What works

by Don Kreski

What kind of customer shows work best?

I spent 23 years as marketing manager at two Chicago-area AV dealer/integrators: Midwest Visual Equipment Company (now part of AVI Midwest) and United Visual, Inc. I helped plan, promote, stage and evaluate roughly 200 customer shows during that period. Here’s what I learned from the experience.

Big shows. People will come to an all-day show if you offer them enough to make the trip worthwhile. Dealers who currently run large annual shows include AVI Florida, Snader and Associates in Los Angeles, Industrial Audio/Visual of Houston, and Huntsville, Alabama-based Southern Digital Products.

I did an annual show at United Visual that included seminars, exhibits, a projector shootout, dinner and, in later years, entertainment for customers.

At Midwest Visual, we tried a number of different large-show formats, including an “Educational Applefest” promoting computers and software and a “Tournament of Champions” promoting large screen displays. We ran the Applefests for four years, the Tournaments for more than 10.

Relevant information. If your customer show, large or small, is to be successful, you need to emphasize a product or technology useful and new and that customers can’t really understand from a spec sheet.

We ran smaller shows and open houses at Midwest Visual whenever a new type of product came along. Typically we’d do a mailed invitation and ask our salespeople to follow up by phone. Eventually we brought on a full-time telemarketer, and he was very helpful in bringing in attendees.

Generally these shows worked very well if the product was hot; they could be real duds if it wasn’t. It’s harder today to make small shows work. The Internet makes it so easy to gather product information that there’s really no reason to attend a show, unless it’s for a product that needs demonstration.

Seminars and classes. Education is a very strong benefit for many customers, and seminars remain popular throughout the AV industry.

We offered meeting room design seminars at both Midwest Visual and United Visual. At Midwest we did public sessions for both architects and facilities managers; we also offered to bring our seminars to individual architectural firms.

One nice touch we tried was to arrange continuing education credit through the American Institute of Architects. Progressive Audio in Columbus, Ohio does that today, and they tell me it’s very attractive to many architects. They also offer credit through the American Society of Interior Designers.

Wherever possible, we tried to bring in our customers as speakers or instructors. This worked especially well for education-market seminars at Midwest. For a one or two hour session, we normally didn’t pay them, though a gift of some sort was appropriate afterwards. If we brought in a customer for a longer class, we would normally hire him or her.

Mike Palecek of Smart Choice Audio Visual in Racine, Wisconsin, tells me he has been experimenting with webcast seminars this year. “What’s good about that is it’s a minimum time commitment from a customer, and I didn’t have to drag a anyone to a particular place.”

One caution on any educational event is to keep it educational. Customers will react badly if they perceive your session as a sales pitch rather than a seminar. Yes, they understand that you’re trying to sell product, but they expect to learn something and want any sales approach to be low key.

Bribes. Lunch, dinner, golf, gifts and door prizes are always popular and can make a big difference in the attendance at your show. Educators in particular seem to appreciate a meal or a gift, but I’ve always made it a point to feed any potential customer who makes the effort to come to a show or seminar.

Parties. There’s nothing like a party to bring potential customers out of the woodwork. Having attended the Extron party at Infocomm for many years and observing that company’s growth, we decided to try something similar at United Visual.

We did change the model by eliminating alcohol and asking our customers to bring a guest or their family. Our first show was an open house at our new headquarters, which included a projector shootout, facility tour and a sit-down dinner. The next year we did a more traditional show at two Chicago area hotels (with dinner), then went on over the next three years to entertainment-orientated events at Chicago’s Disney Quest, the Brookfield Zoo and Pheasant Run, a local resort with golf (for select accounts) and dinner theater (for all).

We always linked a product show to the entertainment event and, depending on the year, included seminars as well. The upside was high attendance and an opportunity to build stronger relationships with our best customers and prospects.

Perceived value. Attendance will always increase if your promotions convey the very real value of your show. What can someone expect to learn? Are there other pluses such as the chance to network, sit down to a meal, or win a prize? I found the more specific I could be the better were my chances to bring in a crowd.

If you know your show has real value and appeal, consider charging admission. We did this at Midwest Visual twice over the years: for computer classes we offered to educators and for our Applefest extravaganzas.

My own thinking is that the admission cost should be an obvious bargain, and of course you can waive the fee for certain customers. We charged $25 for Applefest admission, for example, which barely covered the cost of the food. But having to pay did help convince people that this was a worthwhile show. I’m not sure if it helped us increase attendance or not, but we did find, once we started charging, that our no-show rate dropped dramatically.

Repetition. If a show works, do it again. Customers appreciate repetition, and they begin to look forward to an annual or semi-annual event. We ran our Tournament of Champions at Midwest twice a year for over 10 years. Other dealers have run an annual show for 20 years or more.

Some examples of successful shows
Click the headline for details and a look at the show invitation.

Multimedia Safari at Brookfield Zoo

Our goal was to impress our best prospects and cement relationships, as well as to show the latest products. We invited customers and their families to an evening at the zoo, starting with a projector shootout, then a private dolphin show, dinner and animal exhibits, ending with music, dessert and a stage lighting demonstration.

Click for details and the show invitation.

United Visual at Pheasant Run Resort

An afternoon and evening event with a keynote speaker, seminars, exhibits, display shootout, dinner and two shows: a musical in the resort's theater and a local rock band playing afterwards in the keynote/dinner area. This keynote area also served as a demonstration of United's rental and staging services.

Click for photos of the show.

Midwest Visual’s Applefest

A big show: an all-day conference with exhibits, a keynote speaker, 20+ seminars, continental breakfast, luncheon, gifts and door prizes. Very topical information for its time. Customers as presenters (in addition to manufacturer’s reps and staff). $25 admission charge. We ran the show in three cities with a total attendance of over 1,000 each year.

Read more about this series of shows.

Midwest Visual Tournament of Champions

Modeled on the Infocomm projector shootout with two or three seminars and some additional exhibits (depending on the year). 6 - 10 locations each time.

Click for a description and Tournament invitations.

Midwest Visual EdTech conferences

One in a long series of seminars and conferences for educational customers. A frequent topic was securing grant money for various systems that we offered. This particular conference included 10 seminars with customer presenters, exhibits, breakfast, lunch, and a door prize drawing.

Click for details and the show invitation.

Architect seminars from United Visual

The basics of designing meeting rooms that will include AV systems.

We used a simple handout/pdf invitation, because these sessions were offered by phone to individual firms and put on in their offices.

Click to learn about the show and see the invitation.