trade
show, connect with anothercomplimentary business.
They don't compete with you,you're not competing with them,
but you're selling to the samemarket and say, look, we would
(30:24):
be happy to sponsor a portion ofthe cost of your booth if you
would just simply be willing togive this away to people coming
through.
Maybe it's a notebook with yourbrand on it, or it's your
literature, or whatever it is.
Be creative, make it somethinguseful for people, but you pay a
small portion of their boothexpense in order to get exposure
(30:45):
to the same people that arecoming through.
Be careful with that, becauseit doesn't help you to do that
if you're doing it with acompany who's going to set up in
the space with just a basictable and a no-brand cover on
their table and nobody's goingto show up at their booth right
Now.
You just paid a portion oftheir booth space and you're
going to get nothing.
So make sure that you'repartnering with somebody who's
really going to do somethingsignificant at the show.
(31:06):
But that is another opportunityif you can think creatively
about reaching that same marketwithout having to spend quite so
much money.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yeah, I think you know this is a fantastic topic
and I mean I know we're talkingspecifically about trade shows,
but a lot of these kind of youknow strategies you can apply to
a lot of different areas ofyour business that are off
Amazon and really, you know,continue to grow, you know, on
Amazon and off Amazon, becausethat brand presence presence yes
(31:36):
, some of those people you knowthey're going to buy through
your website or other places,but some of that comes back to
Amazon in the sense of you knowthey don't it'll help your
Amazon sales as well, becauseyou're going to have a stronger
brand and there's a certainportion of people that just
would rather buy it from Amazonbecause they know they're going
to get in a day or two and theyknow that if they have you know
any sort of issue that we all,as much as we don't necessarily
love it, as Amazon sellers, weknow that Amazon is very liberal
(31:59):
with that refund policy andcustomers.
That does give them a lot ofconfidence when they buy
something that they know if, forwhatever reason, they decide
when it arrives at their doorthat they don't like it, that
they can just return.
It is kind of a you know thiseffort lifts all boats when you
talk about your different brandchannels.
It's not just siloed in youroff Amazon versus on Amazon or
(32:22):
whatever it happens to be.
So, with that, I think you knowthis is probably a good place
to wrap for this particularepisode.
Of course, you know, like wementioned in a couple of months,
when I'm looking forward tohearing, you know, the report
from Mike of hey, here's whatworked really well, here's what
I wish I would have known,here's what didn't work, because
I think those things are reallyimpactful as well.
We'll wrap it up here with whatis maybe one action, step or
(32:46):
recommendation that you have forbrands that are listening, that
are looking at whether it's atrade show or something more
in-person brand building off ofAmazon more in-person brand
building off of Amazon.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Even if you don't participate at the level that
Mike is participating at thisconference that he's going to, I
guarantee you that, no matterwhat product category you sell
in, there is some sort of tradeshow happening somewhere in the
country that is relevant, thatpeople that are the shoppers of
your product are going to bethere.
And even just going to an eventand looking to see what other
people are doing, like get outof your basement, get out of
(33:24):
your house, get out of frombehind your laptop and go and
talk to these people.
Like we just talked about froma networking standpoint, like
you don't have to have a boothto be able to go to these
networking events to talk topeople.
Like there's a lot of showsthat I've been to trying to drum
up leads, but I didn't have abooth.
It's just in talking to people.
So I think my action item wouldbe to find a relevant trade
(33:48):
show I guarantee you there's onehappening and just go to it and
make that be your first stepbefore you jump in with both
feet.
It's a lot more cost ofeffective way to kind of test
the waters, but it's somethingthat you can do, you know, I
guarantee there's a show aroundyou at some point.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And there'll be a lot of ideas that'll come out of
that.
You know, not not just thenetworking aspect of it, but
even just seeing what other youknow brands are doing at their
booths, and you know what youmight be able to do at a future
event.
I guess my action step,honestly, would be probably a
step behind that, which is tostep outside of Amazon, in the
(34:26):
sense of you have a particularavatar that you're likely trying
to sell to on Amazon, or atleast I hope you are.
If you're not, then maybe thatshould be.
Your first step is figuring outwho that avatar is, but that
doesn't mean that that's theonly avatar that is a good
customer avatar for your product, and I think that it's valuable
to consider what those otheravatars might look like and
(34:49):
whether there is a differentavenue of approach to getting to
that avatar.
Maybe it's not Amazon, but weget so siloed in that that we
forget that there's all theseother ways to reach a customer
base that don't have anything todo with Amazon and, as John
rightly pointed out, all of themadd to what you're doing on
Amazon.
If you can reach these otheravatars outside of Amazon, you
(35:12):
get that brand awareness, youget that branded search going on
on Google and on Amazon, bothof which are going to affect
your ranking and your sales onAmazon directly.
So you know, figuring out whatthose other avatars might be and
what other avenues you mighthave for reaching those avatars,
and considering which of themmight be the highest
profitability avatars, right,like, some of them might be
(35:34):
easier to access but are lowvalue avatars.
Other ones might be moredifficult to access or at least
might take a little bit morecreativity figuring out what
that avenue is.
But if you can figure it out,they're a massively profitable
avatar and so I would reallyencourage you to kind of think
about what those might be.
And if it's a trade show, thenyeah, like Matt, like Matt said,
(35:57):
visit one, see what otherpeople are doing, figure out
what's creative about whatthey're doing and then consider
how you might step into thatspace and figure out what the
cost might be and how you mightattain a list and all of those
things.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah, and I wanna build off of what you said, matt
, because I think that that's sosmart for people that are like,
hey, I'm interested in somesort of in-person event, whether
it's a trade show or somethinglike that where my target
customers are at is go attendone of those events before you
even look into having a booth,and then what I would build off
(36:30):
of that and maybe you said thisand I just didn't understand but
, yes, your target customer isthere, but also, you know, the
bulk of the other businessesthat are there are complimentary
to yours.
They are amazing opportunitiesfor collaboration and
partnership, and so, you know,go talk to them at their booths
and be interested in whatthey're doing, cause we've
(36:51):
definitely, you know, throughour marketing agencies and
brands that I've had in the past, built some amazing
collaborations and partnershipsby going to those types of shows
and talking to the brands thatyou know they paid a lot of
money to be at that booth.
One way that you can, you know,help them kind of return that
investment is, you know, findingbrands that are a good
partnership and, you know,building something together
(37:14):
that's going to benefit both youand also that brand that's
there at that booth.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
You know, I'll add to that, too, just one little
thing before we wrap up, andthat is consider what you are an
expert on right now.
Okay, so, if you're listening tothis podcast, it's highly
likely that you're an Amazonseller.
So you are probably an expertnot only on your product and
your niche, but also selling onAmazon, and so consider how many
of the businesses that arecomplimentary to yours that are
(37:42):
at these trade shows, theseindustry events, that are not
very good at Amazon.
A collaboration between you andany of those other
complimentary businesses mightsimply be hey, I could really
help you with your Amazonpresence, and here's what you
might be able to do.
This is how we might be able topartner.
Like, that's something you canoffer anybody, because that's an
expertise that you have thatmany people don't have.
(38:03):
And so, if you can't think ofanything else, like if you're
like well, I don't have a largelist and I don't have this, so
I'm not sure what I have tooffer them, right, in exchange
for what you have a lot to offer, because there's a lot of
people who don't really knowmuch about Amazon and you do.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, and it doesn't have to be a super formal
partnership.
You know I think people getscared of that.
You know, partnership word Imean we used to, let, we like to
use, you know, likecollaboration, you know, because
then that can look like a lotof different things.
It's not super permanent, itcould be a one-off, it could be
(38:42):
something that you know developsinto, you know, a deep
relationship.
But it gives kind of thatflexibility to take it in
whatever direction makes sensefor you know, you and the other
brand that you're working with.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
All right.
So with that, I think we'vegiven some great advice for
listeners out there when they'relooking at, hey, how do I build
my, my presence and my brandoff of Amazon, and we'll have
another amazing episode for.
Welcome to Brand Fortress HQ.
This is another Tactics Tuesday, and today we're really excited
to be talking about trade showtactics.
So this isn't something thatyou would necessarily think of
with an e-commerce brand, butthat's where it's important to
branch out beyond Amazon andlooking at other ways you can
amplify your brand.
And this is kind of how thisconversation got started and we
wanted to share some of ourinsights as far as what we've
(00:23):
done so far.
Specifically, I'm going to turnit over to you, mike, because I
know that you have a big event,that you put a lot of time and
effort into taking advantage ofa trade show for your product.
So if you could give listenersa little bit of background as
far as why you chose this eventand kind of what your game plan
is going into the event to getthe most out of it for your
(00:46):
brand.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Sure, yeah, I think actually that's a good place to
start, in the sense that tradeshow might not be where you end
up in this process, but it'swhere we ended up, and but there
may be some other avenue thatgets you to that same place.
And what I mean by that is whatwe're finding is our Amazon
(01:09):
presence is being, we'll say,diluted by a lot of different
factors, not the least of which,of course and we've talked
about this a lot a lot of verylow-priced Chinese sellers
coming into our category, whichno violence or anything.
It's just the nature of themarket, right, it's what's
happening.
So it's not you know, but butit is what it is, and so it
(01:31):
makes it really hard to competethere.
If you are a premium priceproduct and, reasonably speaking
, if you're trying to build abrand, then in most cases I
would say you really would wantto be a premium price, you price
, you don't want to be sellingat that low price point.
Otherwise, then, are you reallya brand?
Yes, you can be, but thereshould be a difference.
(01:55):
Why are they buying your brand?
Are they willing to pay morefor it?
And that's the thing, right.
If they're not, then it's notreally a brand.
So the problem that we're seeingthere, though, is we, we can't.
We we no longer are in aposition where we can make
massive headway on Amazon,unless we start making
significantly more headway offAmazon.
We need a lot more brandedsearch, we need a lot more brand
(02:17):
awareness for our product inorder to then start pulling some
different levers on Amazon thatwe haven't yet been able to
pull, and so then it became aquestion of how do we do that?
How are we going to gain thatbrand exposure off of Amazon and
get that branded search up andreally reach more households?
Amazon was always the play forvolume, because there's so many
people there.
(02:37):
Well, what it came to for uswas we sell pool tools, and we
sell essentially a professionalgrade tool that, up until now,
we've primarily directed at theresidential market through
Amazon.
Now, we discovered that weactually have sold to quite a
large number of pool pros overthat, you know, the last 10
(03:00):
years, and many of them are veryhappy with our product, and so
then it was well, okay, howcould we really capitalize on
the Pool Pro market?
What would that do for us if weshifted our focus a little bit
there?
And so that's where we starteddialing in on and it became the
situation where, because ourwarranty is different for
(03:22):
residential customers, ourwarranty has lifetime unlimited
free replacement, which meansessentially beyond cross-sells
and upsells and things like that, once we bring a customer in,
at least on that specificproduct that they purchased,
they now become a liabilitybecause I have to fulfill.
On warranties Now we've talkedabout before.
A very small percentage of ourcustomers actually take
(03:43):
advantage of them.
We can easily accommodate that.
It still builds enough profitmargin.
But it is still true that oncethey buy that product, for that
product anyways, they are now aliability because it's all
expense from there on thatproduct.
With warranties.
With a pro that's not the casebecause we don't do lifetime
free replacement for pros.
We do lifetime 50% off andthere is profit in a 50% off
(04:06):
sale for us, which means it'skind of like a consumable.
They keep coming back to us forthat same product and buying
parts or buying that full unitat 50% off and there's profit in
that.
So for me I was looking at itas okay.
This customer is a profitcenter.
This customer over here is alittle bit more of a liability
once I bring them in.
So why not focus here?
It's also because they buy inbulk.
(04:28):
A lot of our expenses arefulfillment expenses.
Well, if I ship in bulk, then Idon't have as high a
fulfillment expense, so there'smore profitability on each
individual sale and on thoserecurring sales.
But the interesting thing is aswell once we focus on pros, we
can then use them as brandambassadors with their clients,
(04:48):
which means we can actually pickup more residential customers
as a result of focusing on thepool pro market.
So we get both.
By focusing on the pros, wehave an opportunity to not only
bring in more pool pros, butalso to bring in more
residential customers pros, butalso to bring in more
residential customers.
So it's a long way of saying.
(05:09):
Then it became how do we getthose pool pros?
And we really felt like thebest way to make sure that we
had our name out there and thatpool pros started to recognize
that we were a serious player inthat space was to go to a trade
show, and so this is our firsttrade show.
The choice of the particulartrade show that we're doing,
which is in Dallas, really hadto do with just two things.
One of them was justopportunity.
It was the first one that wascoming up.
That was a fairly large tradeshow that we thought that we had
(05:31):
time enough to prepare for, andso we just kind of pulled the
trigger and said, okay, we'regoing to do this, and we bought,
we leased booth space and thenwe've kind of gone from there.
So that was that's kind of theway that we ended up at this
place and how you might end upthere as a brand thinking
through how do I reach more ofmy market or how do I reach a
new market?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah, and I think that backstory is so important
because one of the things and Imean I've had brands before and
we've done trade shows and Ithink unless you've done a trade
show before, you don'tunderstand how expensive and how
time intensive they are.
So they can be an amazing wayto connect with a key audience.
(06:10):
So, mike, you did a great jobof calling out hey, we really
want to go after pool pros,which is why we're at this trade
show, and so they can workreally well for that.
But you do have to take intoaccount that when you're looking
at different marketing efforts,it's very different from doing
something like Amazonpay-per-click, where you're like
, hey, I'm going to test outthis audience over here with
$100 in ads or something likethat.
(06:31):
When you're talking about tradeshows, there's a lot of prep
that goes into that.
There's a lot of expense whenyou start looking at, okay, I
need to build up my booth, whatam I going to have in my booth?
Things that you think are easyout of the gate, for example,
hey, I'm going to have something, anything that has electricity
in your booth.
Well, most trade shows and mostconvention centers, it means
(06:53):
that they're going to charge you, usually a couple hundred extra
bucks, if not more, just forthe privilege of having power
and basically somebody comingover there and dragging the
extension cord from the outletin the floor somewhere to your
booth 10 feet away, and that'sprobably going to cost you a few
hundred bucks.
So things like that.
(07:14):
I would say my personalexperience though at that time I
was working with a food brandand so having food at a trade
show because obviously wantedpeople to sample it, that was a
lot more complicated than whatwe could have ever anticipated,
because now you know we have tomake sure that we're not
competing with the venue,because they have their own
(07:36):
caterers and that type of stuffand that's all locked in almost
any convention center thatyou'll go to, convention center
that you'll go to.
In addition to that, anytimethat you are serving any sort of
food item, whether you're doingit because that's what your
brand is or I know, mike, youknow we've been discussing this
over the last couple of monthsyou were talking about.
You know, having popcorn atyour booth, because you know the
smell brings people in and kindof not only do you get the
(08:00):
visual, but also you know othersenses that you're hitting at
the same time, which I think isgenius.
When you start looking at thelogistics of that, though, if,
like now, I need a food permitin whatever jurisdiction that
convention center happens tofall in, and if that's something
that's not within yourwheelhouse, then that's another
thing that needs to go into thatplanning in order to pull that
(08:21):
off at a trade show.
So there's a lot of movingpieces at these trade shows.
With that said, again, they canbe fantastic if you've done
kind of the mental work and thestrategy like you talked about.
Mike, you know why am I at thistrade show and what is it going
to do for my brand.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
One of the challenges of this type of marketing
essentially is what it is isthat when you're spending money
on a PPC campaign, you getalmost instant feedback on if
that worked or not.
At a trade show, it's a muchmore delayed response.
I mean sure you might get acouple of people that you're
certain, as soon as they leave,are going to go to your website
or going to go to Amazon, butit's a lot harder to track that.
(09:03):
So while you're spending all ofthis money in the beginning to
get to the trade show and all ofthe things that surround that
that you mentioned, John, it's alot more challenging to track
that, to track the effect ofthat, than it is with other
types of advertising.
Now, that's not to scare peopleaway or brands away from doing
that.
It's just something to takeinto account that you won't get
a nice clean spreadsheet reportthat you can download to say
(09:26):
this many people showed up, thismany people came to my booth,
this many people purchased.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, it's definitely the case that it's a very
different way to operate.
And if you are an individualwho essentially started your
business online on Amazon orsomething like that, and you
don't really have any otherprevious business experience
with Amazon or something likethat and you don't really have
any other previous businessexperience with kind of an
offline environment, then it'sreally difficult to kind of wrap
your brain around what thatlooks like.
(09:52):
You know when you're investingall of that money and you don't
get that kind of immediateresponse that is almost assumed.
You know when you'readvertising online, so you know
that's a big aspect of thisadvertising online.
So you know that's a big aspectof this.
And I think there's two thingsabout it that I think are
important to recognize.
(10:12):
One is that you won't, nomatter what you do, you will not
get all of the data back interms of being able to connect
the dots and determine how muchreturn on your investment did
you get.
You're not going to get all ofthat data in a nice easy
spreadsheet.
And also there is a sideportion of that that, I think is
(10:34):
how can you get as much data orslash immediate result from the
trade show to the greatestdegree possible.
Right, you're not going to getall of it, but what can I get so
that at least I can evaluate insome degree how effective was
this trade show without havingto wait six months to see how my
(10:56):
brand awareness improves overtime as a result of it?
Right?
And so I think it's kind of atwofold process.
So, for instance, with ourbooth, you know, and with any
booth, I think if you're notdoing something really
significant to make sure that, ayou're generating a list from
the people who show up at yourbooth in some way and giving
them a really significant reasonto be on your list, and, b
(11:21):
finding some way to actuallytake immediate orders on site as
a part of that process, thenyou're missing out on those
opportunities for some immediate, instantaneous feedback on how
productive were you right?
So make sure that you'reimplementing that to the
greatest degree that you can,while also recognizing you're
only going to see a small pieceof the success of that trade
(11:44):
show in that moment.
You know, following that tradeshow or during the trade show, a
lot of the result is going tocome afterward.
And also I would say and thisis we haven't even completed our
first trade show.
So this is what I expect to betrue and what I've been told is
true by other people who havedone trade shows is that it's
also cumulative.
It's not.
It's kind of like when you'rerunning ads online, you know
(12:05):
that whole idea that most of usknow like sometimes it takes
five, six, seven, eightexposures or impressions to a
potential customer before theyactually engage, right.
That same thing is going to betrue in a trade show situation.
You know people are going tosee your booth, they're going to
see your booth, they're goingto see your booth.
They might not show up at yourbooth, or maybe they will show
up at your booth but they don'tbuy.
But you're going to have tohave this repeated exposure,
(12:27):
which means more trade shows orsome other way to interact with
them, whether it's through yourlist or whatever that is, so you
have more opportunities to sellto that person.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, I would just say so kind of along those lines
.
My experience with and again,I'm not saying I'm a trade show
expert I mean we did a handfulof them with mixed results and
what we really learned out of itas far as timing was that first
day of the trade show is themost critical, because most
trade shows are two to threedays long.
(13:01):
Typically what happens iseverybody's super excited,
especially you know thebeginning of that first day, and
when we are able to grab asmany people as possible, you
know whether that was themtrying our product or getting on
our email list as part of agiveaway or buying.
You know actually buying aproduct we probably saw about.
You know 70% of our activity onthat day one and then, if it
(13:26):
was like a three day show, we'dsee the other 30% kind of
dribbled across the other twodays.
So I think that's the otherthing that, at least with my
experience, was hey, be preparedto be, you know, very active
that first day becauseeverybody's excited and take
advantage of that, and thendon't be disappointed if it's a
three-day show and by day threeyou're seeing essentially
(13:51):
crickets.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
One of the things that I've learned over the
course of the years and we canall attest to that is investing
early on for your Amazon listing.
Investing in great photography,graphic design, awesome copy.
That's table stakes.
At this point, you have tolaunch with an optimized listing
in order to get any sort ofattention or conversion of
(14:18):
attention or conversion.
What I've learned, being a partof the convention or the show
that Mike is getting ready to goto, is that the same is true
for your trade show booth.
If you go to a trade showexpecting to cut corners on your
booth like, you're not going toget any sort of, you're not
going to get the level ofengagement at the booth that you
want, and that's.
I learned that with my mealdelivery service.
Like their first couple, wedidn't go to trade shows per se,
but we went to CrossFitcompetitions and you know, the
(14:40):
first, the very first one I wentto.
I was trying to cut costs, so Ihad a table, I had a unbranded
tablecloth that I got in Walmarton the way there, and then we
had our you know our foodwarmers.
But then, as I learned a littlebit later on and saw other
vendors come to these, theseevents that I I didn't look
anywhere near as trustworthy asthose other, those other brands
did.
So as I started to buildbranding out on, you know, it
(15:02):
wasn't just the table but it was, you know, a little bit of a
booth and some marketingmaterials that they could take
back.
Like then you could actuallystart to see that not only were
people excited to come over andtalk to you, but they were
actually acting when you gavethem something to do, especially
when you're serving food, likeI learned that lesson really,
really quick is that you have toportray professionalism when
people are buying food from you,and it took a couple of events
(15:24):
for me to learn that.
So that's one of the thingsthat Mike and his team are are
putting a lot of emphasis on ismaking sure that the booth is is
really sexy and that there's alot of activities there that
people can come, get engaged andbe involved in.
That it's going to make themremember your brand name.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yeah, we.
So I.
One of the things that I didand I would actually highly
recommend this is there was agentleman that that I became
friends with down in Puerto Ricowho they do trade shows all the
time and they've been doingthem for years.
So I actually scheduled to goover to his place and have
dinner with he and his wife andjust pick his brain, you know,
for the evening about tradeshows and what they've done,
(16:01):
what they what worked and whatdidn't work and what not to do
and what to do.
And I learned a ton you knowfrom from just talking to him.
So if you know anybody who'sdone trade shows especially of
course if they've done itsuccessfully you know I would
pick their brain, you know, takethem out to lunch or something
and really just kind of get anidea of what's worked for them
and what hasn't.
Might even be worth talking tosomebody who didn't have a good
experience at a trade show andfigure out what did they do.
(16:23):
So you know what not to do.
But we it became obvious fromthe beginning that if we were
going to do this it was really asituation where it was kind of
go big or go home.
You know, don't walk in thereand just you know, throw up a
table with.
You know, as you said, Matt,you know it's got a tablecloth
on it and maybe I've got a fewpool skimmers sitting there and
(16:43):
you know a couple of peoplemanning the booth.
Just you know, in case somebodywalks by and decides to talk to
you, then you engage with them.
You know, we knew we need tofind a way to make sure that
people want to come to our booth.
And what are all of the waysthat we could engage this
situation, this expo as a whole,to try and accomplish that.
So, for instance, we areactively contacting other
(17:08):
vendors who are at other boothsin the expo, who are in a higher
traffic location than we'regoing to be.
We're trying to partner withthem in order to encourage them
to send people our direction toour booth.
So you know, paying acommission, like anybody who
purchases through there.
Like we're going to give themflyers that they can hand to
people, they can comeparticipate in our event.
(17:28):
And you know, anybody who buys,they make a commission.
You know, whatever, like we'retrying to engage those
partnerships to bring thattraffic because we're not
located in a high trafficlocation, because we got in the
expo late.
You know there were a lot ofpeople who are already
registered.
We also weren't sure that wecould afford to pay for
something that was kind of on amain trunk line within the expo.
So, you know, we decided to paya little less and be in a less
(17:52):
trafficked area.
How are we going to get trafficthere?
You know we're going to have.
So it's important.
We're running a competition.
So we rented two booths, onenext to another, 10 by 10s next
to each other, so we have atotal 10 by 20 space, and so one
space is going to be the showbooth and the area where we're
talking to people.
We're intentionally not puttinga table up front of the booth.
(18:14):
We're leaving that open.
There's going to be a smalltable off to the side where
we've got coffee, but then it'sgoing to be open to the booth
and we're going to have tablesinside the booth where people
can come in, just stand and talkto us, and so we're trying to
make sure that we don't put abarrier between us and the
people in the aisle, so thatwhen they show up they'll just
kind of step in and or we canstep out.
So but on the other side, inthe other booth, that's right
(18:36):
next to us, and there's nodivision between we're doing a
competition, and so the ideabehind this competition is it
uses our products in thecompetition.
So it's an opportunity for us toput our products in the hands
of the people who might actuallyuse it, to feel the durability
of the product, to recognize howeasy it is to assemble and
(18:57):
disassemble, how strong it is,how well the locking mechanism
works, all of those things.
So we've created thePoollympics, which essentially
is we've got five stations, youdo the rotation, you can compete
in one or more stations and ifyou, at the end of the day, if
you have scored the best in thatstation, you win that product.
So we have some assemblystations.
(19:18):
You're going to disassemble andreassemble a pool net,
disassemble and reassemble ourpool brush and our pool pole,
and the idea being to helpcustomers to know, because this
is a we have a lifetime warranty, but it's a parts replacement
and so we want customers to knowhow easy is it going to be to
replace those parts, Because weall know there are certain
(19:38):
things that we've tried toassemble and disassemble and it
was just a real pain in the rear.
So that's great if you've got alifetime warranty, but if it's
a pain to replace the parts andthat's all the company's going
to send you, well, maybe, Idon't want that.
So we're trying to give themthe experience not only the
people who are participating inthe competition, but the
audience, the people who arestanding in the aisle watching
the competition and seeing howpeople are doing.
(19:59):
They get to see how easy andhow fast it is to assemble and
disassemble our prop and howdurable it is.
We've got a couple of otherevents that are in there as well
.
So the idea is we've got thiscompetition.
People have to register for thecompetition.
So that's how we're building thelist.
Everybody who competes is goingto get a ProTuff branded sun hat
, and we're not really skimpingon that.
(20:20):
We're going to try to do adecent quality hat, and so if
you compete, you get something,regardless of whether you win or
not.
But if you win on your event oron the whole event, there's a
number of different prizes thatyou can win from that.
So we're hoping to build thelist out of that.
But we're going to be walkingaround.
We're always going to have oneperson walking the expo wearing
a shirt that has our Poollympicslogo on it, Basically, hey,
(20:43):
come, compete, or whatever.
We haven't decided exactly whatit's going to say but then a QR
code that you can literallyjust scan and it will give you a
map to get to our booth so youcan compete, and it'll tell you
about the competition and whatyou could win and about our
products and whatnot.
But the idea is we're trying totake advantage of the whole
expo and bring people to ourbooth instead of just sitting
(21:04):
there waiting for somebody toshow up.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, there's a couple of things that you said
there that I think I just wantto double click on because I
think they're so important.
The first is just showing up isnot good enough if you want to
take advantage of most tradeshows.
So make sure that you have somesort of hook.
And you know, mike, I thinkyou've got a great concept here
and I'm really excited.
You know, we'll do in a couplemonths, after you're done with
the trade show, kind of afollow-up on this, just to see,
(21:28):
hey, what worked, what, whatdidn't, what, what, what do you
wish you'd known?
What would you have donedifferently?
You know that type of stuff,but I mean what you have so far.
I mean you have at least have ahook.
You can't expect.
You know it's just like the.
You know the old, you know ifyou build it they will come,
type thing.
You know just the same withyour brand.
That doesn't work.
It doesn't work at a trade showeither.
(21:49):
You do need to have somethingto bring people in.
The other thing that I wanted todouble click on that you were
saying that I think is soimportant, and you know
something that we ended up doingand found a lot of success with
which is you know, don't beafraid to sell your product at
the trade show, because there issuch a big difference between
someone who is willing to giveyou an email and someone who is
(22:11):
willing to give you their hardearned money.
Those people that are willing tobuy a product for you
hard-earned money, those peoplethat are willing to buy a
product for you, even if it'sjust out of curiosity, are worth
10 times more than somebodywho's just giving you an email
address.
And there's a lot of differentways you can do that.
We had success selling directlyat the trade show, but then I
(22:31):
think the other thing that wedid and again it's going to
depend on your brand, depend onyour product that was also very
successful was you know, we rana pretty significant discount
for people that put in theirfirst order and we actually
would ship it to their house,because you know they're flying
down to this event and they'restaying at the hotel and they
don't want to pack it in theirsuitcase or whatever, and so we
would give them a really gooddiscount to buy their first
(22:52):
product.
Now, the nice part about thatwas not only was it easier for
them, because they didn't haveto worry about lugging it home
with them.
But the other thing is that nowwe're collecting an email
address, we're collecting aphysical address, a lot of
different customer data that wecould use for future campaigns,
as opposed to if somebody justbought a product or just gave an
(23:12):
email address.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
So I've never personally been to an industry
trade show like this, but I havebeen to a lot of Amazon
conferences and if you speak toa lot of the service providers
that are in booths and the onesthat are actually paying to be
at that trade show, where theyget a lot of value is in the
events around the actual tradeshow and there's a.
(23:36):
There's so much value in that,like the conversations that I
have with people over drinks orat, you know, networking events
and things like that.
That's really where you're ableto have a conversation at a
booth.
You have people lined up we'regoing to.
There's going to be people, youknow, in the pool Olympics,
like you don't really have anopportunity to as much as you
would, you know, breaking breadwith someone.
(23:57):
So that's another thing to payattention to is you know what?
What other sort of outsideevents are they happening around
the show?
You know what are the things,how, how can you get involved in
conversations with the peoplethat are at the show outside of
the actual vendor area?
So that's that's another thingto really pay attention to.
Is how can you, how can youinject yourself in conversations
(24:18):
outside of just at a booth onthe other side of a table.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Well, I think too, you know, like you're speaking
of those outside events.
So for us, the one thing thatwe recognize is that there are
some pool service companies outthere that literally are
managing, you know, 2,000, 3,000pools, which means they have
(24:43):
numerous techs out in the fieldand need a large quantity of
pool tools.
So, you know, signing one ofthose large pool companies could
be the same as, and they'remore, profitable.
Remember that because we canship in bulk, we save a lot of
money on fulfillment, we save onAmazon referral fees because we
(25:04):
don't have to push them throughthe Amazon system.
So they're a much moreprofitable customer for us, even
on just a few units.
But if I pick up a pool pro,that's going to buy 50 sets.
They're not just buying a pole,they're buying two nets,
they're buying a brush, they'rebuying all this and they need it
for 50 different techs.
That might be the same profitas me selling to 150 residential
(25:28):
customers easy and just one go.
And so attending one of theseevents, say for us, like if
there's an after party or thingslike that where we can network
with people, who knows what sizeof pool pro you know, we might
sign in just a half hourconversation with somebody you
know and make as much as wewould have made you know with
with 150 customers, and we getthe long-term value out of that
(25:50):
because they're going tocontinue to come back and buy
those 50% off replacements.
So we have continual value outof that customer and so I would
pay attention to that.
But as an extension of it, yourproduct if you are primarily
selling to a residential marketright now, it might be worth
considering is there acommercial market for your
(26:12):
product, and would it behooveyou to start thinking about how
could I reach that commercialmarket for this product?
Because it's possible that it'sthe same type of scenario where
in a commercial environmentthey might need a hundred times
as much of that product as anyresidential user does.
You already have the product,it's just a matter of marketing
it differently and they may bemuch more profitable than
(26:34):
selling to that residentialmarket.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Yeah, and I would say I mean I think because you know
, if you look at Accelerate,amazon's Accelerate Conference
and some of these other thingsthat where you have a high
presence of marketing nerds, youknow you see this a lot of
really in the weeds marketingfolks there's probably an
opportunity for some of thesetrade shows for you even to host
(27:02):
your own event and it'sprobably not as expensive as you
would think and that providesanother opportunity to have
maybe a little bit deeperconversation or to kind of
filter which people are yourbest customers to bring in there
.
So there's a lot of things.
Going to an event is a goodstart, but also an opportunity
to host your own events aroundthese conferences as well could
(27:24):
be another way to really engageat a deeper level If you have
kind of those, you know, keycustomers that you're trying to
attract and trying to win.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
You know it doesn't even have to be an event.
I actually over here in my TVstand, right here, I have a
notebook that I got at one ofthe other conferences that a
good buddy of mine, abe Chamali.
He has an Amazon PPC agency.
It's a notebook that hesponsored, having his brand name
on a notebook, and I see thatevery time I pull out that
(27:57):
notebook I use it as a littlebit of a journal of what I did
that day and what I have to dothe next day.
Every time I bring that I seehis, his brand name, and you
know it takes how many times sixor seven times for someone to
be able to look at your brand,to be able to make a purchasing
decision.
In a lot of cases, like, I'vegotten that seven times just in
pulling out that notebook.
So it doesn't always have to bean event, although those are
(28:19):
great to do because again, youget that face-to-face contact.
But even sponsoring somethinglike swag or having a you know
your brand logo on some sort oflike sponsoring a lunch or
something like that, that one ofthe networking lunches, like
there's a lot of ways to getthat another one of those
exposures to your targetcustomer at one of these very
targeted shows.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Well, and it just it's a matter of being creative,
right, just kind of.
You know, think outside the boxa little bit.
You know, like I was, I wastalking about we're trying to
partner with other booths at,you know, at the venue to try
and, you know, encourage peopleto come toward our booth.
But one of the other thingsthat we're doing is, you know,
we're actually attempting topartner with and I think it's
actually going to happen iswe're attempting to partner with
(29:00):
another company in the space.
They're not competitive to us,they sell a completely different
type of product but to the samemarket and they are not at this
point set up to go to the show.
They had considered it didn'tbuy any booth space, whatever.
So we're looking at partneringwith them, buy any booth space,
whatever.
So we're looking at partneringwith them, maybe having one of
(29:20):
their reps at our booth.
But then the idea, of course,would be, if they're going to
get that exposure, they wouldkick in toward the cost of the
booth, which is considerable.
So it's a way to maybe reducethe expense.
And then we're thinking aboutmaybe having some sort of a
joint venture there whereessentially you buy a pro-tough
toolkit.
You know, maybe it's two poles,two nets, you know two brushes,
(29:43):
whatever, and you get it's.
It's a software that this othercompany offers to pool service
companies.
We're thinking the possibilityof maybe having it set up where
you know you buy this kit, youget a month or two of free
service from this company andthen, you know, maybe we make
some sort of you know smallaffiliate commission on those
sales that go through orwhatever.
But there's a connection therewhere we both win.
We both can utilize the booth,but we can save some money.
(30:04):
But you could go in reverse tothat too.
Right, if you don't want tospend the you know tens of
thousands of dollars that itmight cost you to really show up
and have a good presence at youknow in space there at a trade
show, connect with anothercomplimentary business.
They don't compete with you,you're not competing with them,
but you're selling to the samemarket and say, look, we would
(30:24):
be happy to sponsor a portion ofthe cost of your booth if you
would just simply be willing togive this away to people coming
through.
Maybe it's a notebook with yourbrand on it, or it's your
literature, or whatever it is.
Be creative, make it somethinguseful for people, but you pay a
small portion of their boothexpense in order to get exposure
(30:45):
to the same people that arecoming through.
Be careful with that, becauseit doesn't help you to do that
if you're doing it with acompany who's going to set up in
the space with just a basictable and a no-brand cover on
their table and nobody's goingto show up at their booth right
Now.
You just paid a portion oftheir booth space and you're
going to get nothing.
So make sure that you'repartnering with somebody who's
really going to do somethingsignificant at the show.
(31:06):
But that is another opportunityif you can think creatively
about reaching that same marketwithout having to spend quite so
much money.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Yeah, I think you know this is a fantastic topic
and I mean I know we're talkingspecifically about trade shows,
but a lot of these kind of youknow strategies you can apply to
a lot of different areas ofyour business that are off
Amazon and really, you know,continue to grow, you know, on
Amazon and off Amazon, becausethat brand presence presence yes
(31:36):
, some of those people you knowthey're going to buy through
your website or other places,but some of that comes back to
Amazon in the sense of you knowthey don't it'll help your
Amazon sales as well, becauseyou're going to have a stronger
brand and there's a certainportion of people that just
would rather buy it from Amazonbecause they know they're going
to get in a day or two and theyknow that if they have you know
any sort of issue that we all,as much as we don't necessarily
love it, as Amazon sellers, weknow that Amazon is very liberal
(31:59):
with that refund policy andcustomers.
That does give them a lot ofconfidence when they buy
something that they know if, forwhatever reason, they decide
when it arrives at their doorthat they don't like it, that
they can just return.
It is kind of a you know thiseffort lifts all boats when you
talk about your different brandchannels.
It's not just siloed in youroff Amazon versus on Amazon or
(32:22):
whatever it happens to be.
So, with that, I think you knowthis is probably a good place
to wrap for this particularepisode.
Of course, you know, like wementioned in a couple of months,
when I'm looking forward tohearing, you know, the report
from Mike of hey, here's whatworked really well, here's what
I wish I would have known,here's what didn't work, because
I think those things are reallyimpactful as well.
We'll wrap it up here with whatis maybe one action, step or
(32:46):
recommendation that you have forbrands that are listening, that
are looking at whether it's atrade show or something more
in-person brand building off ofAmazon more in-person brand
building off of Amazon.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Even if you don't participate at the level that
Mike is participating at thisconference that he's going to, I
guarantee you that, no matterwhat product category you sell
in, there is some sort of tradeshow happening somewhere in the
country that is relevant, thatpeople that are the shoppers of
your product are going to bethere.
And even just going to an eventand looking to see what other
people are doing, like get outof your basement, get out of
(33:24):
your house, get out of frombehind your laptop and go and
talk to these people.
Like we just talked about froma networking standpoint, like
you don't have to have a boothto be able to go to these
networking events to talk topeople.
Like there's a lot of showsthat I've been to trying to drum
up leads, but I didn't have abooth.
It's just in talking to people.
So I think my action item wouldbe to find a relevant trade
(33:48):
show I guarantee you there's onehappening and just go to it and
make that be your first stepbefore you jump in with both
feet.
It's a lot more cost ofeffective way to kind of test
the waters, but it's somethingthat you can do, you know, I
guarantee there's a show aroundyou at some point.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And there'll be a lot of ideas that'll come out of
that.
You know, not not just thenetworking aspect of it, but
even just seeing what other youknow brands are doing at their
booths, and you know what youmight be able to do at a future
event.
I guess my action step,honestly, would be probably a
step behind that, which is tostep outside of Amazon, in the
(34:26):
sense of you have a particularavatar that you're likely trying
to sell to on Amazon, or atleast I hope you are.
If you're not, then maybe thatshould be.
Your first step is figuring outwho that avatar is, but that
doesn't mean that that's theonly avatar that is a good
customer avatar for your product, and I think that it's valuable
to consider what those otheravatars might look like and
(34:49):
whether there is a differentavenue of approach to getting to
that avatar.
Maybe it's not Amazon, but weget so siloed in that that we
forget that there's all theseother ways to reach a customer
base that don't have anything todo with Amazon and, as John
rightly pointed out, all of themadd to what you're doing on
Amazon.
If you can reach these otheravatars outside of Amazon, you
(35:12):
get that brand awareness, youget that branded search going on
on Google and on Amazon, bothof which are going to affect
your ranking and your sales onAmazon directly.
So you know, figuring out whatthose other avatars might be and
what other avenues you mighthave for reaching those avatars,
and considering which of themmight be the highest
profitability avatars, right,like, some of them might be
(35:34):
easier to access but are lowvalue avatars.
Other ones might be moredifficult to access or at least
might take a little bit morecreativity figuring out what
that avenue is.
But if you can figure it out,they're a massively profitable
avatar and so I would reallyencourage you to kind of think
about what those might be.
And if it's a trade show, thenyeah, like Matt, like Matt said,
(35:57):
visit one, see what otherpeople are doing, figure out
what's creative about whatthey're doing and then consider
how you might step into thatspace and figure out what the
cost might be and how you mightattain a list and all of those
things.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah, and I wanna build off of what you said, matt
, because I think that that's sosmart for people that are like,
hey, I'm interested in somesort of in-person event, whether
it's a trade show or somethinglike that where my target
customers are at is go attendone of those events before you
even look into having a booth,and then what I would build off
(36:30):
of that and maybe you said thisand I just didn't understand but
, yes, your target customer isthere, but also, you know, the
bulk of the other businessesthat are there are complimentary
to yours.
They are amazing opportunitiesfor collaboration and
partnership, and so, you know,go talk to them at their booths
and be interested in whatthey're doing, cause we've
(36:51):
definitely, you know, throughour marketing agencies and
brands that I've had in the past, built some amazing
collaborations and partnershipsby going to those types of shows
and talking to the brands thatyou know they paid a lot of
money to be at that booth.
One way that you can, you know,help them kind of return that
investment is, you know, findingbrands that are a good
partnership and, you know,building something together
(37:14):
that's going to benefit both youand also that brand that's
there at that booth.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
You know, I'll add to that, too, just one little
thing before we wrap up, andthat is consider what you are an
expert on right now.
Okay, so, if you're listening tothis podcast, it's highly
likely that you're an Amazonseller.
So you are probably an expertnot only on your product and
your niche, but also selling onAmazon, and so consider how many
of the businesses that arecomplimentary to yours that are
(37:42):
at these trade shows, theseindustry events, that are not
very good at Amazon.
A collaboration between you andany of those other
complimentary businesses mightsimply be hey, I could really
help you with your Amazonpresence, and here's what you
might be able to do.
This is how we might be able topartner.
Like, that's something you canoffer anybody, because that's an
expertise that you have thatmany people don't have.
(38:03):
And so, if you can't think ofanything else, like if you're
like well, I don't have a largelist and I don't have this, so
I'm not sure what I have tooffer them, right, in exchange
for what you have a lot to offer, because there's a lot of
people who don't really knowmuch about Amazon and you do.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, and it doesn't have to be a super formal
partnership.
You know I think people getscared of that.
You know, partnership word Imean we used to, let, we like to
use, you know, likecollaboration, you know, because
then that can look like a lotof different things.
It's not super permanent, itcould be a one-off, it could be
(38:42):
something that you know developsinto, you know, a deep
relationship.
But it gives kind of thatflexibility to take it in
whatever direction makes sensefor you know, you and the other
brand that you're working with.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
All right.
So with that, I think we'vegiven some great advice for
listeners out there when they'relooking at, hey, how do I build
my, my presence and my brandoff of Amazon, and we'll have
another amazing episode for.
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