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Trade show attendees have the interest and time to look at a company’s products or services. Knowledgeable exhibitors can do well at trade shows. Notwithstanding their size, those who are inexperienced and unprepared can waste thousands of dollars and countless hours. They can even do more harm than good.
As trade shows normally have short runs of four days or less and bring together hundreds of exhibitors and potential customers, they are a very powerful marketing medium. While there are shows that can conduct some selling on the show floor, most typically do not see much if any of this activity. Instead, generating sales leads is generally the most common reason exhibitors participate.
What Can a Successful Trade Show do for a Company?
Most suppliers use their industry’s major shows as the primary marketing vehicle for introducing new products. It is also possible during the course of one trade show to personally meet most of the important clients. This makes shows a good way to establish and reinforce relationships. Other common reasons for exhibiting include:
Generating sales leads
Enhancing the company image and visibility
Reaching a specific audience
Establishing a presence in the marketplace
Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the marketing efforts
Personally meeting customers
Prospecting for new customers
Introducing new products and services
Educating a target audience
What are the Competencies for Trade Show Success?
Trade shows can be an important part of business success so having a seasoned sales or marketing executive to lead the company in this area is an important competency. For a business to be effective in this area that point person will need to be strong in these competencies. He or she will:
Understand the importance of trade show marketing.
Know why trade shows are important to customers.
Know how and why to set measurable trade show objectives.
Understand how to design trade show promotions.
Know how to measure the success of a trade show.
Understand effective traffic-building strategies.
Understand the different strategies for smaller shows versus industry shows.
Understand which promotional practices work best.
10 Strategies for Trade Show Success
Developing and refining these competencies is a continuous developmental process and those interested in improving their effectiveness in managing trade shows can do so by taking some or all of the following action steps.
Network with salespeople in other industries and swap experiences.
Attend trade shows in other industries and observe the dynamics.
Discuss with some customers what it is they look for in a trade show.
Complete an online course in tradeshow preparation.
Share tradeshow experiences with other people in the same industry.
Develop objectives for each tradeshow and then compare with the actual results.
Prepare a list of questions to ask visitors to the booth.
Complete a short diary entry at the end of each tradeshow day while the experiences are fresh.
Attend a presentation seminar.
Start a practice of quantifying the cost of each tradeshow per qualified visitor to the booth.
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