This week we, at ReachForce, are announcing a new data solution to help event marketers turn event booth visitors into real high-octane marketing data for lead generation. As we talk about events and the uncertainty around them being able to deliver real leads that actually convert into the sales pipeline, I’m reminded of a few of my past trade show nightmares, so I thought I’d share for a quick giggle. These will definitely be filed under Marketing WTF??

In my early days as a marketer, I was thrust into managing all trade show events for my company with absolutely no experience. My first trade show was made quite memorable by my product marketing guy. He said he knew a guy who did promo items. My first time CEO was convinced that branded coffee mugs were the hot giveaway. This being my first trade show, I didn’t know what to expect so I went with it. The only thing they asked me was how many attendees will be at the show – 6,000. This was the last of the mug talk until I got a call the day before I was to leave for the show in NYC.

Product marketing guy ordered the mugs and instead of having them sent to the show he had them sent to the hotel we were staying in. The day before I leave for the show the hotel clerk calls to tell me that the mugs have been delivered. My immediate response - Great! No, he says, “You don’t understand Miss. There is a semi outside blocking traffic trying to deliver 6,000 coffee mugs to you here at the hotel.” At that time I still don’t think I understood the magnitude of the problem. We agreed that I would just pay for that night at the hotel and they would move the mugs into my room. When I arrived the next day, it was like I was a celebrity. When I got there and announced my name at the check in counter, people started coming out of the woodwork. Everyone wanted to see the girl that stopped traffic in Manhattan over some coffee mugs. I just smiled and apologized, still not having a clue what I was in for. Finally, I was greeted with the floor to ceiling boxes covering my room. There was little to no room to walk around. This was going to be fun – NOT! The show was okay and we tried to give everyone we saw a mug but we didn’t get through even half of the boxes. Now what? I hate these mugs…Could I leave them in NYC (still in my hotel room)? I couldn’t possibly pay FedEx to ship them all back to Austin… so instead I decided to call a freight moving company to come pick them up and take them back to Austin, in no hurry I might add. Thinking I was all set, I scheduled the freightliner to come the next morning. You see what’s coming next – once again I shut down traffic in Manhattan for these silly mugs. Needless to say the hotel was glad to see me go.

Lessons learned –

1. Never let product marketing make decisions alone when it comes to event give aways.
2. You never need as many giveaways as there are people expected to attend.
3. Logistics, logistics, logistics.

Since there were so many mugs left they went to the next show as well. But this time we lucked out and the booth across from us had a keg and was giving away beer. It was like we had planned to be next to them with mugs in hand.

Maybe the more important takeaway I have learned from the giveaway fiasco is that obviously not everyone will want your cool giveaway but does the cooler the giveaway translate into even more “leads” that have NO interest in buying my product?