For the past 22 years, APTCO has helped companies large and small to prepare to exhibit at trade shows. Most of our business activity is focused on that. Next week, I’ll be attending one of the biggest trade shows, the PPAI Expo, presented by Promotional Products Association International.
The PPAI Expo brings more than 12,000 distributors from nearly 4,000 companies together under one roof for the five-day event. The PPAI Expo features more than 1,200 exhibiting companies showcasing more than a quarter million products over 1,000,000 square feet of the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, the fifth largest convention center in the U.S. In addition to the booths, there are classrooms that will be filled with a variety of educational sessions covering everything from decoration techniques to product safety to case studies. The reason I’m going, to quote the movie line from Jerry MacGuire, is to “help me help you.” Whether you represent a school, a non-profit, a small business, a church, you have marketing needs.
I’ll have many of you in mind as I talk to other participants. Please let me know what you have coming up for 2018. Maybe there’s a new product launch. Maybe you’re planning a fundraising campaign. Maybe you have a need to thank special clients. Maybe it’s your most valuable asset, your employees who need to be recognized and rewarded this year. The more you can tell me about your goals, the better I can use this Expo experience to help you achieve them. Though I’ll be surrounded by the newest products, my questions for the suppliers will be all about how they are being used to produce marketing results. Here’s a great example:
A company exhibiting at a trade show handed out luggage tags to attendees. But not just any luggage tags. These had 3 removable tabs: one to deposit for a drawing, and 2 to hand off to other people on the show floor. Each time one of those tabs is brought back to the booth, the original recipient gets another entry in the drawing. And of course, the new person gets one too, and goes out eager to spread the message to still more people.
That’s viral marketing at its core. I’ll be exploring more examples at the Expo. Call me to see how to make it work for you.
Finding products is fairly easy; making them work for you is where you might need some help.
“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
~ Henry Ford
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