Sales & Marketing Management - November/December 2007 - (Page 12)

the Pitch MARKETING At Trade Shows, Listen Up Keep tabs on your competition through creative sleuthing don’t try to do anything nefarious or be super-sneaky, but there’s a lot you can learn just by walking around trade shows,” says Felix Lin, CEO of PickPackGo, an Internet startup applying Web 2.0 technology to vacation rentals. In the tech industry, product lifespans are short. That heightens the need to know what’s coming next from competitors, or from that tiny company no one’s heard of yet that’s got a 10x10 booth on the far aisle. The San Francisco-based Lin might go to trade shows as an exhibitor, but buyers are never his sole interest. To scope out competitors, he suggests you flip your badge over. “It’s very rare that someone will actually invade your personal space and turn your tag back over,” he says. “Next, look for a real customer and kind of tailgate [into a competitor’s booth]. They’ll ask the hard questions and you just listen to the response.” Lin says he’s picked up a lot of marketing secrets from the competition—what their direction is, how much venture capital they I have, etc.—just by asking. If they think you’re a customer, he says, they’ll tell you, especially if you choose younger, energized, talkative booth personnel to chat with. By being there when a competitor is doing a formal presentation to a group, “You’ll get a different story [than when there’s] just one person standing around, completely bored,” he says. So don’t go by a competitor’s booth just once. Lin is a do-it-yourselfer for gathering competitive intelligence. Others hire people like Arik Johnson, managing director of Aurora WDC in Chippewa Falls, Wis. “Most companies are poorly equipped to do trade show intelligence at the level that a professional does it,” Johnson says. “We can blend into the background.” Besides, he says, it’s not the best use of a company’s resources to have the people who are supposed to be selling out spying instead. Johnson says that trade show intelligence “has risen to prominence in the past two years or so.” That means competitors may be spying on you, too, and your own personnel at trade shows are your biggest risk as far as having them expose business practices. By way of example, Johnson was once hired to get prototype samples of a competitor’s engines … and did. He does offer the following caveat: “Ethically, you need to identify who you are.” Felix Lin agrees. “If they ask, you should always give your name,” he says. “But you’d be surprised how rarely people actually ask that information.” —Julie Barker CAMPAIGN APPLEBEE’S TARGET: An increasingly disconnected populace AGENCY: McCann Erickson, New York uniforms), a dynamic new ad campaign was called for. MEDIA: On October 28, a series of TV spots premiered during Extreme Makeover, Desperate Housewives and the fourth game of the World Series.The commercials feature a talking Red Delicious apple (voiced by comedienne Wanda Sykes), which persuades people to “come together” at Applebee’s. The spots had been preceded by a humorous teaser campaign,which saw “spokesapple audition”clips aired on the Applebee’s Web site and YouTube.“We have full national media buy on cable and network TV to support the campaign,” Tigges says. “We think the ads will resonate with consumers, recall as uniquely Applebee’s and entertain each time they air.”To supplement the TV spots,Applebee’s is running ads on Web sites that promote personal connections, such as reunion.com, evite.com and classmates.com. —Jeremy Cohen www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com CLOSE-UP The venerable restaurant chain repositions itself as a special place where friends and family can come together. MESSAGE: “Today, as people are short on time and pulled in many directions, it’s not uncommon to eat in a car,on the run,at our desks or over the sink,”says Applebee’s spokesperson Laura Tigges.“From the very beginning, Applebee’s has been known as a neighborhood place where people come together.So now,it’s more important than ever to offer a place where friends, family, teammates and co-workers can meet and reconnect over great grill-and-bar food.” In order to properly trumpet the company’s new brand elements (which include a modernized logo,revamped menu and even new employee 12 SALES&MARKETING MANAGEMENT NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007 istock photo http://www.evite.com http://www.reunion.com http://www.classmates.com http://www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sales & Marketing Management - November/December 2007

Sales & Marketing Management - November/December 2007 Contents Editor’s Letter Management Strategies What “Tell Me More,” Really Means Sales Strategy Marketing Management Motivation/Incentives Training Technology The Brains Behind the Brawn Are You a Bad Manager? Pipeline = Lifeline Feeling the Squeeze; The Foray Mobile Workmate; Seeking the Sights of Pittsburgh; Testing the Social Media Waters. Gadgets & Gear Books That Improve Strategic Thinking, People Skills and Sales Work/Life Take-Aways

Sales & Marketing Management - November/December 2007

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