How Do You Update Your Booth?

What new ideas do you use to update your booth at the Pack Expo Trade show? I see a lot of companies spending tens of thousands of dollars on building new displays each year. They are correct in trying to look new and updated. If you order the same carpet and use the same display and/or background year after year, you start to date your company. In today’s highly competitive market, no company can afford to look old, boring, or unimaginative.

We hold a post-show meeting after every show and bring together all the employees who attended. We ask them what they thought about our booth and about some of the other booths they saw at the show. What stood out to them as appearing to be high tech, new and exciting? We write down all their thoughts and ideas and later try to implement the ones everyone agreed looked good. I like to think we have a very creative group because we’ve come up with some really exciting new ideas. If you are a regular to the Pack Expo shows you know that NEM is re-known for the ‘flying yellow bottles’ display. I admit we have been doing this for well over 10 years and we always talk about changing it. But that is the one thing that consistently draws crowds to our booth. So instead of changing something that works, we decided to look elsewhere to give NEM a more high tech look.

This year our booth will feature shiny wood floors instead of carpet and blinds instead of drapes at the back of the booth. Our machines will be placed on shiny diamond-plate skids, and we will feature one integrated production line in place of stand alone individual machines. If you are going to the show, don’t miss our booth at S-2247. What new ideas do you have for your booth display/decoration?

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at http://www.neminc.com/.

Are Holiday Cards Effective?

Every year our company sends out and receives ‘holiday’ cards. If the ones we receive are not personally addressed to an individual, our receptionist opens them and hangs them in the front office. If it is a particularly unusual or ‘cute’ card she will bring it to others attention. Otherwise, it gets hung up and few people take the time to read them all to know who sent us cards. The non-personalized, ‘average’ cards are not doing their job for the sender.

When I started at NEM I discovered that prior to my arrival someone had designed a holiday card specifically for our company and products. It was really cute and depicted a Santa filling an unscrambler with large letters. The unscrambler stood the letters up on the conveyor to read ‘Happy Holidays’. Some of the letters were backwards, so the next machine on the line was an NEM secondary orienter that correctly oriented the backwards letters. Next in the line was an NEM capper that placed little Santa hats on each letter. The final machine was an NEM cap tightener. Everyone loved the card for its uniqueness and appropriateness for our company. When it was opened at a company, it was passed around for others to see. It achieved its purpose. In subsequent years we updated the cover and started adding personalized poetry inside. It’s important to update it every year to keep it unique and interesting. It’s also important to make sure every card is sent to an individual and not just to the company in general.

If you have an unusual or clever idea for holiday cards, share it with us.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at http://www.neminc.com/.

Will ‘Big Brother’ Really Be Able to Watch Us?

A few years ago I read an article that claimed that within the next 10 years, every product we purchase will have a unique code imbedded in the product. The code will allow anyone with the right type of scanner to know exactly what products you have in your home by simply driving by the house and pointing the scanner at your home. The idea sounds a little far-fetched to me, but I won’t completely dismiss it as a possibility.

The technology is supposed to be currently under development. The ability to have this technology serves several purposes. First, it will allow shoppers to simply push their cart past a scanner to ‘ring up’ everything inside the cart at once. Then the shopper can pay for the items and take them out to their car where they can place them in bags or boxes to get them home. It will save tremendous time and cut personnel at the check out lines. Next, it will allow marketers to know what products an individual purchases regularly. Also, by driving by homes and noting what products are stored in that home, the marketer will know what addresses to target with specific promotions or coupons. For example, if a house has a number of baby products inside such as formula, disposable diapers and baby food, the marketers will know they should target this address for baby and pre-school items.

It feels disconcerting to me that someone driving by my home might someday be able to know all that information about me without my knowledge. I have to stop and think whether this is progress or an invasion of privacy. Will I appreciate the coupons that I’ll receive as a result of someone having this knowledge, or will it just creep me out that someone can know all these things I may not want them to know, like what medications are in my home? Let me know your thoughts on this potential packaging development.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at http://www.neminc.com/.

Trade Show Booth Worker Training

How do you train your booth staff for a trade show? In our case there are two separate sets of workers. We have our in-house sales personnel and our outside sales representatives. For the in-house sales personnel we have a pre-show meeting to discuss what is expected of all booth workers. We prepare a lunch schedule so that they take their lunch breaks at the show in shifts. If there is new technology that we will be presenting at the show for the first time, we set up a meeting prior to leaving for the show at the machinery. Our engineers are there to fully explain the new technology, its features and benefits and allow the sales personnel to ask questions. By the time our in-house personnel arrive at the show, they are well prepared.

For the outside sales representatives we host a training seminar in our booth that starts one house before the show opens on the first and second days of the show. We require all sales reps to attend one of the training sessions prior to working the booth so that they too can be brought up to date on our latest technology. We bring in coffee and breakfast (muffins, bagels, danish, etc.) on those days to make sure that everyone gets something to eat before the show starts.

The training does not take a whole lot of effort or time, just some coordination, but the payoff is huge. When someone walks into our booth at the show anyone they speak to is able to assist them and answer the majority of their questions as well as pass on the education on the features and benefits of our machinery. This makes a good impression on the visitors who don’t have a lot of time to wait to speak with only one or two qualified individuals in the booth.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at http://www.neminc.com/.

Where Do You Look For Leads?

Sales Departments are always looking for new sources of leads. Some companies pay for leads generated by a third party company. Other companies buy lists from organizations. My favorite leads are the free leads. They are a little harder to come by and take a little more time to qualify, but the price is right and it helps keep the challenge of pure selling exciting.

There are a lot of places to look for free leads. The easiest source is, of course, the internet. The internet contains lots of opportunities to find leads. For the packaging industry there are the commercial web sites such as GlobalSpec and Thomas.net. There are also the industry organization websites that specialize in the various industries (i.e. water, pharmaceutical, beverage). For specific geographic territories, there are the local Economic Development Councils and/or Chambers of Commerce. Many states also offer lists of businesses registered within their state. Magazines often list the registered members in their annual membership issue. Just recently I was handed a workbook that was created by the pharmaceutical industry for recruiting pharmaceutical salespersons. The back of the workbook contained a national listing of pharmaceutical companies along with contact information for each one. What a great list of free leads!

Train your entire company, family and friends to look for new leads. My husband is a truck driver. He knows what type of machinery my company manufactures. When he has a delivery of products that our machinery could help package, he writes down the name and address of the shipper. I then can turn over a viable lead to our Sales Dept. Leads are everywhere once you start to look for them.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at http://www.neminc.com/.

How Do You ‘Keep it New’, ‘Keep It Fresh’?

If you have been doing the same job for many years, how do you keep the job new and exciting? In marketing it is vital to stay on top of new ideas and bring a fresh perspective to your products. There are many ways to do this. For some it might be to take a vacation away from everything pertaining to work to give your mind an opportunity to refocus, refresh and renew. When you come back, you may see everything in a different light. Another way is to seek out classes or courses on the latest changes in your industry and/or field of work. You might also visit trade shows for your industry and spend an entire day just walking through all the exhibits to see what others are doing and how they are doing it.

My personal preference is to take classes and/or courses. I have never attended a seminar or course in which I didn’t walk away with at least one new idea. Sometimes it’s a matter of taking a new idea and manipulating it to fit your business. The hard part is to actually implement the new idea once you get back to your daily job. It is too easy to ‘put it off’ until you have more time. That day never comes. So add it to your current ‘Must Do’ list to make sure it does not fall through the cracks. Sometimes a new idea or concept works for a while and then starts to lose value. If that’s the case, then it’s time to stop using that concept and come up with something new. For example, a number of years ago I attended a seminar that suggested the Sales and Marketing Dept. hold a weekly meeting in which everyone wrote with crayons and sat playing with modeling clay while coming up with new ideas. It worked for a while, but like many things, over time the meeting and concept became so ordinary that it no longer assisted us in developing new ideas so we stopped the meetings. Now we have impromptu meetings, sometimes at lunch over pizza to brainstorm new ideas.

Feel free to share with us your ideas on how to keep your products fresh and what you do to inspire creative thinking.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.

Do You Have Written SOPs?

Does your company have written Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for every individual task performed by all employees? Most companies do not and therefore waste valuable time in re-training new employees. It is a big task to get it done, but it is well worth the effort in the end. It is a great feeling to hand a new employee a packet of written instructions that will tell them step by step how to perform all the duties they will be expected to perform.

If you decide to create SOPs, the best way is to ask each employee to spend a few minutes each day writing step by step instructions for just one of their tasks. By the end of the month (if not much sooner), they should have a stack of written procedures for everything they do. The hard part is then to get someone else to read them and try to follow the instructions to see if they are written well, clearly, accurately and produce the necessary end result of that task. If so, they should then be put into a binder and reviewed and updated as necessary. Once you have all your employees daily procedures documented, it makes hiring on new employees a much quicker process with a smoother transition period and accelerated learning curve.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at http://www.neminc.com/.

Give-Aways Otherwise Known As Tchotchkes

Wikipedia defines Tchotchkes as “small toys, gewgaws, knickknacks, baubles, lagniappes, trinkets, or kitsch. The term has a connotation of worthlessness or disposability, as well as tackiness, and has long been used in the Jewish-American community and in the regional speech of New York City. The word may also refer to swag, in the sense of the logo pens, key fobs, and other promotional freebies dispensed at trade shows, conventions, and similar large events.” The value of the tchotchke is basically determined by what new business it can bring to the advertiser. Why else would companies spend millions of dollars a year purchasing these items to give them away?

The big question is still – ‘Are they worth it?’ Do they actually assist in bringing in new business. If bought for the correct use and purpose and distributed to the correct audience, they can help bring in new business. To me, the whole purpose of giving away these items is to keep your company’s name and contact information in front of your potential customers so that if they need something you sell, they will immediately think of you. So you first need to determine - who are your customers? If you are selling parts to maintenance people, you want items they will keep on their person, such as small flashlights, pens, tape measures. They don’t spend much time at their desks and it helps to keep your name and phone number or web address close at hand. If your customers are engineers who spend most of their day sitting behind a desk, you may want to use items such as pens, pen holders, notepads, or other desk-type accessory. I advise against giving away toys. Trade show attendees love to bring them home from the exhibitions to give them to their children to play with. Your customer never sees it again as it is in their children’s toy box. So before purchasing tchotchkes for your next show, make sure you have a specific audience targeted and the right item to give away.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at http://www.neminc.com/.

Fall Is Trade Show Season

Yes, it’s almost fall once again and the start of ‘trade show season’ for most industries. If you are new to marketing the prospect of dealing with handling all the aspects of a trade show may seem daunting. I remember the first time I was handed a 3” thick 3-ring binder for a trade show and told, “Here’s the binder. Take care of all the show arrangements”, I was quite intimidated. Fortunately, the gentleman handing over the binder and the reigns to the trade show, was kind enough to ‘walk me through’ the first show. Since that time I’ve taken trade show prep classes, read hundreds of articles, and learned a lot from trial and error.

It turns out the binder (which is now actually all on-line), was the easy part. It’s the pre-show marketing, booth worker training and coordination, shipping, set up and tear down that hold all the challenges. The binder is simply a listing of supplies and services that are available for ordering. The most important thing about the show ‘manual’ material is to watch for the discount deadlines so you can save your company money.

I found the best way to prepare for any show is to create a ‘template’ of everything that needs to be handled with a place for dates and a check-off list. When it’s determined you will be exhibiting at a show, fill in the dates when the items need to be completed. Check the list at least once a week and you won’t miss any important deadlines. I have another check-off list that itemizes everything that needs to be shipped to the show. I keep a ‘show box’ of desk-type items that never gets unpacked, but is replenished before shipping to every show. The box includes items such as a stapler, pens, pads, tape dispenser and extra tape, marking pens, velcro, paper clips, rubber bands and a bag of miscellaneous small nuts and bolts.

Our company has also built a ‘show box’. The box is about 6’ long by 4’ wide and 7’ high. The outside is covered in stainless steel sheets and it has doors that lock at either end. We attach flyer holders to the outside as well as a flat screen TV to show our videos and a small drop down table to hold a DVR. The inside allows us to store our coats and personal items, keep a supply of extra spare parts and tools for the machines and is even equipped with a small refrigerator so we can bring our own cold drinks to the show. It is a wonderful addition that I don’t know what we did without before building it.

If it’s your job to organize your company’s trade shows, don’t forget that the biggest reason you are attending the shows is to get the leads. Make sure you have a plan to contact every customer who stops in your booth as soon as the show is over. Make that your number one post-show priority.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at http://www.neminc.com/.