Find your customers; don't make them find you
July 1, 2010 by Dave Haynes
I like the annual DSE trade show because it is a central place to catch up with a lot of customers. BUT, my customers are mostly vendors working in the digital signage sector.
As a former booth bunny at these shows, selling for software companies, I’ve always had big questions about the costs versus benefits. There are definitely business prospects walking in, but the event is in many respects the digital signage equivalent of an international Rotary convention. It’s a lot of industry people talking to other industry people.
I note this because I have a lot of respect for companies who go off the well-beaten path and target well-defined verticals by attending their shows. Do I really want to be one of 75 software companies selling pretty much the same thing at an uber-show? Or the only guys with that product at a targeted show?
I tilt toward the latter.
Consider this piece in DailyDOOH today:
Attendees at the Luxury Suite Directors Conference and Trade Show were the first to see the new collaboration of Magnetic 3D, global leader in glasses-free 3D display and 3D digital signage solutions; IdentityMine, a certified Microsoftdevelopment partner specialized in creating interactive user experiences through inventive design using technologies like Microsoft Surface, Windows 7, Silverlight, and WPF; and Omnivex Corporation, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and provider of enterprise software for digital signage networks.
The companies collaborated to bring a cutting-edge and immersive experience to attendees of the Association of Luxury Suite Directors Conference and Trade Show June 27-30 in New York. Founded almost 20 years ago, the ALSD has close to 1,000 members.
Omnivex is a company that takes space at a lot of trade shows, but I am guessing they were the only DS guys there. I see the same thing with a few companies targeting hospitality and auto, but MOST still dutifully blow their budget on the big DSE event.
I’m not suggesting for a millisecond that companies not support DSE and CET World (the Show formerly known as Kioskcom), but if was planning event budgets I’d be looking for events that were target-rich and where my stuff didn’t have to be found in a crowd.
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