Trade Shows  

Trade Shows offer multiple opportunities to grow your business by meeting face-to-face with potential customers, seeing what the competition is offering and with multiple learning opportunities such as seminars and networking with others in your industry.  Having worked at large corporations that attended many trade shows, I’ve developed a quality over quantity approach and understand that each show requires a significant amount of work.

Here are the five cornerstones that I touch on with all trade shows:

1.       Careful trade show selection 

a.       For shows you have no experience with you should first attend as an attendee, not an exhibitor to determine if the show will meet your exhibit and education needs

2.       Determine objectives and set up methods to evaluate so you can do even better next year

a.       See if there is an opportunity to be a speaker or on a panel to

b.      Set-up a process for how leads will be followed up

c.       What will be your key messages that you want your sales team to make?  Provide them with the show objectives and provide training on how to quickly qualify visitors and generate leads

3.       Heavily pre-market your exhibit

a.       Do a press release announcing your attendance at the show and why visitors will want to come to your booth

b.      Invite people on your web site and in any advertising to visit your booth at the show

c.       Do a pre-show mailing to the shows attendee list

d.      Touch base with existing clients to determine who will be attending and schedule meetings

4.       Plan onsite exhibit and activities carefully

a.       Graphics should be bold and have little text – attendees won’t read but will scan a couple of short bullet points

b.      Limit or even better eliminate brochures – the vast majority of information picked up at a trade show goes directly into the trash can.  Engage attendees in a conversation and get their information so you can follow-up with details

c.       Entice attendees to your booth with appropriate giveaways or with a drawing or some other competition

5.       Follow-up and do it quickly!

a.       This seems like the most obvious (as leads usually are the most important reason for attending the show) but after the show it often gets lost

b.      Have someone be responsible to enter all leads into a database and to send them to the appropriate person for follow-up

c.       Have the person responsible for follow-up, re-qualify and report back the status of all leads

Trade shows are a lot of time and effort, but they are an excellent way to establish rapport with clients with face-to-face interaction.  Make sure you address tell them how your product/service addresses their needs and be sure to follow-up after the show.