As an exhibitor at the OMR Festival: Many first times
#OMR22 is over – and still reverberating! Most of the recaps are already written, but after the OMR week our heads were smoking for a while and this week was all about recuperating. Nevertheless, I want to take a brief look back at a week that we will not forget so quickly.
It was a superlative festival with many records – Ashton Kutcher was there, Quentin Tarantino, music acts like Sido, Materia, just to name a few – also the number of visitors was an OMR record with 70,000+, compared to (I think) previously ~56,000 pre-Covid. It was a mega buzz and the whole internet was talking about nothing else.
For myself, but also for all of my colleagues, it was a lot of “firsts”:
- The first OMR festival ever
- The first time at the Hamburg Messe: We have never been further north than Hanover (Hamburg mega!! 💪)
- The first in-person event since COVID
FOMO / We are here to stay!
With over 500 exhibitors and 700+ speakers 🤯 on 10 stages, it was really something. The event was probably the mother of all FOMO feelings – every minute there was some talk somewhere, Sido here, Ashton Kutcher there, podcast personalities everywhere you look – it was hard!
But luckily we never got bored at our booth, we were there for another reason, to show the German digital scene our project management software smenso! Of course, the usual suspects from our space were also there, Asana in the immediate vicinity, monday.com as well. It was super cool to see that many visitors were positively surprised to meet another player from Germany (from THE LÄND)! We had great conversations and showed many interested people that we can create a big benefit for users with our software Made in Germany and a small team. Especially compared to established providers like Asana because of the flexibility of our application, many small features that make the difference, and last but not least: Because of our regional availability!
At our booth, there was a colorful mix of many industries represented. But a large part came either from marketing departments or from the marketing industry (agencies). All of them knew the competition, of course, but not us – yet 🤗
To all visitors: We hope that you were able to take something away from our demos and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you again for your time and your visit! I would be very happy if we would meet again at a trial, another demo or later events. THANK YOU!
smenso in numbers during #OMR22
From the perspective of the bare figures, our commitment with our own booth was definitely worthwhile. We spoke with more than 50 interested parties and had countless other interesting conversations. Apart from that, it was very important for the visibility of our brand to show ourselves at the OMR Festival. It felt like half of Germany was talking about OMR, OMR “hacked the feed” exemplary with their cool actions before and during the event – who didn’t have the written “clouds” with OMR letters in the Hamburg sky in their feed. It would have been almost negligent not to be there and we are very happy to have been there!
Leads at the booth
30
+
Insta accounts reached 👀
+
3000
%
Instagram interaction
+
20
%
Conclusion: #OMR23 here we come!
As an exhibitor, of course, you always have to weigh up the costs and benefits of an expo booth. The costs are a relevant factor for a small bootstrapped company like us, as they are > 15,000 € for the booth and marketing materials/travel costs alone. Personnel costs come on top.
For us, in any case, it was a successful mix of:
- Visibility for our brand smenso
- Meeting many representatives of the marketing industry / marketing departments that we can serve well with smenso
- Social media impact
- Many new contacts
- Interesting to directly compete with others who are focused on the marketing industry (Asana & co.)
