Event enhancement with limited budget? Cooperation is a possible solution!

Engaging an audience always needs something special, noticeable and different.

Events and trade show presences need to be different. They must stand out from the competitors as well as be a change to what has been done in previous years.

Enhancing and achieving these dynamic requirements without much budget can be a challenge, but cooperations can provide the key.

Competing for the attention of attendees is difficult at the best of times, but even more so, if the budget is capped or has been virtually exhausted by the main components of an event. Even the lack of money for the additional decoration or theme enhancement, whilst often considered less important, can limit the impact or attraction of the event or stand space.

…take a leaf out of Google’s book

To cope with this problem we can take a leaf out of Google’s book and exploit a derivative of their tactic to gain traction. Google derives its income from adverts that it needs to get people to see. Google at the same time cannot create the magnitude of necessary content that would attract potential viewers for the placement of adverts. No one will go to a page of Google adverts unless there is something of interest.

Google through income sharing with AdWords entices creators of content. Creators provide the source for content that acts as a platform for the advertising. The web pages and videos create the “carriers” for the adverts.

…cooperative relationship

Whilst our aim is not to gain advertising revenue, we are trying to achieve an added interest in our product or event. We have two ways of viewing the cooperations using this approach, and both need to be true.

Firstly, from the stand owner’s perspective, we need to see our message as the advert and a cooperation partner as the provider of exciting content to draw visitors in. After all, from a customer or prospect perspective our trade show stand is an advert.

Secondly, for the cooperation partner, it should be our event audience increases visibility for the partner’s contribution. From their point of view the trade show stand must be a new and exiting placement for their “product”.

“One man’s advert is another man’s content…” and this becomes clearer when we put this into practice.

We need to find someone or something that has a suitable connection with the same audience, will generate interest and will draw people to see the message that we are promoting. Obviously, we need to take care to have a cooperative relationship and not a competitive relationship.

For it to work, it needs to be win-win!

A cooperation in practice

So how could this work? Imagine we are a company producing GPS systems for route navigation. Most trade show stands will have demo pods; very exciting! Consider the impact of a cool custom bike, with a custom holder for our latest GPS route planner that we are launching…

The attention of visitors is going to be high, simply because of the cool bike. For the custom motorbike company, access to the stand space and a new audience should in itself be part payment and might even be payment enough. The added opportunity to create custom holders for other bike owners is not competitive either as it increases sales of the GPS system. So cooperations can even go further than the event and enhance the win-win even more. It’s a matter of thinking and not a matter of budget.

The real point is that for different businesses and different products there will be different complementary solutions. The trick is to think this way, find a prospective cooperation and ensure that all parties are genuinely benefiting.

In summary:

• Firstly, a partner who has a product that is compatible and not competitive to our own.
• Secondly, the partner’s product must be exciting and would generate more interest at our event.
• Thirdly, the partner’s product would benefit from the exposure to the audience at our event.