Trade Show Blog

How Foursquare can LAUNCH your Event Promotions Part I

With event marketers pressured by upper management to do more with less these days, it is key to the success of your event marketing program to attract buyers to your trade show booth.  To respond to this unique challenge Exhibitor Magazine reports that 31% of event marketers are turning to social media as the mouthpiece for their event promotions. Whether you are new to the realm of social media or are an industry veteran, below are some tips to boost your trade show promotions using Foursquare.

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IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW
Foursquare is a social media mobile tracking device engineered to use GPS to map people (your customers) to trackable venues (trade shows). Create a Foursquare account to leverage your event communications and incentivize face-to-face attendance.

CHECK IN
During set up at your next event, “check in” to the trade show venue using the Foursquare mobile app on your smart phone under “Places”. By checking in you will be able to see attendees, customers and other exhibitors who have also checked in.

Don’t forget to look up your competitors' promotions by checking under “tips” and “all tips”.  The person who most often “checks in” to the venue is dubbed the "Mayor".

WIN WITH FOURSQUARE
Drive traffic to your booth by choosing to “friend” attendees and offer on-site “tips” (aka reasons to visit your booth – for live presentations, swag or a grand prize drawing).  Incorporating the Foursquare widget on your preshow online promotions is a good way to get attendees who do not already have the mobile app, to equip their smart phones. 

Dont for get to check back tomorrow to see how IPADS can help revolutionize your next event

Nomadic Kicks Off Thursday Night Football

You’ve seen us on Sunday Night Football on the Fox Sports Network, now you can catch us in the end zone, Thursday nights on the exclusive NFL Network. Our radiant blue set design made its anticipated appearance on last night’s nail biting game between the Baltimore Ravens and Atlanta Falcons.  We were in on the action as commentators hustled to give a detailed play by play. 

NFL spotted the vivid yellow sets designs that we produced for Fox Sports and were pumped to get a set design of their very own.  The Nomadic Solutions Studio geared up to create a unique custom set that offers unrivaled graphic impact, easy set up and shipping.

The NFL set joins other broadcast television custom sets by Nomadic Display including: Fox Sports, American Idol, America's Got Talent, Britain's Got Talent, and X Factor; Check out how these creative organizations are putting their Nomadic environments to work on pages 14 & 15.

If you missed seeing us this Thursday you can catch us next Thursday on the NFL Network. See you there!

Nomadic Takes a BOW at The Naval Museum Madrid

Nomadic Display creates an OCEAN of opportunities for the Spanish Navy Marines. The Infantry needed a platform to expand their mission critical recruiting efforts. The Armada's existing custom displays were too heavy and cumbersome to set up so the Spanish Navy Marines sought a lighter weight solution. They wanted a custom exhibit that would be easy to assemble and reconfigure to accommodate varied applications.

After reviewing hundreds of design proposals countrywide, The Spanish Navy Marines selected their premier supplier and issued marching orders to MSB Massa Barzano.  The local supplier, MSB Massa Barzano called on Nomadic to assist in the design and implementation of 20 custom displays. The final design enables the Spanish recruitment fleet to use the displays alone or combine them for use in larger venues. 

Magnetic graphic panels promote the Spanish Navy Marine’s slogan: “An Ocean of Opportunities” and are easily interchangeable to accomodate different target audiences. 

The shipping cases were seamlessly transformed into backlit graphic kiosks and converted into counters for product display.

All of the easily portable displays made their debut at the esteemed Naval Museum Madrid where key stakeholders remarked on the quality, ease of assembly and versatility of the custom exhibits.  The Spanish Navy Marine's custom displays will continue to promote infantry enlistment in their anticipated installation at 5 Naval bases throughout Spain. 

Download our free whitepaper to see how Nomadic Display can take your event marketing program FULL SAIL

Don't forget to check back this Thursday on how to use Foursquare as a springboard for your event promotions.

What You're Missing on Your Event Press Releases

DONT GET SNAGGED ON THE WIRE BEFORE YOUR PRESS RELEASE HITS THE WIRE

Press releases are an excellent promotional vehicle to gain market exposure for your next event. Whether you are using an outside vendor to submit company  wide press releases or are pushing them out on your own, below is a list of things to remember before your next release hits the wire; this is information that is often left off press releases, yet sought after by journalists and other key constituents.

1) The name and location of the show you are exhibiting at.  How many times you have exhibited at this particular show in the past? Are you a veteran exhibitor? Are you a sponsor? If so what level of sponsorship?

2) Your booth number and the first and last names of the people that will be manning your booth. Journalists and others use this reference to map out in-person visits.

3) A contact name and cell phone number of the person responsible for managing your presence at the show (most likely you). Journalists often need quick access to an on-site spokesperson or expert when drafting a story.

4) Links to your Web site or specific links to product information. If your website has an events calender provide the url .  If you are tweeting from the event, provide the journalist your Twitter username so that he/she may monitor the event activity remotely. 

5) Logos, product shot visuals and compelling booth photographs. A picture says a thousand words. Photos and logos provide much needed graphic elements for journalists while making your news stand out from the rest of exhibitors.  Make sure to provide any information regarding new product launches or special offers that you are featuring in your booth. 

Stay tuned next Tuesday to see Nomadic take a BOW at the Spanish Naval Museum Madrid

4 Tips to Drilling Down Your Social Media Platforms

Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN and Foursquare are enjoying widespread adoption by event and exhibit marketers.  The Trade Show Exhibitors Association (TSEA) recently reported that event professionals are projected to spend more time than ever engaging buyers through social media outreach .  A full one-third of event marketers are already spending an average of six hours per week on driving their promotions through social media channels. Social media will help you achieve your goals and gain invaluable customer loyalty.   Before your next event, put on your hard hats and keep these tips in mind

ONE: Be in the right place
Your target audience is not going to be immsersed in every social media site. Determine which platforms your audience is involved in and spread your message accordingly.

TWO: Craft relevant communications
Provide value to your readers that is both brief and to the point.  Think quality over quantity.  For your SEO benefit, incorporate top keywords that link back to your website which can in turn improve your search engine rankings.  Additionally, using your keywords as hash tags on Twitter will expand the reach of your messaging.

THREE: Tune in
Responding to comments is the basis of a two-way communication. It’s essential that you cultivate your online relationships by engaging with your target audience.  Even a simple “@______ thank you” shows that their connection is valuable to you.

FOUR: Evaluate
Monitor your social media performance by pulling simple metrics such as, visits to your corporate website from social sites (via referral) using Google Analytics and aggregate click rates through Bit.ly,.

Create streams based on your top keywords to monitor conversations pertaining to your audience. you can create keyword streams in various social media dashboards such as TweetDeck and Hootsuite. 

DRILL BABY DRILL !!!
Keeping in mind the above best practices, you should be able to resonate with customers and will see both soft and hard results such as: increased brand
awareness, enriched relationships with clients and prospects, additional press coverage, increased event attendance, increased booth traffic, and even increased sales as direct results of social campaigns.

Nomadic Stars in Tools of the TRADEshow

  
As a forerunner in the exhibit industry, we pride ourselves on our longstanding history of customer satisfaction. Our innovative exhibit design solutions, exceptional customer service and high quality custom modular and custom portable displays, earned us a top spot in Conventions.net October e-newsletter, Tools of the TRADEshow.

Conventions.net is the world's leading online resource for Trade Shows, Conventions, Corporate Events, Conferences, and Meetings.  Tools of the TRADEshow was sent to over 70,000 industry insiders like your self! Being featured as top supplier for our one-of a-kind trade show displays touches on our dedication to our clients and our ongoing unique product offerings. 

Read the Conventions.net newsletter to get the full story on how we revolutionized the display industry. From vibrant graphics, to custom modular displays, see how we can take your tradeshow performance to the next level, download our free Capabilities brochure

Knocking out the knock-offs: How do you choose the right pop-up in today's market?

I was speaking with a new salesperson recently about all the changes happening throughout the pop-up segment of our industry. Imports driving prices down. Consolidation. Relationships between Manufacturer, Distributor and Customers torn down and then reinventing themselves. The Internet — the only constant seen throughout the past 30 years is the presence of change itself.

After a few minutes of what was probably a boring history lesson for this young salesperson, I was intrigued by his first question— if the pop-up market is getting more and more aggressive in lowering costs, why is Nomadic launching accessories that seem to add to the average cost of a pop-up display? Excellent question, I told my young squire.

The vast majority of today’s pop-up displays – and there are dozens if not hundreds that I can see, are being marketed as one thing and one thing only… large graphic backwalls with little more functionality than providing its owner with a temporary, portable billboard. If that is how all pop-ups are being judged, then why WOULDN’T a savvy buyer want to buy the lowest priced version that provides that capability?

In order to answer the salespersons query, I had to go back to my history lesson. More than 34 years ago, when Nomadic’s founder, Ted Ziegler, invented the world’s first pop-up display system, he over-engineered it. Back in 1975, Ted wasn’t trying to make a graphic backwall. Ted was trying to make portable buildings. These portable buildings (temporary field hospitals for the military) would require stability and strength while still offering ease and speed of set-up. The rest, as they say, is history.

It’s Ted’s original engineering that provides Instand the strength to support more weight than any other pop-up on the market. This over-abundance of strength has allowed Nomadic to recently develop a line of new accessories for the Instand that transform “a simple graphic backwall” into a multi-functional display system that just happens to be lightweight and easy to set-up.

So, I explained to the young salesperson, the reason Nomadic has launched this new line of accessories in a world of low-cost pop-ups can be summed up like this— Instand should not be judged as a pop-up display system at all. Rather, it should be judged as a highly customizable display solution that happens to come from pop-up stock.

And now you can have the world's most popular pop-up at historically low prices. Check out our Instand accessories and foundation and see the Nomadic difference.

Lions, tigers and... oh my!

Sunday was a gorgeous day here in Washington with a bright blue sky, warm sunshine and cool, dry air...the first taste of Spring. My husband and I wanted to spend the afternoon outdoors, get a little exercise and reconnect with our inner child. So we decided to pop the top on the Miata and drive down to the National Zoo.

An hour later we were at the Panda pavilion. Mei Xiang, our expectant mother, was snoozing in the sun in a corner spot making it difficult to see her.

Next we headed over to the elephant house. It was undergoing construction...we wondered where elephants, hippos and giraffes go while their home is being renovated? We walked around to see the gorillas and then the big cats.... lions, tigers.

Went down to watch the sea lions show off their superior swimming and sunbathing skills.

The sounds of live entertainment grew louder as we approached the center of the park. Vendors were selling crafts and refreshments. Imagine my surprise when we came upon a US Dept of Agriculture tent with an Instand display! The giant graphic was an illustration promoting nutrition. As you can see it certainly did its job attracting youngsters.

In my twenty-four years with Nomadic, I have to admit it wasn't my first surprise encounter with a Nomadic display. Instand shows up everywhere...even at the Zoo! No wonder it’s the most popular portable in the world.

Now you can have your very own at historically low prices. Check out our selection today.

Announcing the Winner of Nomadic's "Search for Songbird to Seize a Show Smart Solution" Contest

Our thanks to everyone that showed how "smart" they were in finding the red songbird among the new featured specials on our web site. The winning design is AB2015OEN.

Drum roll please...and the winner of a complete 8' Instand display is 

Daniel McDonnall
Ripple

Congratulations!!

Gwen Parsons
Senior Vice President
Nomadic Display

Captain's Log: Beyond the Holodeck

I remember sitting down with my Dad when I was a kid and watching my first Star Trek episode with Captain Kirk. I have not missed a single one since. Yes I proudly call myself a Sci-fi Geek and more specifically a Trekkie. I’ve boldly followed the final frontier voyages of Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway and Archer.

Back in 1999, our Instand C34 frames made their TV debut as the backdrop on Star Trek Voyager's Holodeck. Of course, now you can regularly see our Instand frame as the backdrop in the auditions on American Idol--TV's most popular top-rated reality show.

But there is nothing like your first gig. So if you are curious as to what was behind all of the fancy off-world virtual adventures, take a look at these.

   

This clearly shows that Nomadic’s products truly are versatile and can be used for any kind of environments, even ones in outer space! So if the producers of Star Trek Voyager and American Idol could make Instand work for them, then you should be able to easily use our displays at your next trade show convention.

And now our infamous Instand frames are at historically low prices. That's right. Our most popular solutions are now more affordable than ever before. Be sure to check them out.