In this episode of The HealthTech Marketing Show, I am joined by two of my colleagues from Health Launchpad, Design Lead Pepper Fee and Account Director Amy Hamilton. Both Amy and Pepper bring decades of experience in healthcare IT marketing and design to the table, having managed everything from massive trade show booths for global corporations to high impact activations for startups.
We discuss why the traditional obsession with lead volume often misses the mark, and how to reframe events as tools for building and growing human relationships in an increasingly digital world.
Whether you are struggling to decide if a booth theme is powerful or just a gimmick, or you want to know how to prevent your sales team from hiding behind furniture, this conversation is packed with practical advice. We also share real world stories of what works, from live screen printing to “margarita bicycles,” and discuss the critical behavior rules every booth staffer should follow.
Key Topics Covered
- “(00:00:00)” Guest Introductions
- “(00:02:13)” Reframing the Goal
- “(00:03:02)” Defining Experiential Marketing
- “(00:05:46)” Logistics vs. Design
- “(00:06:47)” The Power and Pitfalls of Themes
- “(00:10:19)” The Customer Journey
- “(00:12:49)” Case Study: AI in Healthcare
- “(00:15:38)” Creative Booth Activations
- “(00:18:38)” Attracting and Engaging Visitors
- “(00:21:37)” The Swag Debate
- “(00:27:31)” Learning from the Giants
- “(00:34:38)” Common Mistakes
- “(00:38:24)” Booth Behavior and Coordination
- “(00:41:43)” What to Stop Doing
If you are interested in discussing this or any other topic, let’s have a chat. Reach out to me directly to schedule a no-obligation discussion. This isn’t a sales call, but rather an opportunity to talk through your questions and challenges.
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Full Episode Transcript
Adam Turinas: [00:00:00] When it comes to trade shows, we know it’s not all about leads.
Amy Hamilton: Events should be about building, growing, and maintaining relationships.
Pepper Fee: Of course, leads matter, but it’s the experience that matters more.
Adam Turinas: Hello and welcome to the Health Tech Marketing Show. I’m your host, Adam Turinas first, a big thank you to you for listening. I really appreciate you being here. And if this is the first time you’re listening, click the subscribe button. It’s the Big plus on your Apple iPhone, or it’s the whatever the follow button is on Spotify.
I’ve forgotten. And I also a big thank you to our sponsors, the wonderful people at Healthcare Now Radio, that’s a 24 7 RA online radio station dedicated to all things healthcare. And they also have a really great podcast network, which we are blessed to be [00:01:00] on. And they’re great people to work with. We love them.
Today’s episode is a fun one and a practical one. So if you’ve ever come back from HIMSS or Vive or any other big conference, and the first question you got was, so how many leads did we get? This episode is for you. I’m joined by two people who’ve forgotten more about. How to create a great healthcare event than I will ever know.
Amy Hamilton, one of my colleagues, she’s an account director with Health Launch Plan, has 20 years experience in healthcare IT marketing and Pepper Fee, who is our design lead brings more than 26 years of experience in brand creative and large scale and small scale healthcare trade show de design. So we’re gonna dig into the sort of the big.
Themes, the big strategic themes, but we’re also gonna get really practical. So buckle up. This is a fun one. [00:02:00] Amy Pepper, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Let’s get started with a little bit about you, Amy. Tell everybody about yourself.
Amy Hamilton: Well, I’m Amy Hamilton. I am currently working with you, Adam here at Health Launchpad, but I’ve been in health IT marketing pretty much my entire career.
Coming up on 20 years. I’ve led marketing operations departments at large organizations as well as led and built demand generation programs, including events for big and small companies, including startups and big corporations. And that’s who I’m
Adam Turinas: Well welcome, HEPA. How about you?
Pepper Fee: Hi, I am Pepper Fee and I’m currently, uh, the design lead here at Health and Launchpad.
I have spent the past 26 years of my life as a design lead at a couple of big tech organizations, primarily in the healthcare space where I’ve done everything from leading brand and creative design to doing large shows and trade shows, events, [00:03:00] executive events. That kind of thing.
Adam Turinas: Yeah.
Pepper Fee: So I’m excited to be here.
Thanks for having
Adam Turinas: Oh, that’s great. You, you two, honestly, the, the, the, the two of you each have forgotten more about how to create a great event than I’ll ever know, so it’s great having you on the show. You know, I think back to my time running a health tech company and whenever we go to HIMSS or any events, it was always like, how many leads we’re gonna get, how many leads we’re gonna get, and we’re coming back, how many leads do we get?
And so I do think that, you know, part of the burden on the marketing leaders when it comes to trade shows is it’s all about the leads. We know it’s not all about the leads. So I’d ask you each, starting with you, Amy, is if you had to reframe what events should be about in one sentence. What would that be?
Amy Hamilton: Events should be about building, growing and maintaining relationships. That’s how I would reframe it into [00:04:00] one sentence.
Adam Turinas: That is pretty short, but sweet. I like the notion of relationships. What about you, Pepper? How about you? How would you frame it?
Pepper Fee: I agree. Yeah. I mean, of course leads matter, but it’s the experience that matters more.
Adam Turinas: Yeah. Well that’s different, right? Because you, Amy leaned in on relationships. I think a lot of professionals in the event space refer to it as experiential marketing. Mm-hmm. Can you define that a little bit? I think it’s something which is a bit abstract, quite a few people. Pepper, do you wanna take a grab at sort of defining what experiential means?
Pepper Fee: I think that, you know, for many attendees that you meet at your event, it may be their first time experiencing and the employees, it may be not their first time meeting everybody, but it might be their first time meeting everybody in person. And I, I think that what matters is what did that whole experience and that relationship Feel like?
What did you take away from that?
Adam Turinas: Hmm.
Pepper Fee: Yeah. What was the flow like? What were the demos like? Was there [00:05:00] clarity to the story? Was it clear why this matters to me?
Adam Turinas: I think that’s, it’s a very interesting way, I think, because actually I think a lot of people, when they think about experience, it’s almost like more the kind of consumer experience, which is, I’ve seen, you know, we have, I live in Austin and South by Southwest is a big deal here, and, and I remember going to this Gatorade experience, which was basically like being in a 3D game.
And that’s not what you are talking about. It’s about experiencing the company and the brand. And I mean, building relationships, bringing you back to what Amy has said is exactly, is, is what, what that’s about. So I do see, you know, when you both said it and you said it’s the same thing, it’s like, really?
Is it, it’s like, oh, okay, I get it. Yeah.
Pepper Fee: Yeah. It’s like, what, what’s their culture like? I mean, what kind of a kind of experience am I going to have when I’m dealing with them?
Adam Turinas: Yeah.
Amy Hamilton: Yeah. It might be the only time they ever get to touch what you’re doing. You know, everything is so digital and remote now that it could [00:06:00] be the only time they’re ever with you in person before they ever buy something from you or enlist in your services.
So I think it’s relationships plus that experience to Pepper’s point.
Adam Turinas: Yeah. So Pepper, when you are planning a booth or an event, how do you separate. How do you think about the difference between like the logistical planning aspect of the event and the experiential a part of the event? What lives in each.
Pepper Fee: Well, it can be a bit of a dance from the design team side of things. So you’re sort of talking like logistics and design are sort of, and oftentimes concurrently evolving, you know? So for us, oftentimes we’re simply at the mercy of the PO process because I can’t get started until there’s a theme and general messaging has been defined.
But I also can’t get started until the exhibit house. Has a [00:07:00] PO in their hands oftentimes. And the reason for that is because the design team can’t get started until we have what are called elevations, which are essentially blueprints of the property itself. And I can’t start to design that journey.
Unless I have those in hand. Right. So sometimes I, we can start, if there’s a theme and, and there’s like, you know, some messaging, basic messaging, we can get started ideating off of that. But until we have those blueprints, we can’t really do anything significant.
Adam Turinas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And Amy, at what point does a theme become powerful and at what point does it kind of get in the way, maybe being a gimmick?
Amy Hamilton: Ooh. I’m probably not the best person to answer that ’cause I love a theme, whether it’s a trade show or a party. I am there for the theme, but I think that the theme can get in the way. Like to Pepper’s point, if you can’t decide on a [00:08:00] theme, don’t decide you’re gonna have a theme. And then let the idea of a theme slow everything else down because you can’t land on one, you can’t find one that fits what you’re going for, and then all of a sudden you’re behind on everything, your booth, everything, because this theme got in the way.
So I think it’s only makes sense to have really take a theme that’s outside of your normal brand, a bit outside of you know, what you normally do when it works, when you know that it ties back into that everyday brand or what the theme of the show is, and then let it carry you forward whenever that theme becomes.
A roadblock or seems to slow things down, or suddenly we need a whole new booth because we have a theme now. I would say ditch the theme. You know, don’t, don’t get obsessed with this idea of a theme just so that you have to redo everything else, and everything else has to be sacrificed because of the theme.
Adam Turinas: Have you ever had any horror stories of that happening?
Amy Hamilton: Oh yeah. [00:09:00] I’ve had. You know, I think HIMSS always has a way of surprising us. It doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been in this business and how many times you’ve gone, you come back from the holidays and suddenly HIMSS is tomorrow. And I have had a few experiences where we did such a good job of planning ahead.
We know what our theme is, we know what our messaging is. We Feel confident that we’re gonna, you know, use our adjustable booth properties to do that, like screens and maybe some popups, but we’re not gonna change everything. Someone latched onto that theme and now it’s January and suddenly we need a whole new booth because we’ve decided on this theme.
And then before you know it, your budget’s out of the, you know, gone way beyond anything you ever imagined it could go past. You’ve got your designers scrambling to try to build something new and you’re kind of putting your team into something that’s a little uncomfortable, unfamiliar. It’s new now, whereas.
If you had just stuck to the [00:10:00] original plan and didn’t let the theme sidetrack, everything else. You could have done a really great job with what you had, so I’ve definitely been in that experience probably too many times.
Adam Turinas: Pep, I bet you’ve got a few horror stories in that regard.
Pepper Fee: I completely agree with Amy.
If a theme isn’t something that’s, you know, comes out of the story naturally or you’re not mapping to like what the overall event. Theme is, you know, don’t try to force it. ’cause as Amy said, if it doesn’t come naturally to the folks at, at the event, then you’re not going to be telling a good story. It shouldn’t be something that you just like stick on there.
A theme. A theme should be part of a longer. Journey to and from the event, I think. And if, if you can’t do that, then just go with what you have.
Adam Turinas: That’s a really interesting concept. Break that down a bit. That sort of notion of a journey is that you’re talking about the customer journey. That’s really interesting way.
Pepper Fee: Sure. Yeah, because I mean, you want start talking about if you’re going to a HIMSS or an RSNA, you want to [00:11:00] start talking about. What you’re doing there and, and, and what you’re going to be featuring well in advance of the event. And then you want to be able to come out of the event to continue your marketing to your attendees with messaging that maps to what you were talking about at the show.
Amy Hamilton: Yes. I think that makes so much sense. If you aren’t willing to talk about the theme or around the theme before, during, and after the show, it’s not a good theme. It can’t just be this hard launch at the show, you know, I don’t know. We’re gonna have lots of balloons in our trade show and we’re gonna tie the theme back to like balloons, whatever that might be.
If it only makes sense in that moment, then it’s not a good theme. It’s not gonna do what you need it to do for you.
Adam Turinas: Can I ask you both to share stories about your favorite themes that you’ve been involved with, or you look back and think that I was really proud of that. Pepper. [00:12:00] You wanna start?
Pepper Fee: Well, usually the theme in my case would have either mapped to the larger event or to a particular solution that we were coming out of.
And this would be, you know, primarily at HIMSS or at RSNA. I provided a lot of support for. Was like that over the years. So it, it’s sort of a blur to be honest. There’s a lot of, you know, different experiences that I’ve gone through. But, um, I think one of my favorite shows that I’ve worked at on was, uh, at St.
Expo, which is an annual healthcare exhibition, which is held in Paris every year. Brings together a lot of healthcare professionals, innovators, and decision makers. And it was challenging in a way because we were dealing with a different language for one thing also, this particular booth is a very open floor plan, so trying to.
Get our messaging across was a little bit challenging. There were a lot of different substrates and lighting and even some like floral stuff hanging, but it was really rewarding when we landed it. And you know, this is attended by a lot of government officials [00:13:00] as well. And so, you know, getting it, we got great Feedback from that booth.
So, uh, it was difficult one to work on, but it was, it was exciting. And I Feel like our theme was basically AI and healthcare landed really well with the audience.
Amy Hamilton: Yeah. That’s great.
Adam Turinas: Were there any things that you did in particular that really attracted people at the show or that really stood out?
Pepper Fee: Yeah, I mean, I think that the messaging to the healthcare practitioners about how, you know AI can help you.
Spend more time with your patients and, and interact with your patients in a way that’s more like what we think of as old school healthcare. You know, where in this case the AI is just sort of an ambient presence that’s picking up a lot of stuff and that the doctor is having a face-to-face with the patient like, like we used to do in the old days.
And so it is a bit of a newer concept, I think for Europe. P in markets.
Adam Turinas: Mm.
Pepper Fee: And not always an easy sell due to the privacy concerns, [00:14:00] but, um, that generated a lot of excitement at Scent Expo and got really, really good reviews. So I think it went well.
Adam Turinas: That sounded like it was a really big booth. Any sort of that you thought, like maybe smaller ones that you thought, I’m amazed we pulled that off, but it actually work pretty well.
Pepper Fee: It’s funny, sometimes the smaller shows are even more challenging in a way because you have limited real estate to say what you wanna say, and so you have to think about like, what are the other opportunities? If you’re going to like, let’s say you’re going to vibe or you’re going to chime, or something like that where it’s might not be necessarily a traditional booth setup, right?
What are the other opportunities that you can leverage? That journey to those presentations, right? Are there sponsorships? Are there exterior things that you can leverage that get the attendees to have some curiosity about what you’re showing at your booth and that can drive them there because you don’t have that big profile, that big hanging sign.
Mm-hmm. That big signage.
Adam Turinas: Yeah. [00:15:00] Amy, how about you? Sort of proudest moments in event experiential.
Amy Hamilton: So, and I’ve, my proudest moment I think, and the most fun and definitely a booth that people still bring up is MGMA was in San Francisco many years ago, and I think everyone was really excited about going somewhere new.
It was not the classic trade show. You know, new Orleans, Vegas, Chicago, Orlando. It was finally somewhere new. We felt excited to be there, and so we really wanted to lean into the place that we were at and give people something to take home from San Francisco that was more about San Francisco than it was about.
The trade show or even who we were, and so we really leaned into the San Francisco theme. You know, we got people really excited about the fact that it was in San Francisco leading up to, in our pre-show [00:16:00] marketing, we hosted an event at a nice. Kind of traditional place that people would normally wanna visit when they go to San Francisco.
And then in the booth, we were actually live screen printing t-shirts that were San Francisco themed. So we had three or four designs that you could pick from. They were all super cute and quirky and San Francisco themed, one of them said, what the fog? It was really, really cute. And it was amazing because people came to the booth because they really wanted this cool piece of.
Takeaway piece of swag to take home to either themselves or their kids, but even better is they had to stand in line because it was a hot item. So we got lots of time with them while they were standing in line. We got to chat them up. We helped them pick which design they wanted, so we got to talk. Back and forth about what they liked, what attracted them to each piece, and then they had to come back and pick it up after.
And they had already committed all of that time. So they were willing to, of course they were gonna come back for that cool t-shirt. So [00:17:00] it wasn’t only that, this theme kind of. Tied through pre-show at the show, our, you know, event after the show and our marketing after. But we had tons of time with people because of the way that that giveaway required them to spend time with us.
So not only did we have like record numbers of leads, ’cause of course we scanned everyone that came in the booth, but we had. Lots of notes on every single lead, so it was almost like we were coming home with more qualified leads than we ever had before because we had a reason. Mm-hmm. To stand there and talk to people.
Yeah.
Adam Turinas: I think that ties back to where you started, which is about relationship building. And I think, you know, I always wonder when I see I’ve seen other booths do things like that. I think, wow, why would you do that? It’s gonna take forever. It’s like, oh, that’s exactly why. Right? Because you can start a conversation.
You can have a long conversation, really get to know someone. Let’s kind of keep going on this. You know, what are some of the things that get people to [00:18:00] actually stop by the booth, you know? Then stay long enough to actually have a real conversation that I thought that was a really good example. Maybe there’s some others that you can suggest.
Pepper Fee: We once had a make your own margarita bicycle.
Adam Turinas: A make your own margarita. What was that?
Pepper Fee: Basically it was like a blender on a bicycle and Oh, and you come and you ride, you ride, you ride the bicycle. You, I think
Adam Turinas: I
Pepper Fee: saw that mar. Yeah,
Adam Turinas: I think I saw that. It’s really fun.
Pepper Fee: I know Amy thinks that I’m a little bit down on gimmicky attractions to the booth, but you know, one of the things that I think that affected us a lot, aside from COVID obviously, was, you know, the lack of being able to do giveaways so much at healthcare shows.
So we became a little bit less fun over time, but that was one of the ones that I remember that was a really great attraction. And then, uh, once puppies, of course, that became a, a big thing probably within the past 10 years. Having puppies at your booth. [00:19:00]
Amy Hamilton: Yeah. Puppies. Yes. I think anything, and I think there’s ways, like what Pepper’s saying is there’s ways to get people in your booth and to stay there that don’t necessarily have to be a giveaway.
Like the idea of like churn your own margarita. I mean, that’s brilliant, but we’ve done things in the past like. Putting games inside of our booth, especially during cocktail hours and the more kind of relaxed times of the trade show, you know, exhibit hall hours, we put cornhole in the booth, we put, you know, large scale Jenga in the booth.
And these aren’t things that cost a lot of money. They don’t require people to have to. Track them back home, but people are looking to also enjoy themselves. I mean, you know, it’s, these are long days everyone’s on all day, and so give them a reason to just kind of stand in the booth and have fun and sprinkle in [00:20:00] some, you know, business conversation.
Get your at least few qualifying questions in there. They know you’re there to do work. No one’s upset about it, but they’ll stay and they’ll play. If you tie it back to a little surprise at the end, they’re. You’ll be amazed at how long they’ll stay. You’ll get those competitive people in the booth and you won’t be able to get rid of them.
So I think there are different ways to keep people in the booth that don’t have to be a giveaway, but I also have lots of ideas on fun giveaways that keep people
Adam Turinas: too. So. Alright, so let’s, let’s have this conversation. So we were having this the other day. Let’s talk about the s words swag. I’m kind of like a, you know, I’m a bit grumpy about swag.
I think it’s like all, I don’t really understand by the point, point of it, but give us the pros and cons of swag, Amy.
Amy Hamilton: Okay, so I think don’t just have swag just to have them. Nobody needs another pen with your company’s name on it. I can promise you that. But what people do want is the requirements for leaving home for a few week or a few nights, which often is a gift for their children.[00:21:00]
Or a gift for their spouse or a gift for their teammates that are covering the extra work because they’re out. And so I think if you can think about it from that perspective, not just really expecting someone to use that hand sanitizer that has your brand on it, I think you can really hit a home on with swag sometimes and create long lasting impressions with people.
Over giving them interesting things to take home. And if I think you take the kids’ mentality or a local specialty mentality, like sending them home with that. You know that city’s number one chocolate, you know, that city’s number one popcorn or whatever it might be, they’re gonna win whoever they give that to.
Or even if they eat it in their, you know, hotel room at night by themselves. They’re gonna remember that and it’s not gonna be a burden to try to find place in their bag to take that stuff home.
Adam Turinas: Yeah, absolutely. It’s funny actually, I sort of thinking that, you know, one of the events that we go to as an [00:22:00] exhibitor is Sway, sway Health Live, and I always wrestle with what should we do?
’cause there’s a swag bag and I always take the view, oh, it’s gotta be something educational. And we did hit it well once, you know, I, I wrote this book on a BM and so everybody got an autographed ’cause it was, this is usually like two or 300 of attendees, so it’s manageable. And so everybody got a signed copy of the book and that was great.
That worked really well. But I was competing with one of our competitors had this really nice chocolate bar in there and I sort of think. I bet more people remember the Chocolate Bar than my boring book.
Amy Hamilton: I remember that book. I wouldn’t say the book was very memorable as well. Oh, so I think it’s just to show that you could go either way as long as it has actual real value.
Yeah.
Pepper Fee: I tend to be a little uptight in this regard. I think some kind of an intentional connection is always really good. You know, we’re there in person for a reason. Right? And some of it is to just enjoy each other’s [00:23:00] company and have a little fun while we’re learning things and doing business, you know?
So I don’t like the idea, like Amy said, also about swag. For the sake of swag. I’m really big on sustainability and I don’t like the idea that. We just spent a bunch of money on stuff that’s gonna get thrown out ’cause it’s cheap garbage. Right. But like one of the better things that I, that I saw as far as giveaways that I wanted to do at RSNA and then they said we couldn’t do giveaways anymore, was actual t-shirts that were made out of radiology film when that was still a thing.
Right. So this was basically a company that’s really
Adam Turinas: clever. So
Pepper Fee: recycled materials from all kinds of things, bottles and whatnot. But it specifically, they had one that was made outta radiology film, and I, you know, the folks at RS NA, they love like nerdy gifts. So that would’ve been a really good one if we could have done it.
Adam Turinas: Very good. Yeah, that would be cool.
Amy Hamilton: It triggered a memory of mine that I think is worth bringing up. And it’s back to a previous question, which [00:24:00] is ways to kind of get people engaged in a booth and talking about engaging people in what we know they already like. So Pepper, let’s use recycled radiology materials for our giveaway.
I think it was a urology show that I went to and one of the booths had almost like a urology museum set up.
Adam Turinas: Oh, that’s
Amy Hamilton: cool. I’ll leave a lot of this stuff to your own imagination, but they showed. Interesting scans of things that people have to have a urologist help them with in their body. And it was, you couldn’t stop, you couldn’t help yourself.
You just had to stand there and look at all of these different things. You couldn’t
Pepper Fee: look away. It
Amy Hamilton: sounds like you couldn’t. You couldn’t. And so it was, and of course, you know, you’d get your couple minutes there alone. And then here came somebody who worked in the booth to kind of be like. Interesting, isn’t it?
And then, well, that’s a convers
Adam Turinas: Well, well, that’s a [00:25:00] conversation starter. Yeah,
Amy Hamilton: exactly. So I think you could be even more on traditional theme if you wanted. You don’t have to go, you know, put, well,
Adam Turinas: I
Amy Hamilton: Corn a good
Pepper Fee: example. Yeah. That’s awesome.
Adam Turinas: Well, we were shouting about this. We both talked about. Oh the Epic booth.
’cause they’ve always got something cool. Like I actually, I mean one of my favorite things to do at HIMS is just kind of wander the exhibit hall for a couple of days and just say, Hey, you know, just for anybody I’m gonna meet, say, Hey, I’ll meet you at such and such a time. And it’ll be like, meet you at the weird statue at the Epic Booth is use a good meeting location.
So, I mean, what’s your guys’ take on the way that Epic does things?
Pepper Fee: Oh my God. The first time I saw the Epic booth I was still pretty new to. Trade show design and I was very much like, you know, everything needs to be in sync and in line with what we’re talking about. Just like we’ve been saying, and I encountered this like Treehouse theme park situation.
I’m like, that’s epic. Wow. [00:26:00] But you never forget it, right? I mean, it just goes to show you, you can create and show your culture in a lot of. Different ways, and I mean, they’ve got a great product, so I suppose they, they can also Well, it’s, it’s what they wanna do. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They have a, a theme park basically on their campus, so there, okay.
Back to that. Yeah.
Amy Hamilton: Well, yeah, I think it’s a perfect example of where a theme makes perfect sense because it is a relationship building tool, and that’s the scenario because we’re all dying for that invite to the epic. You know, campus, let’s be honest, we all wanna go down the slides and yeah, see the Harry Potter section and all of that.
So to be able to have a little moment of that at hymns, you’re gonna pop by just for that. Just to see what magic you can experience in their booth because you know, they’re so good at that. So I think that it’s brilliant. It also always kind of stands out as the least. [00:27:00] Sleek, modern looking booth. I think it always Feels more homey in some ways.
Yeah. Which is so funny because they’re this, you know, giant epic if you will organization, but to actually Feel like kind of at home in some ways in their booth is really special and they’ve seemed to hold onto that for the last. You know, 10 so years that I’ve been seeing them there.
Pepper Fee: I’ll also make the point that like they’re an established brand that, I’m not gonna use the M word, but I mean, they have, you know, they have a big hold on the industry.
So when you’re at that size, I think I, you know, I wanted to point out some examples of make it short and sweet with some other big companies. I think keep in mind that if you’re a big company like that, you can say, you know, this is how we’re gonna do it. You’re already known for. What it is that you do so you can kind of take that risk a little more easily.
Adam Turinas: It’s fine. I think that they’ve, over the last few years, they’ve made it friendlier. ’cause they went, they actually, I can’t remember where I think this [00:28:00] is, may have been directly after COVID. The first HIMSS after COVID, their booth was actually wall. No, this was actually, no, this was 2019. This was before COVID.
It was like a, it was actually walls on, on the outside was R-O-I-R-O-I-R-O-I-R-O-I. And so like it, and they were really good, you know, case studies, uh, really, it was really compelling, but it was a wall and you kind of had to go around the front and get in, and so you kind of felt like you were going into a fortress.
And so I think that now it’s a much friendlier open booth, but contrast it with. Their biggest competitor, their booth was what they were trying to communicate is we’re open. The proper was, it was so open, you didn’t even know you were in the booth. You just kinda walk through it thinking like you were going, and I think the booth was basically either side of the main lane, so you just didn’t even know you were in it.
It was really weird.
Amy Hamilton: I think that’s something that I don’t think we were planning on talking about, which I think is worth it because it is a hot topic and that is. [00:29:00] Uniforms in the booth.
Adam Turinas: Oh, talk to me about that. I Feel
Amy Hamilton: it’s worth talking about because as the marketing person often in the booth, often the only marketing person in the booth, I’m always like, did you see they all had matching orange tennis shoes?
We should have that. You know, I always think it’s such a cool idea, but, and Pepper, I’d love your thoughts on this. I think in these big open booths where it’s kind of unclear where they began, where they end, and it’s even more unclear who the heck works here. I think that what your team is wearing can play a really important role in that kind of situation where if, you know, I just have to find the person in the bright purple shirt.
They’re going to answer my questions. It helps a lot. And then you can be a little more open with your booth, a little less obvious where you know the stop and chat kind of spot is, and it can Feel a little more like roam free [00:30:00] and you’ll find the person. You need to get your answers from. So, I don’t know, Pepper, how do you Feel about it?
Pepper Fee: I agree. You know, I think uniforms or at least a, a branded polo are important. There’s so many people in these booths sometimes, and again, to your point about the open floor plan, if you want answers, you need help. You wanna know who to go to. And I think it’s also just a, a nice professional look.
Adam Turinas: One of the smartest examples of that.
This goes back a few years, is when I had my clinical communications company, one of the biggest competitors. There’s a company called Vault. They acquired by Hill Rom, but everybody in the booth wore pink scrubs. It was clever because it, first of all, it really stood out. I mean, it was a really sort of like, almost like a violent pink that was really, it was attractive.
But the other thing is, is wearing the scrubs signaled, we’re all about nurses and we’re all about nursing. Which was kind of the origins of their solution, and it was [00:31:00] a very clever branding device. And I think actually when they went on site, they wore the pink scrubs. So it was a very clever way of doing it.
But I love your idea there of Amy, of the orange shoes. Just like something like that, that’s your brand colors. Mm-hmm. You know where, because the golf shirts are good, that’s at least it’s distinctive. Same with sleeve, the vests. Mm-hmm. And if Patagonia let you do it anymore. But the sort of having something quirky like shoes, like different color shoes is kind of clever.
I like that a lot.
Amy Hamilton: And even in a small booth, if you’re lucky and your booth is really busy, it really quickly becomes unclear who’s there to answer your questions and who’s there to get their questions answered. And you know, we’ve had that experience many times and just a 10 by 20 where it’s like you’re lucky ’cause there’s so many people in there, but you lose so many people that you would’ve stopped to talk, but they didn’t Feel like they knew how to get in.
Adam Turinas: Hmm. What, what are some of the most common mistakes you see exhibitors making? [00:32:00]
Pepper Fee: My biggest peeve is trying to spell everything out on every available surface of Europe. Booth property. I was once at HIMSS and there was a medium-sized booth that literally was just covered in bullet points and I have no idea what you’re about.
I don’t wanna read all that. Move on. I think, you know, to, going back to sort of what we were talking about in the Epic conversation, if you look at the larger companies, they keep it short and sweet. It’s a simple sentence, usually with maybe a supporting line if that. Now, again, to be fair, those are established brands oftentimes, and they don’t have to spell it out so much for you, but I think it still works.
I think you wanna build up your story in that before journey. To the show, maybe on some of those external sponsorship moments. But when you get to your booth, keep it very high level. That’s what you have your demos for. That’s what you have your personnel there for. Yeah. What you have your screens for [00:33:00] to tell the deeper story.
Amy Hamilton: Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. And I think you can tell a lot in visuals as well. When I used to work for patient engagement solutions, you know, back then it was a little more common to have like a visual, not just a pretty clean background. And we would say like. Let’s just put an example of the text messages that we would send up an individual and a nice looking visual so we don’t have to have the 45 bullet points that leadership maybe wanted you to get it.
Get in there. So I think you can be creative in that way, but my biggest pet peeve always in forever will be. Creating barriers between you and the attendees with furniture. So even if you are in a 10 by 10, an eight by eight in a small ballroom, if I had anything to do with the show. You probably won’t even be lucky enough to have a full-sized table.
I’ll [00:34:00] probably make you have to get a small little table that’s just big enough for you and your laptop, because heaven forbid you put that table between you and the attendees and now you’re sitting down. They’re up there. It’s the most awkward uninviting set up ever. So, you know, if you have to have that table, I always would turn that table along the side of the booth so you could put things on it.
You could use the small end for a demo and you know, stand up as much as you possibly can. Stand up, lean on a bar stool if you have to, but everybody else is walking around on their Feet. You need to be greeting them in that booth on your Feet as well. Meeting them at eye level as much as humanly possible, because that’s the worst.
Adam Turinas: You’re making my lower back hurt just listening to you. I bet you’re right.
Amy Hamilton: That’s Pepper’s. Gotta convince them to splurge on the good carpet.
Adam Turinas: One of my pet peeves is coordination and getting everybody prepped on what you’re gonna say and how you’re [00:35:00] gonna say it. Hey, what? What’s best practice there? Amy, you wanna start?
Amy Hamilton: Yeah. I have a lot of thoughts on this one. I mean, I think especially for your big shows, but even your small shows, you should be meeting with the people that are going to be in your booth at least a month ahead of time. Big shows even more. They’re fully in the loop on what’s the theme, what’s our focus?
They know what that booth is gonna look like before they get there, and everyone has a really clear responsibility list broken down by time and day. They know where they fit in the overall flow. That is the machine that is. Booth and everyone has their role. And one of those roles that I think people rarely take into consideration is kind of like that inbound person.
They’re not waiting for somebody to walk into the booth. You need someone standing pretty [00:36:00] much in the hallway, at least a little in the hallway, capturing every single person that walks by with a really genuine Hi. How are you? Have you heard of what we do before? Like, and I don’t care how established you are, I’ve done it at big companies that everyone knows what we did.
They never actually really knew what we did. They were always missing something. And smaller companies where we were new when we were startups, and it works beautifully, and then you kick ’em back to somebody that can give a proper demo. But I think that it’s really clear ahead of time who’s gonna do what Then we always had post show meetups, so meet in the booth at the end of the day.
Download anything that didn’t get captured already in the lead scanner, we’re capturing those notes. Then we’re capturing key people that came by, and then you’re meeting at least two or three times post show to make sure that all the follow ups happening, anything that happened post show gets captured.
And from a marketing ops [00:37:00] perspective, that was huge because we would find out about conversations that had happened in the line. It’s. Starbucks and we wanted attribution for that conversation because we knew that deal was gonna close, probably, you know, relatively soon because it was such a meaningful conversation, but it wasn’t in a lead scanner.
So we could go ahead and capture that in the CRM or wherever we were tracking that and it was really important.
Adam Turinas: Hmm. Pep, how about you? What, what are some of the big pet peeves that you’ve got in terms of on. I think
Pepper Fee: Amy nailed it. I mean, I think you have to remember that the whole thing has to be like, you know, pretty thoughtfully and intentionally choreographed, you know, not just like go out there and sell to people because inevitably you end up, then you end up with salespeople on their phones or just.
Somewhere at the lunch counter, you know? Yeah. I think everybody having a role, having a designated like slot, you know, knowing that they’re accountable for their time on the floor, and then having those regroups where, you know, we talk about the day and all the things that happen, there’s having these regular touch [00:38:00] points.
I think that really makes a big difference.
Adam Turinas: That’s makes sense to me. Okay. This has been great. I’ve taken away a lot of tips and I’m sure anybody listening to this is gonna be taking notes. So let’s just one last question for you each. Pepper, we’ll go with you first. What’s one thing healthcare marketers should stop doing at trade shows?
Pepper Fee: I’m gonna go back to my, don’t try to tell your story in every single place as a book. You know, focus on building a, a journey, pre-show. Focus on how you’re going to choreograph what we were just talking about just now within the booth, during the show, and then focus on well before the show. Focus on how you’re going to do the post-show journey as well.
That’s not really one thing, but.
Amy Hamilton: I
Adam Turinas: like it.
Amy Hamilton: Well, I know, well, since Pepper got more than one, I’m gonna say more than one, but I mean, I think number one is not sending marketing people. Make sure you have a marketing [00:39:00] person at every show. They will make sure that you stay on task and that you follow your, your plan.
I would say make sure you have at least one marketing person there, but the question is, what should marketing people stop doing when they are there? And I think I would say. Stop giving, printed out collateral. I think most of that’s landing in the garbage. I think we’re talking about sustainability a few times in this conversation.
Use the money it takes to print that stuff for a meaningful leave behind. If you actually really Feel strongly, you need to leave something behind.
Pepper Fee: Yeah.
Amy Hamilton: But leverage the tools that all these shows are giving you. All the lead scanners allow you to load. Content right in there. You can send it immediately now and just make sure that your follow up is strong enough that you know that content’s gonna get to them in your, in your follow up email campaigns anyway, and just leave that printed stuff.
Adam Turinas: I love that. That’s a really bold idea. ’cause I [00:40:00] think most people would be, you know, it’s like, ah, we always do it. Everybody expects, it’s like, yeah, break the cycle. Make it a QR code.
Pepper Fee: We live in the 21st century in the digital
Adam Turinas: link. Right, exactly. Yeah. And who wants to, you know?
Amy Hamilton: Yeah. We don’t even call each other anymore.
We don’t need to give you a printed out case study. It’s not, no. Yeah.
Adam Turinas: Pepper. Amy, thank you. Really appreciate it. So many actionable points to take away. Thank you for being on the show.
Pepper Fee: Thanks so much for having me.
Amy Hamilton: For having us.
Adam Turinas: Oh, I’m so lucky to work with Amy and Pepper. They bring so much practical wisdom and honestly, they’re great to work with.
I love them dearly. I’ve got four takeaways for you. First and foremost, events are about relationships and experience, not just leads. Yes, we need pipeline. We’ve gotta figure out attribution. But if you reduce a major industry event just to a lead scanning exercise, you are [00:41:00] missing the opportunity to build trust, to reinforce your brand, and most of all, to create meaningful human moments that build long-term relationships.
Second, if you are gonna have a theme, it has to carry through the entire journey before, during, and after the show. If it only works on the booth wall, it’s not a strategy, it’s just decoration. The best themes amplify your story and make follow up easier and more cohesive. Number three, booth design and choreography matter more than most teams realize.
Don’t cover every surface with bullet points. Don’t hide behind tables. Stand up assign roles. Have someone owning the first hello in the aisle, and make sure your team is aligned and prepped before you ever step onto the show floor. And finally be [00:42:00] intentional about swag and collateral. Nobody needs another cheap pen, and if you’re gonna give away something, try to make it meaningful, memorable, and maybe sustainable as well.
And maybe think twice before printing 5,000 or 500 brochures that are probably gonna end up in the trash. Amy and Pepper, thank you so much for sharing your experiences and your honesty. I found it really valuable and I hope you out there listening in found it useful too. And by the way, if you did find this helpful.
Again, please subscribe and give this podcast a thumbs up because you know, if you give it a an approval, it’ll help more people like you find the podcast. And lastly, if you think you know somebody on your team who’s gonna find this useful and practical, go ahead and share it. There’s a share button on the application and you can just email them this episode.
So thank you to you for [00:43:00] listening and look forward to seeing you on the next one.
