Systems in Action – Live Demonstrations Make all the Difference

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

When arguing for and against participating in Defense and Homeland Security related events (expos, conferences, exhibits) from a marketing point of view there are two potential benefits – direct leads for business/business development opportunities – and branding/positioning.

When discussing business opportunities it deeply depends on the kind of deliverables you are offering – if it is something you can sell in a box (or a virtual box – e.g. a piece of software) you may expect to return from a good event with concrete leads for business. If your merchandise is more of integration, projects and physical deployments – usually the ROI for these event doesn’t worth the trouble and expenses.

When discussing business development leads and cooperation from all sorts (JV, sub-contracting, consulting-delivering, …) the events are efficient but bear in mind – if you are the bigger company, don’t expect money and direct income as an outcome of these events.

When discussing branding – many aspects should be taken into consideration – the market (both international and locally for the country in which the event is taking place), the company’s positioning in the market (int’l/local), the competitors presence in the event – and most important – the potential alternative reputation and market position damage that may be an outcome of not attending the event.

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

When examining these events from the end-customer’s point of view, aside from hearing and learning of future trends – the real stakeholders don’t really need the event in order to meet their potential suppliers – it takes only one small hint from them and all the CEOs will line up in front of their offices. So why to expect the stakeholders to attend? We must provide them with something beneficial that is unique to such an event, something that will take advantage of this assembly of many leading suppliers, something that will make the stakeholder’s trip worth their while.

I believe the real “holy grail” lies in the live demonstrations. A live benchmark of different systems in a real scenario is something very unique and gives the stakeholder the capability of really evaluating the differences, pros and cons, of different yet similar systems, and not only from one or two limited demonstrations and many PowerPoint presentation that skilled salesman are presenting in conferences or privately. Imagine reading a book or watching a YouTube video regarding different ice-cream flavors compared to an actual visit to the ice-cream store.

When managing such an event, I ask myself repeatedly – what would I want and find interest in, if I would have been attending the event, no matter what link of the eco-system chain I belong to. I could never refuse a good chocolate flavored ice-cream!