After attending the Green Industry and Equipment Expo in Louisville, KY this week, I came back to sunny Arizona with a renewed outlook on tradeshows and the method to our madness here at Canyon.

Our client, Agrium Advanced Technologies, showcased its newest high-efficiency, controlled-release fertilizer, Spread it & Forget it, as well as its polymer-coated, sulfur-coated urea fertilizer, XCU.

Tradeshows are a great way to build a presence in the select industries you serve. They are also a great way for marketing and sales to come together in a unified goal—to create awareness and capture qualified leads.

In the process of designing a tradeshow booth for a show, it’s important to tailor the marketing strategy to best support the staff that will be on-site at the booth. For Agrium Advanced Technologies, we wanted to create the best environment and presentation for its sales team to work in. These design elements included:

• Vibrant and clean graphics to easily communicate the brand positioning
• A semi-private conference space for meetings with customers/media
• High-tops for quick meet-ups
• Visuals to get the conversation started (like our 1 vs. 4 fertilizer application display, educational videos and fertilizer granule models)
• Literature for take-home value
• Lead gen giveaways to motivate future sales

Both marketing and sales made this event successful. Without the sales and marketing teams working together, the company wouldn’t have reached its anticipated ROI for the event. Marketing and sales, a duo ‘til the end!

Everyone is entitled to be scared of something, so why not get a kick out of seeing what your co-workers are afraid of most? Today at Canyon, we celebrated Halloween by dressing up as what scares us. I think it is fair to say that everyone did an outstanding job with creating a costume that exposed their biggest fear. Take a look. What do you think we are most afraid of?

We had a great Halloween ‘scare’ party during our lunch break. Many Canyonites brought in an innovative dish—we saw everything, including rat-quitos, freak-o de gallo salsa, toasted ghost cookies and bat juice. There was also a wide array of desserts. And, we had a competitive game of bingo and gave away prizes for the best costume (Savannah as a pregnancy test) and most creative food (freak-o de gallo salsa).

Be sure to visit our Facebook page to see more!

Have a happy Halloween!

In this third and final post of the series, I will introduce a very handy Excel function that will change your life (ok, that may be a bit extreme, but it is very handy nonetheless).

Tip #4: COUNTIF Function -

I assume most of you are familiar with the SUM, AVERAGE and COUNT functions. While these are very useful functions, a more sophisticated way of extracting specific information in Excel is the COUNTIF function. Whereas the COUNT function simply counts each entry in a certain range, the COUNTIF function only counts specific entries given a set of criteria. For example, let’s say you have a list of hundreds of sales leads categorized by level of interest and you only want to count the “hottest” leads. The COUNTIF function is exactly what you need to extract that specific information from your list.  This function is one of my favorites—as it can be applied to almost every marketing task done in Excel. From sales leads lists to event registration information to order entries, this function does it all.

So those are just a few among many of the tools I use to make Excel work harder for me. Can you think of any shortcuts or tricks that you use in Excel to make your spreadsheet experience more enjoyable?

White papers continue to be a strong tool in B2B marketing. Although the purpose of a white paper hasn’t changed over time, the way people consume online content has. People have less time, more distractions and more options.

I came across this interactive white paper from Level 3, a global telecommunications company. It provides clear and simple navigation, additional downloadable resources, links and video to not only keep prospects engaged, but to deliver content in a variety of ways for different consumption behaviors. For example, someone that has limited time can easily navigate to the executive summary and then flip directly to an area of interest. They can also listen to key findings through customer video testimonials which simultaneously provide Level 3 with third-party credibility.

A recent study released by Eccolo Media shows multimedia topping the list as one of the fastest growing mediums that decision makers are utilizing to make purchasing decisions.

To make your white paper most effective, make it easy for your audience to consume. If your company needs help putting your white paper to work for you, contact Canyon. We will develop a strategy that will engage all of your prospects.