GUEST COLUMN: Mobile World Congress Countdown: Your Guide To Networking With The Personal Touch » mobilegroove

By ANNE WALKER

February seems ages away.

It’s not. Particularly in regard to Mobile World Congress, the global event where 60,000 of the wireless world converge on Barcelona the 16-19 of February for a week of power meetings, pickpockets and parties.

Many companies are already in high gear preparing for the event. For the others, here are a few thoughts.

It’s about Sales

Securing 20 PR meetings at Mobile World Congress does not always equate to a successful conference. Certainly, PR is an important component of Mobile World Congress, however we should all be reminded that SALES should be the top priority, every year and particularly now, in times of world economic uncertainty.

Surprisingly, many companies and executives land in Barcelona and expect to be kept busy by people dropping by the stand and also with the pre-arranged PR meetings.

The stand feeds the sales pipeline – for the months ahead. The show itself should be about furthering existing sales opportunities and closing deals. It is incumbent upon each person attending the event to create success by arranging a score of meetings prior to the show.

That being said, the marketing machine should already be in full swing to drive leads. Here are a few basics:

§ Website: announce your involvement at MWC, make it easy for prospects to schedule a meeting online and if your site isn’t fully optimized for search engines, get it sorted and complement your efforts with adword campaigns.

In looking at 10 companies featured on this website, only one lists MWC in its events section and offers the opportunity to schedule a meeting (however not specifically for MWC). Two of the ten companies have 2007 events in the upcoming events section – this is absolutely unacceptable today where you can easily set up website content management systems to reclassify events after the expiry date.

§ Marketing communications: sales teams should be already armed with communication materials to convince their prospects that they should spare an hour to meet – emails, follow-up documents, presentations. It’s also good to put ‘meet us at Mobile World Congress 2009′ into email signatures.

Each marketing piece should answer the ‘so what?’ question in the first two sentences. ‘CompanyX is a leader in mobile search.’ So what? Why should I care? What is different, better or new? No company can get by with non-specific language in today’s world of diminishing attention spans.

Getting Noticed: Be Smart, Get Personal

Google is 10 years old and an increasingly major player in the mobile arena. The sands are continually shifting, which is what makes the mobile industry so exciting and a place where start-ups can be global forces in a matter of years. Regardless of size, each company in this industry must have an entrepreneurial mindset, which involves being creative, tapping into opportunities at every turn and not sitting on a golden throne believing that the flocks will come in adoration.

Here are a few things you can do now to increase your profile for Mobile World Congress:

§ Awards: gaining recognition from the industry is always an impactful way to get noticed, give legs to your PR and generally feel good about what you’re doing. Get going – there are two award competitions at Mobile World Congress.

o The first, Global Mobile Awards – entries due end-today – is more suited to the established players with commercially available solutions and quantifiable results. The award winners are announced at the GSMA Award Night Gala Dinner taking place at Mobile World Congress.

o The second, the Mobile Innovation Awards are more suited to early stage companies. Entries are also due EOP today and you must be a member of the Mobile Innovation Market community to submit an award (£400 for Innovators, with one award entry a year included). Categories range from ‘Most Innovative Mobile Start-up’ to ‘Most Innovative Mobile Application’ and the awards are part of a year-long global tournament at GSMA events.

§ Networking: are you involved with your local Mobile Monday chapter? If you want your finger on the pulse of the industry, join. In our increasingly ‘socially networked’ world, there are a host of opportunities to meet your peers. To name a few: MeetUp.com has a wide range of opportunities to network in the real world; and in the virtual setting, LinkedIn has a number of mobile-focused groups such as the ‘Intelligent Mobile Marketing’ group. The good news is that if you get involved now, you’ll know about the parties being sponsored by these group and others (i.e., Swedish Beers) at Mobile World Congress.

§ Partner opportunities: who are your technology partners? Chances are, if your company uses a partner’s technology for an innovative solution, there will be opportunities for a case study. Why bother? Your case study might be featured in presentations, at the partner stand, on the website and in other communications. Partners may also have space in their stand (typically at a cost) and be hosting a party at the conference which could put sales people in front of new prospects.

§ Speaking: want to speak at Mobile World Congress? Good luck. If you’re a vendor and not an operator, thoughtleader or major player, it’s particularly challenging to get a speaking slot. For those smaller, innovative companies working in a hot section of the market, it can happen, although speaker submissions are taken in July. The only option at this point is to try to influence the speakers who are confirmed. Review the agenda and see if there is a presentation that is directly in your space. If appropriate, consider sending some background information which showcases your solution in the context of the industry trend being discussed. If your company gets a mention in the presentation or Q&A, great.

§ Stand: most companies book stands a year in advance (or longer). It’s a little late to be thinking about a stand at Mobile World Congress, although given these challenging economic times, there may be some last-minute availability. It’s also wise to look into opportunities with partners and regional trade groups. If your company is an emerging upstart, consider taking a stand in the Mobile Innovation Marketplace, which is a great way to be positioned as an innovator and also offers dedicated meeting areas. You can also book stand-alone meeting rooms, which can be pricey but if your sales team has lined up days of meetings, it’s important to have a dedicated space to give presentations and have demo’s ready to go.

§ PR: ah yes, the coveted PR. If you’re an exhibitor at Mobile World Congress, you get access to ‘the list,’ of journalists attending the events. Many of these journalists even provide their email addresses, brave souls. However, many of the same journalists don’t look at their in-boxes from January onwards, as the thousands of meeting requests pour in.

So what’s a company to do? First off, your PR effort should not be a once or twice a year outreach effort. It should be continuous – you should already be in contact with the key journalists, analyst and bloggers who are covering your space. That’s basic, but not always the way it works in practice. So if you haven’t been in contact with your core list of media influencers, get working now – research who is covering your space – the industry analysts, journalists and bloggers. PR is a topic worthy of a full column, so stay tuned in the coming weeks for more insight.

Good luck!

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Anne Walker heads London Marketing Dept., a consultancy dedicated to helping emerging technology companies cut through the clutter with smart marketing communications and PR.  She can be reached at anne@londonmktg.com.

Tags: Mobile World Congress

This entry was posted on Friday, December 5th, 2008 at 9:15 pm and is filed under Mobile Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.