Competitive Recon At Conferences – Get the intel you need to stay ahead
Closed business and new opportunities might dominate the ROI conversation for vendors that spend money on conferences, but there is a lot more to be gained at these events for those who know how. At ScrappyAF we coach our clients on how maximize conference ROI by capturing hot industry intel for strategic positioning, solution road-mapping and competitor domination.
Here’s the basics:
If you send staff to a conference or tradeshow, set clear expectations for the intelligence you want them to capture. Make sure each attending staff member understands their intel mission and how you expect them to go about achieving it. Techniques include walking the floor, starting up conversations, attending conference sessions, asking questions, conducting surveys, talking with the event coordinators and tracking (and participating in) the event’s social media channels.
Set a post event de-brief meeting to run through the topics and have the assigned team members deliver their reports.
Industry / Stakeholder Pain-Points
- What are the challenges our stakeholders are dealing with?
- What did they come to the conference to see, learn about?
- What are they looking for on the expo floor?
- What initiatives are they pursuing / do they have innovation initiatives?
- What keeps them up at night?
Competitive Marketing Intel
- Hot collateral?
- Hot booths?
- Engaging conference mojo?
- Stand-out attire?
- Events / drawings / other attractors?
- Thought leadership or other high value content?
- Strong video work?
- Culture and personality?
- Who’s got a crowd and why?
Competitive Solution Intel
- Who is out there pitching Analytics, Business Intelligence, Decision Support, Data Assets Management?
- Anyone else offering a full-stack BI solution?
- Booth photos
- Value props?
- Collateral capture
- How are they pitching?
- Other chat
Market Watch Intel
- New Tech?
- Data Product Offerings?
- New Service Offerings?
- Partnership opportunities?
- Acquisition targets?
“I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure. It is: Try to please everybody.”
