Tradeshow Fails!

I recently attended the RSA conference in San Francisco and although I spent most of my time at my company's booth, I managed to walk around and take in the rest of the exhibit hall. It never ceases to amaze me the scale of this show and the amount of awesome booths that scatter the floor. As you can imagine, I also managed to capture a couple of fails!

Chowing down on some food... right at the booth!

People have different opinions on tradeshow etiquette, in terms of what is acceptable and what's not, but I couldn't believe this one. Three people from this company sitting around the reception table at their booth eating their lunch (sidenote: the food looked delicious).

Okay, maybe this is a cultural difference, however most attendees at this conference were from North America and would be unlikely to interrupt someone's meal to have a conversation about that company's products and services.

Booth space at this conference is really expensive so every second you can be talking to prospects needs to be used. There are three people at this booth so they could have alternated when they ate and done so away from their booth.

Screen of death.

A couple of booths had these cool & interactive iPad-like screens where you could get information about the company and in some cases send yourself the datasheets and white papers. I think this is a great way to engage people on the tradeshow floor, get new names into your database and it's way better than cutting down a forest for all your brochures.

However, my former employer IBM seemed to be having some issues with theirs, and as I went to discover 'What is Watson' I was presented with a 'Not Responding' screen. Everyone has technology issues now and then, but it was unfortunate that it happened as I actually wanted to see what it would do.

Anyways, I always strive to bring the positive alongside the fails, so here are 3 tips that are guaranteed to make your next tradeshow more effective: 

1. Give attendees a reason to stop in and check out your booth
Give away a small/inexpensive prize on a regular and consistent basis. In order to win the prize, people need to stick around and listen to a quick overview about your company. This is your opportunity to educate attendees, make them familiar with your company, attract a big crowd and build your brand. You are already paying a lot to get the booth space, so put aside a little money for prizes and it will be well worth your while.

2. Follow-up with your attendees in a timely manner & make it engaging
Scott Stratten wrote a great marketing book called Unmarketing, where the focus is on engaging with your prospects. Tradeshows offer a great opportunity to do this, and you should use it to start a conversation with the people who stop by your booth as opposed to just blasting them with your brochure. Do it as soon as you can, on the same day they stopped by if possible, and you will be amazed with the results.

3. Speak at the conference
Although speak ops are usually expensive, there is a reason for that. It positions your company as a thought leader, and someone who is trying to solve the problems that attendees of the conference are having. As long as your presentation is not 'salesy' it will shift attendees view of your company from 'trying to sell me stuff' to 'trying to help me with stuff'. And that is a major difference.

Landing Page Fail

Digital marketing channels like email and social media are a huge part of the modern day marketing mix. However, this is making some of the 'old school' methods like direct mail more effective. For this reason, I was excited to get this direct mail piece from Symantec. It was all really well done, except the most important piece... the landing page.

THE EPIC MARKETING FAIL

So far so good, very creative/compelling direct mail piece

Upon receiving the letter, I was intrigued by the creative image of broken glass over a Facebook page in the large windowed envelope. The tagline, image and message all sparked my curiosity and made me want to open it. Inside the copy was structured around a new white paper. The twist here, is that they want you to access the white paper by scanning the QR code. Cool, I guess. Even better, the marketers introduced a time constraint: the first 250 people who scan it, win a USB Robot! Awesome.

Clever use of QR code and clear call-to-action with time constraint.

Up to this point I was actually thinking I might have to write a blog on Epic Marketing Wins! And then I saw the landing page...

Enormously long and unecessary form landing page.

Why? Why are you asking me for all of my information when you already have it?! You mailed me a letter, the only possible way I could have got to this landing page is by receiving the letter and scanning the code with my QR reader.

This one is really unfortunate. They almost had a home-run, but instead they struck out by sending a bunch of people to their landing page who will likely abandon it due to an enormous & unnecessary form. Who wants to fill out a huge form on their smartphone? Do they have any idea how hard it is to even click inside those tiny boxes?! [sidenote: it took me almost 4 minutes to fill out all the details. That is a lifetime on a smart phone].

THE UN-FAILURE

I need to give some kudos to Symantec for this campaign. They avoided the clutter of the email inbox and leveraged an under-utilized channel. The creative was compelling and actually creative (unlike a lot of campaigns you see these days), the content was good, and they had a compelling call-to-action.

This campaign demonstrates why marketing is only as strong as its weakest link. You could have the best creative, or the best content, or the best call to action, but if one piece is missing the entire campaign will suffer. In this case it's the landing page. A recent study by Marketo showed that for every field you introduce on your landing pages, your conversion rates decrease by 2%. I would imagine this is multiplied to be even higher on a mobile device.

The thing with this campaign is that it is not even necessary to have a form at all. If the campaign was optimized with a tool like QReate & Track they could have personalized the QR codes for each visitor and therefore automatically have known when each prospect scanned the QR code. Conversion rates would have been much higher, and the experience for the prospects would have been better too.

Ah well, here's to hoping I get my free USB robot in the mail...

Another QR Code Fail!

My first epic marketing fail blog post featured a QR code on the side of a highway on-ramp. I have found perhaps one that tops that one!

Fast moving QR Code Fail!

If someone can tell me what that ad is for without going to the website I will give you a cookie.

Epic Personalization Marketing Fail

Happy new years! Hope everyone had an awesome holiday, found some time to relax, spend time with family and friends, and maybe even let loose a little bit. Usually, I bring you guys Epic Marketing Fails, and that won't stop, but today as a 2012 bonus there is also an epic marketing win!

THE EPIC MARKETING FAIL

Apparently my name is N/A

This might not look like much at first glance, but trust me, it belongs on this blog. This is an email I got from someone who did not have my permission in regards to sponsoring some conferences in cities that are not even in my continent.

Those are all pretty bad, but even worse, is the personalization they use at the very start of the email. It tells me a few things:

• They don't know who I am
• They don't have a good email/marketing automation program
• They don't really know what they're doing

Can you imagine calling someone and as they answer the phone you say 'Hello Not Applicable, how are you doing today?'. I don't think that call is going to go very well, and neither did this email.

THE UN-FAILURE

I'm going to do this one a little differently, here is an example of how to do personalization properly:

Epic Marketing Win

This postcard was sent to me on my birthday this past winter by a guy who sold me my Volkswagen. In fact, he wasn't even the guy who we ended up ultimately buying the car from, but one who helped us along the way. Not only was it the only postcard I got on my birthday (my "friends" all wrote on my Facebook wall okay?!) but it was handwritten, included my finacee and arrived right on my birthday.

Here is a car salesman, who never got my business, who now lives in another city [I know this because he also sent me a separate letter about his whereabouts] and is really leveraging some direct marketing best practices. This kind of stuff blows me away.

It's kind of sad that with all of the technology that some marketers have, they are still missing the boat on how to use it to their advantage.

Here are 5 tips to avoid some common email marketing fails:

1. Use permission based marketing - get people to opt in to your emails. It will make a world of difference for everyone involved.
2. Have a clear and compelling call-to-action - you have a matter of seconds to communicate value and get your prospects to make the next step. 
3. Leverage good content - if you want people to take the next step, there needs to be some value in them doing so. Value for them, not you.
4. Subject lines are key - if your prospects don't open your message it doesn't matter what is inside.
5. Use personalization... properly - personalization can definitely help your email marketing, if used properly.

Mobile Marketing Fail

I love my iPhone. It is one of the best pieces of technology, if not the best, that I have ever owned. It really makes my life easier & better. Since iOS5 I moved all my email from Hotmail over to iCloud for better syncing between my phone and email account. Then, I got this email from Hotmail, saying that they have improved the iPhone experience.

THE EPIC MARKETING FAIL

Honestly the email is good. Good subject line, simple design, clear, obvious calls to action, and they have made it pretty interactive with the like and dislike buttons. Being an iPhone user the most interesting part of this email was 'Hotmail on the go'.

They say "We've improved the Hotmail experience on all major smartphones including the iPhone". Being on my iPhone at the time, I was intrigued as to what these improvements could be. Had they fixed the sync issue? So I clicked the link and got taken to this wonderful page:

Despite claiming that they have made some improvements to their mobile mail application, the experience trying to actually see what those improvements are was a fail.

THE UN-FAILURE

I managed to see what the benefits really were when I got back on my PC, and they have not fixed the syncing issue yet, so the unfailure for this blog post is... iCloud mail. Well, that's part of it.

The main unfailure here is making sure that the mobile experience from your email marketing is as seamless as possible for the people who consume your marketing on their mobile devices. In a recent study conducted by Knotice, they found that mobile email opens accounted for over 20% of total emails opened. This shows why it's crucial that your email can be properly consumed on mobile devices.

This number is only going to grow as more and more people get smart phones and the phones themselves get better. Make sure you have a good email marketing template that works across multiple devices and that your landing pages are optimized for mobile users... especially if you are targeting your message directly at that audience!

TV Commercial Fail

Like I mentioned in my first post, I wanted to start this blog to have some fun, but also to help businesses with their marketing. This week, I am featuring a TV commercial from one of my favorite Greek restaurants in Ottawa, Pilos.

THE EPIC MARKETING FAIL




Last night was a typical Saturday night, watching some Hockey Night in Canada over at a friend's place when this commercial came on. It was perfect timing too, because I was just thinking I needed some new material for the blog.

Where do I start with this one? I'm guessing the creative process went something like this:

1. Let's focus on our great food
2. Let's play some traditional music so people know it's a greek restaurant
3. Let's have our name and address so people can find us

They had all the right ingredients here, however the execution was poor. The rotating shots of their dishes make the food look bad, and aside from the music and colours, I really don't think there was enough focus on the fact that it is a Greek restaurant.

Being someone who has been to this restaurant before I KNOW the food is really good, but if this was my first exposure to it, this commercial would probably not compel me to go to the restaurant.

THE UN-FAILURE

This commercial looks like it was put together with a powerpoint presentation with some music edited over it. I'm sure they had a small budget for production, and it shows. 

Here's the thing: purchasing ad space is not cheap. Buying expensive ad space and then using a cheap commercial is like saving up to go out for dinner at a really nice restaurant showing up in sweatpants and a Nascar shirt. You give off the wrong impression.

If you are going to drop the money to market to the masses, make sure you are lead with your best foot forward. If I was doing an ad for this business, I would do something like this:

• Show a beautiful shot of the Mediterranean sea and a typical Greek village
• Have someone dressed in traditional Greek clothing, enjoying themselves
• Show a chef slicing off some lamb off a kebab
• Tagline, 'Experience the best Greek cuisine in Ottawa, visit Pilos'

Let people see & taste the actual food when they come into your restaurant. They'll be pleasantly surprised.

Radio Commercial Fail

Take a quick listen to the embedded video, and do it with your eyes closed.

Voice made for magazine ads

THE EPIC MARKETING FAIL

Does anything stand out to you? Did you catch the part about 50 fragrances, the exclusivity to the Bay, or the new trailer for the Gucci fragrance? My guess is that you were just focused on the sound of the woman's voice.

The woman in the ad is Bonnie Brooks, and she is the current President and CEO of the Bay. The Bay is Canada's largest merchandise retailer. Mrs. Brooks is an extremely accomplished executive who has worked in many senior positions including in marketing for the world's largest retailers. 

To be honest, I don't have much experience with radio commercials, but I have heard enough of them to know when one stands out. And this one does, but for the wrong reason. Her voice.

Am I the only one who thought her voice was just not made for radio? I decided to go where I always do when I have have a question of critical importance... Twitter. Here is some of what I found:

Needless to say, these people are not very positive, but there were some positive tweets as well, like this one:

You might be thinking to yourself, people are only going to comment on Twitter if it's negative. Well, that's not the case. I looked at ALL the tweets that came up for 'Bonnie Brooks' since the start of November. Here's what I found:

• 11 - Positive
• 13 - Neutral
• 50 - Negative

Out of 74 tweets, 67% of the people commenting on Twitter were negative. What am I trying to say here? These radio ads are having a negative impact on the Bay's overall brand.

THE UN-FAILURE

I can fully appreciate why a company would use their CEO on their ads. Apple built it's brand around Steve Jobs and look how that turned out. A leader of a company can express the company's voice to the market and can appear as a celebrity in their own right.

The problem is, not everyone was made to do TV and Radio commercials. There is something to be said about hiring talent to do voiceovers or acting. These people just have that certain something that makes your advertising to the next level.

One thing could have saved this commercial from ending up on epic marketing fails is testing. With tools like marketing automation and Twitter it's much easier to gauge how your audience is reacting. The Bay commercials with Bonnie Brooks have been going on for years now. A quick search on Twitter could have shown how their market was reacting.

I really respect what Bonnie Brooks has done for the Bay. Making it a more upscale department store and leveraging the great name that the store has earned over 341 years of business! [Sidenote: That is a long time! I knew they have been around forever but I didn't know it was THAT long]. I hope I am half as successful in my career as she is. I also hope that they figure out another, better way, to leverage their CEO, and leave the radio ads to some hired guns.

P.S.

This is too good not to share:

Bonnie Brooks impersonator