Your Trade Show Makes Me Sick

A trade show can amaze you or afflict you.

Most do the latter.

Consider how stressful shows are.

Exhibitors zip in minutes before opening, travel-worn, ill-prepared, and often resentful of the fact they're being denied time with their customers back home.

Attendees arrive in warmer spirits, happy to be away from the boss and harboring notions they'll be entertained. But they quickly discover the exhibit halls are about as navigable and hospitable as downtown Tokyo on a workday.

The trade show maze is the full catastrophe—and acutely stressful.

Research scientist Esther Sternberg has made a lifetime study of the connection between the built environment and the human brain's stress response.

In her latest book, Healing Spaces, Dr. Sternberg distinguishes between mazes and labyrinths.

Complexes such as hospitals are mazes, built to accommodate equipment, not alleviate illness. They trigger stress responses in patients' brains that make them sick, instead of well.

Complexes such as Disneyland, on the other hand, are labyrinths. They're built to help you walk about calmly and mindfully. They trigger floods of dopamine—the stuff that drives engagement.

"Labyrinths are calming," Dr. Sternberg says. "Mazes are stressful."

What's your trade show like?

A maze that afflicts? Or a labyrinth that amazes? 
 


HAT TIP: Bob Hughes inspired this post.

Art & Science

Art is I; science is we.

                       — Claude Bernard

At INBOUND last week, Gary Vaynerchuck told 20,000 B2B marketers to respect art and science equally, if they hope to succeed in the next 10 years.

Most are good at only one.

The problem persists, Vaynerchuck says, because, "We have people who lack self-awareness to know what they're good at and what they're not good at."

Focus on that at which you suck, he insists.

I agree.

I've encountered few marketing leaders who are dexterous at both art and science.

Many master and respect only one (they're true specialists); and many others, neither (they're simply shrewd self-promoters).

Marketing leaders should be Renaissance (Wo)men.

It's no surprise 1 in 3 will be fired next year.

The 5-Finger Guide to B2B Marketing

B2B marketer, where should you focus?Mark Schmukler of Marketing Insider Group says you should master these five areas:

Your website. All roads (whether email, SEO or SEM) lead to your website. It'd better be responsive. If it's not mobile friendly, you're toast right off the bat. Fifty-seven percent of visitors won't like you.

Your brand. Develop a brand guide and harmonize everything customers encounter, from business cards to brochures, email signatures to trade show exhibits. Your credibility is at stake, especially if you operate in a niche industry.

Search Engine Optimization. The key to SEO is content. Lots of it. Content is the way to gain authority with Google. And it needs to be placed all over the web, not just on your own site, so learn how to do PR.

Search Engine Marketing. SEM comes into play where SEO leaves off. Google Adwords puts you among the top four slots in Google searches. Why Google Adwords? Simple. Google owns owns 71% of the search market.

LinkedIn. Forget the other social media platforms until you leverage LinkedIn. Ninety-four percent of B2B marketers use it to distribute content, especially those who need to reach senior managers (half the world's highest earners are members). And sponsored content is awesome. You can target members based on 15 categories, including location, industry, job title, seniority, gender, age, and years of experience.

Looney Tunes

Maybe it's the "new normal" after 2016's presidential campaign.

The panelists at a marketing conference I just attended were unanimous: only "crazy" will capture customers' attention in 2017.

That goes for email Subject lines as well as all other content.

Sales trainer Ryan Dohrn recommends these 10 grabbers:

Subject: [Road Runner] recommended I get in touch

Insert a [peer's name] in your Subject line. Referrals are the best way to connect instantly.

Subject: I was just wondering…

This line can introduce an offer to meet.

Subject: May 29th?

Another way to introduce an offer to meet.

Subject: 3 reasons…

This line precedes a list of reasons the customer should engage with you. It's effective after previous emails have bombed.

Subject: Did something happen?

Guilt works after you've had a meeting or sent a proposal and received no feedback.

Subject: New idea for you

Effective right out of the gate when you want to arrange a meeting. Offer an idea that gives the prospect a slight competitive advantage.

Subject: Acme Anvils

Ruffle the customer's feathers by naming her competitor. Let her know how her rival is a step ahead.

Subject: Wrong person?

Use in your last-ditch effort. Ask the customer to provide information that will eliminate her from your list. But be careful: this line only works when you are emailing aggressively, not occasionally.

Subject: 20 minutes?

This line must be followed by a promise to solve a problem or save time and money.

Subject: I will respect your answer

It's not nutty to ask for a "No." When a customer feels like she can say "No," she'll at least reply.

Artful Dodgers

Open secret: B2B prospects are dodging salespeople.

It now takes 18 or more dials to connect with a B2B prospect over the phone, according to TOPO. Call-back rates are below 1%. And only 24% of sales' emails are ever opened.

The reason: reps put their own agenda above that of prospects, so prospects turn to peers for advice.

It's why 1 million B2B reps will lose their jobs to self-service e-com by 2020.

Two professors, Laurence Minsky and Keith Quesenberry, urge B2B reps to try "social selling."

"With social selling, salespeople use social media platforms to research, prospect, and network by sharing educational content and answering questions," they say in Harvard Business Review.

"As a result, they’re able to build relationships until prospects are ready to buy.

Social selling makes sense, because three of four B2B buyers rely on it to reach buying decisions.

A survey by Hubspot shows 72% of B2B reps who use social media outperform their peers, and more than half have closed deals as a direct result of social selling.

Reps can be sell effectively with social media by spending no more than 10% of their time with it, the professors say; but they need to be trained.

Marketers can provide that training, but often they don't want to.

The solution? Wrest social media from marketers and hand it to sales.

By providing a self-guided portal where reps can find marketers' content and share it with prospects on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, B2B companies can win over artful dodgers, the professors say.

"After all, social media is too important to be left to marketing."