- Make yourself seen and noticed, and make it very clear what your company does.  People are less likely to approach you if they are unsure of what you do.  Having a banner helps immensely, like this one -

- Find out how big the table will be that is at your booth.  These can look crappy if they are not covered.  Find a table cloth, or even wrapping paper to cover it with.  Wrapping paper tends to be about the width of a standard sized table…but no guarantees – you absolutely should look into this.

- Call to action – what do you want to accomplish at the trade show?  It is great to get exposure to consumers or potential clients, but they are seeing so much at the show that you want to make sure you are remembered and continue to stay in touch with them.  I would recommend collecting emails (or some sort of contact information) for a raffle – you can give everyone who signs up a minimal prize from your company, like a free one month trial, or $10 off (if this is possible for your business), and give a grand prize winner a larger prize from your company (free service for a year, $200 GC) or even a $100 restaurant GC or iPad (if giving away your own stuff doesn’t make sense.)

- Branded items are great to give out – and get creative.  Dashlane gave me a fortune cookie with a branded fortune the other day – which I thought was super creative.  Do something that makes sense for your company.  Its also great to pass out some type of flier with a nice visual, communication of what your company is/does, and your website/social media information.

- You should have SOMETHING TO DO at your booth.  This will vary greatly for every company, but if you just have a few fliers and a person sitting behind the table to answer questions, you are very unlikely to make much traction.  Give people a reason to come see you – yes, if you portray your product/service correctly you may think that this is enough – but it may not be.  Give people another reason, at the very least give them some candy!  These things are competitive….everyone is vying for the attention of potential customers – MAKE YOURSELF STAND OUT!

That’s all for now!  I’m really trying to be more frequent here.  I’ve been working for Rubinson Partners  on some really exciting/disruptive market research in CPG, social media, and digital media AND I just started working in PR/Social Media for The Content Factory and some marketing/business plan help for a stealth startup (more to come on this when I’m allowed to talk about it). So needless to say, I have been super busy but am really enjoying my work.  I’m sure I’ll have lots of interesting stuff to talk about, as soon as I have more time to write about it!

Have a great weekend!

Julie

http://about.me/juliebirving

You might be wondering – who started the Rukkus? It all started with this guy. After missing the Chili Peppers every time they were in town, Manick wanted a better way to keep tabs on his favorite artists and score cheap tickets. And so Rukkus was born, in an apartment with a whiteboard and a few packs of red bull. Manick previously worked at Goldman Sachs, but don’t let his big time corporate past fool you- he played in bands while at Duke and has been a part of the music scene for years.  He currently expresses his musical inclinations with impromptu office serenades.

Jeffrey Chu – Developer

Jeff recently graduated from SUNY Buffalo and now manages the 0’s and 1’s for Rukkus.  Jeff, a native New Yorker, is known for his incredible sweet tooth and his soft spot for cute cuddly dogs.  Jeff is a monster when it comes to coding.  He has been known to learn new languages in a weekend.

Angela McCrory – Design

Angela, simply put, makes things look pretty. An award-winning painter and photographer, Angela designed Rukkus’s interface and logo, helping create a visually distinct brand. She will soon be finishing a master’s degree in architecture.  She hopes to one day architect Rukkus’s HQ, likely a tree house-fort hybrid, and paint murals across all the walls.

Alex Costantini – Biz Dev

Alex comes to Rukkus from Sony Music and is also getting his MBA at NYU Stern.  Alex does many things at Rukkus including reaching out to potential partners, but has recently taken up coding and is not a fan of OAuth.

Uma Huggins – Intern

At Rukkus Uma drinks coffee, updates social media outlets, and thinks about marketing, the universe and Rukkus. Before this she recently finished her second year sitting in various rooms taking notes on economics at NYU. For fun, she writes poetry and volunteers at zoos.

Justin Bartosiewicz – Intern

Before Justin started at Rukkus in May, he was a full-time student at UConn working towards a degree in consumer behavior with a focus in marketing.  He graduated in early May and has been life guarding at public beaches part time on Long Island Sound for the past six years.  At Rukkus he helps maintain the blog, twitter, and helps out wherever he can. He is an avid concert-goer and he loves longboarding at night.

Click on the link below to see the result of all of their hard work!

http://www.rukkus.com

-       The ability to record every single thing, i.e. Facebook Timeline, has many interesting advantages (especially for marketers).  However, on an individual basis – who wants Facebook to recommend that we might want to become friends with our ex-boyfriend who cheated on us with our best friend in high school – or that creepy stalker guy you met at the bar last month?  When do social media networks know too much about us?  Where does it stop?  This was a common theme of the entire week and some of these specific issues came up.

-       Timehop.com – VERY COOL SITE.  Sign up and get emails sent to you every morning showing what you were doing (at least on Facebook and Twitter) last year.  It is very nostalgic, and makes you realize how fast time flies!  It is a free service – I’m not sure of their revenue model, but I like the concept.  

-       On Etsy people are buying a story as well as the product.  Is this scalable?  Fab.com thinks so, and this is what they say they are doing.  I’m not sure that this concept is really scalable.  There is something special about the earrings that my boyfriend buys from his cousin for me (she makes them).  If she made 20,000 of them, it just wouldn’t be as cool.  I’m not sure it needs to be scalable.  Etsy is a great business with lots of small merchants.  Many of them create artwork as a side job or supplement and aren’t necessarily trying to make it their livelihood. 

-       Advice from an entrepreneur: If you want to find out how to run your web business (or really any business) more efficiently, you can do something VERY simple.  ASK people who have unsubscribed WHY they left your site?  Very simple.  You can compensate them somehow; usually they will participate for a little caffination or something. 

-       Related to CDs/records and new technology today (by a music business veteran) – “I’d like to pass down records to my children!  It seems nowadays that the only thing my kids will get from me when I go is the password to my Klout score account.”  This may not have been the exact quote, but that’s the gist.  My kids will get my “Julie’s List of Music You Should Star” list on Spotify – and other than that, I encourage them to find the newest most exciting music! 

-       Pinterest – I’m sick of hearing about it frankly, and that’s all I have to say.  Not a lot of value for me right now.  I’d rather spend time on my blog, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  

So, enough of my random observations – what did you think of SMW?  What events did you really like?  I’m going to the Digital Music Forum today and will get to hear about the future of the music business from lots of startups that are changing the industry (and even my former employer, Clear Channel).  I’m also going to the MESA conference from Stern on Friday.  I also met with a couple interesting startups last week and I’d like to write about them.  Phew, busy week!  I’ll post more this weekend!

www.about.me/juliebirving

JulieBIrving@gmail.com

JWT had their CEO and their Director of Trendspotting (yes that is her title) speak to us.  He discussed Facebook capitalizing on all of our data that they currently possess and are gaining more and more of each day.

He also said something interesting, kind of the way that no one ever got fired for buying IBM – nobody ever got fired for marketing on Facebook.  He claims it is for “lazy marketers”.  I believe that can be the case if all you do is post a page up and expect it to grow itself.  Marketing effectively on Facebook actually can take a lot of time and effort – but I do want to also state that Facebook alone should never be your marketing strategy.  It needs to be more multi-dimensional.

He wasn’t a fan of Pinterest and felt that something personal was missing from it.  I personally don’t really get it yet myself, but will sign on to the site when I get a minute.

They made the point that Facebook dilutes what people really care about.  We know what everyone “likes” but what do they love!    I met a guy on Sonar that has 1000 likes yesterday!

A few more interesting facts from this event:

-73% of people say that they think people use social media to brag about their lives.  This puts social angst into overdrive, the fear of missing out

-48 hours of new Youtube content is uploaded every minute

-43% of people are more likely to purchase something if they have seen someone they know has purchased it on Facebook.  This effect is amplified for millennial s

I also went to the Techstars demo and would like to highlight a couple of the companies that I thought really stood out.  Just to clarify – if you are not familiar.  Techstars chooses “a class” of about 10-15 new startups every few months and mentors them to become more successful.  I believe that they also provide some funding.  Here is a couple that I thought were quite interesting:

-          Urtak – What I found the most interesting about this technology, is that it can be used to replace comments on articles.  If you compare the number of readers to the number of commenters on any article; whether it be a publisher or even a blog like this one, the ratio of commenters to readers is staggering.  Instead, Urtak opens it up to questions.  The publisher might ask one question, and then readers answer the questions and can ask their own.  This provides publishers with more information about who their readers really are.  In addition, they are planning on using this technology to make banner ads more interactive.  Their founder said that 1 in 10 people will participate in questions, but 1 in 100 will participate in commenting.  Check it out here:  http://www.urtak.com

-          Ordr.in – Is on a mission to unify all of the Seamlessweb’s and Grubhub’s of the world, as well as individual restaurant e-commerce platforms by building their own platform on top of existing technology.  They can also create branded e-commerce platforms for businesses such as hotels, which want to capitalize on their guests’ food orders by building branded applications for use in hotel rooms.  Another cool element is that you can order food directly on their Facebook page.  This goes back to what they were discussing in the keynote speech at JWT as to ecommerce making its way more onto Facebook.  Check it out here:  www.ordr.in

Now on to another day of social media week, meetings, and hopefully some V-day celebration!

JulieBIrving@gmail.com

http://www.about.me/juliebirving

I am not going to complain about cute animals in a commercial – I don’t care what the commercial is for – you got my attention.  That’s great for advertisers because I am in the most sought after demographic of the mysterious W 25-54.  The polar bears were cute too.

The boobs – eh not so much.  I kinda feel like the GoDaddy commercials were a little tad cheap.  They strictly target men – and I don’t know why?  Don’t women want to buy domain names too?  I just feel like their message is literally – “here’s a boob – buy our product”.

I feel like Budweiser had far more commercials than anyone…I wish they would spend more money on making their beer taste better, and less on advertising.  I don’t need to post a video here of Budweiser – I think we’ve seen enough.

Yay – go Giants!

Julie Irving

JulieBIrving@gmail.com

http://www.about.me/juliebirving

Don’t pick a station for the wrong reasons – Maybe you grew up with WXYZ and it was your favorite station.  You listen to it every day as you drive to and from work, and even sometimes while on the job.  You are what we call a “P1″ listener.  However, you sell widgets that appeal to a 55+ market and WXYZ is a top 40 station appealing to teens and W 18-34.  You might think that it is super obvious for you to not advertise on this station, but I have seen this mistake made many times.  You might also have a very charismatic and persuasive sales person.  That is great, and your sales rep should be persuasive because it is their job – but do your research and make sure that the station makes sense for you.

Don’t be cheap – Radio and other forms of mass media such as broadcast television, regional newspapers, etc. cost a certain amount of money to be effective.  I can’t tell you how much exactly for your business because it depends on your industry, your goals, your market, etc. etc.  The point is that you need to have enough “spots” running to gain a high frequency.  There are strategic ways to do this so that you can spend less money and still be effective.  I’ll explain how radio stations measure their ratings in just a minute, because it is important to understand.  The previously mentioned forms of mass media are not for everyone.  It just doesn’t always make sense from an ROI standpoint to advertise in mass media for every business.  There are a gazillion other ways to advertise, so if this doesn’t make sense for you right now – no sweat.  Here are a couple of tips to gain higher frequency on a budget:

1. Don’t neglect “fringe” commercials.  Primetime spots on radio are M-F 6a-10a and M-F 3p-7p.  This is because people listen to radio in their cars, and this is when they drive to work.  These dayparts are the most valuable, priced the highest, and are generally the least efficient from a CPP standpoint.  (Cost per rating point, a statistic used to determine how much it costs to reach people, basically radio’s CPM).  I recommend having commercials in primetime dayparts if possible.  However, depending on the type of business you have, you may want to focus on evenings and/or weekends.  You can have your spots run 20 times a week in the evenings (7p-12a) and the people who tend to listen at night will think you are the biggest baddest advertiser on the air!

2. Spot length – You don’t need :60s.  This used to be the traditional length of a radio commercial – but Clear Channel took the lead a few years back in offering :30s, :15s, and even :05s and :01s or “blinks”.  Unless you really need a long commercial, I generally recommend using a mix of mostly :30s and some :15s.  The :05s can be used in special circumstances, and no one except the top 20 brands should ever use a blink.  Its just more cost efficient – more commercials for less money!  Plus Gen Y and younger do not have the attention span for a :60 second commercial.

3. Focus- Another way you can make it sound like you are spending a WHOLE lot more money than you actually are is by heavily loading up on your ads on certain days of the week.  The days you choose can be determined by your industry and purpose.  For example, I had clients who wanted to recruit employees by advertising on radio.  These clients “front loaded” their commercials on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.  People think about changing their lives during the beginning of the week – they think about their family, or having a beer towards the end of the week.  Retailers traditionally load up towards the end of the week, since people tend to do more shopping on the weekend.

Good to know: How radio stations determine who is listening.

About a year before I left DC they switched from surveys to PPM.  However, I’m not sure if all markets have switched to PPM yet – although I can guarantee that all the major ones have definitely switched.  Arbitron (based in Columbia, MD my hometown!) determines through research, how many people are listening to a station, how long they listen, etc. and match this with their age/gender/race so that stations can determine their ratings.  They used to (and maybe still do this some places) determine this by passing out surveys for people to fill out manually.  They calculated how long people were listening to a station, and when they were listening to a station.  This is a really silly way of measurement because people got lazy and would report that they were listening to their favorite station for 24 hours a day, they wouldn’t report all of their listening, they wouldn’t report their listening when someone else in the car chose the station – basically its asinine.  They also paid people very small amounts of money to fill out these surveys.  Who responds to small amounts of payment for doing a lot of work?  The less affluent crowd.  All of these factors tremendously skewed the research.

They have been switching to “Portable People Meters” or PPM over the past few years.  This is much more accurate!  People are paid to wear a beeper looking thing that picks up the radio signals around them.  If their kid is listening to a station – it gets reported, if they hear a station in the grocery store – it gets reported.  Through the switch we discovered that people listen to an average of seven radio stations, up from three reported by the survey system.  PPM research shows significantly more people listen to each station, but for much less time.

When I would put together schedules for clients, I had a program that utilized this research to show the reach and frequency of each campaign.  Companies have to pay to have access to this information, so pretty much just radio companies and more established advertising agencies have access.  I do not have access now since I am not longer in the biz.  I could talk about this in much more detail, but my kitten is getting mad that I am writing such a long blog and neglecting him!

Don’t forget digital - For a little while, my sole purpose was to sell radio station websites – including banners, streaming commercials, pre-rolls, etc.  Most non-advertising people do not know this: When you buy a commercial on the air (broadcast) it does not play on the digital stream of the station.  Even if you buy one commercial on each, they will not play at the same time.  There is a whole legality behind this, but the point is – you need to buy them separately!  The radio stations are constantly pushing people to their websites AND its generally very inexpensive compared to broadcast.  Leverage radio’s digital assets in some capacity please!  Your ads are going to be more effective if people hear them on the air, and then see them on your site.  Ask your sales rep what percentage of their audience goes on their website.  Stations in smaller markets might not have as sophisticated and engaging websites.  Again – a topic I should probably write a whole blog on sometime, this is really just scratching the surface.

Don’t have crappy creative, no one cares that you have been in business for 40 years – I have seen so many clients put together terrible ads telling us all about how wonderful they are, how long they have been in business, all the awards they have won, their exact physical address, their website (with the www), their phone number 5 times.  Again, this topic probably deserves its own blog – and one day I will dedicate a blog to each of these topics!  If you do not have a creative agency or advertising experience work with your sales rep to help you with copy.  If you need someone to talk to about this, go to this guy:
http://www.yamanair.com/
.  I worked with him in DC, and now he works with CBS on a national level.  It is all about the consumer, speak TO them not AT them!  You need to get to the emotional core of what you are REALLY selling.  For example, you could be selling: more time with your family, the ability to attract more women, pride and confidence as an employee.  It is not about facts, it is about emotions.

So that’s all for now, I’ll have to expand on a lot of these topics later on.  If you have questions feel free to reach out to me at JulieBIrving@gmail.com.

You can also check me out here: 
http://about.me/JulieBIrving

AND – don’t forget to follow me on WordPress!

New tool I found: about.me – I started noticing that a lot of very social media savvy people were using this site, and it is actually rather cool.  It basically aggregates all of your social media onto one page.  Check mine out here: 
http://about.me/JulieBIrving
  You get a very large visual image of your choice, a place to put a mini biography, and links to all of your social media, blogs, email addresses, etc.  It lets you track analytics as well – so that is definitely going in my email signature now.

Google Reader – If you’ve never used an RSS feed before, you might have had no idea what I was talking about or how to implement this into your job search!  Here is the explanation I gave on LinkedIn:  So basically what I’ll do is go to a job search site such as indeed.com. You can do a search for let’s say, “Luxury Marketing in New York City paying $50,000+” Then you search for the RSS button…you can search on the page for the words RSS, or sometimes there will be the orange icon. When you click on these, they take you to a RSS feed page. You can copy and paste the web address, then go to “add subscription” in your google reader – and ta da! you are subscribed to this feed. Not every site has the exact same process. Some ask you what reader you use and will automatically link it. It should be pretty obvious which method the site uses. You can’t do this on every site, but you can do it on a lot of them. LinkedIn, for example, does not have an RSS feed for jobs – so I just have to check this site separately for job listings.

Google + – I got a couple recommendations that I should be using this in my job search.  I personally haven’t found much of a reason to be on Google + yet…but I am open to trying it out.  I believe that our social media presence is part of my grade for my Brand Strategy class I’m taking next semester – so that is motivation!  However, I really would love to be sold more on Google + – so let’s hear it you Googly people!  I am going to get on there anyway, but haven’t had time yet to establish myself on there yet.

Startwire – I LOVE that they found my blog and commented on it.  That just shows how attentive they are being to their customers.  I haven’t done anything to optimize this page for search yet, so they must have really dug for it!  Actually Nicole, if you see this one – I’d love to hear how you found me.  In addition, I would like to mention that the day after I signed up for this site, they sent me an email asking for my feedback on the user experience.  That is just great customer service – go Startwire!

Jibe – I’m not sure if they saw my blog or not, but a recruiter did follow up with me today.  So go Jibe!

That’s all for now.  I think my next blog will be related to my good ole’ days in radio advertising and marketing in more traditional media.  I feel like no one ever talks about that anymore.  We shall see!  Please feel free to comment and follow!

Thanks!

Julie Irving

JulieBIrving@gmail.com