Report From Eastec 2009 - Springfield, MA

For the past 8+ years I have been involved in marketing and selling laser systems to a wide variety ofmarkets and customers and have seen first hand the amazing capabilities of laser technology. Eastec shows that there is no shortage of companies willing to enter the low power laser arena with every variety of marking and engraving system imaginable. At last count this week there were at least 13 different companies exhibiting interesting and capable systems.

In this difficult market climate I wasvery interested to understand what companies were doing to go thatextra mile to find and win customers to their unique laser systems.

The question I asked many of the laser companies at Eastec was “what did you do to proactively market your impressive and interesting laser systems to Eastec attendees”.

The answer was unanimous and clear –nothing.

A few weeks ago I wrote a post titled “Our Trade Show Traffic Stinks” where I argued that preparing everything for a trade show except your target audience is a passive strategy that yields mediocre results.

Having done my fair share of trade shows I understand the pressure of keeping a company moving forward and then having to pack up and leave town for a week for a trade show. But I do not believe it is the “busyness” of these laser systems companies that prevents them from proactively marketing prior to a trade show but the views widely held about the product and the customers for these products.

One is the assumption that if they build the product the customers will come, or in other words, viewing proactive marketing as a cost and not an investment.

The other is a technological conceit or selling a tool and not the benefits that tool delivers when used to solve a specific problem– essentially requiring the customer to figure out what to do with the tool and why it makes sense to buy one.

As laser companies apply the same focus to understanding and applying proactive marketing that they have to developing the technological development of the laser systems then the future will continue to be bright for these laser companies and their customers.