When talking with clients and potential clients I often ask why they are exhibiting at their trade show.  I understand this is an odd question because they will use my services if they are exhibiting, but I want to make sure my clients are exhibiting for the right reasons.  Here are the most helpful questions to ask yourself if you want a successful trade show exhibit:

- Why am I exhibiting at this show?

- Is my target market attending the show?

- Will exhibiting help grow our business?

- I am just exhibiting because I always do…is there anything else I can do to maximize this opportunity?

Does my booth:

- Clearly convey exactly what I do in a way that will solve my target markets problem/pain?

- Allow me to stand out from other exhibits at the show?

- Have a layout that attracts people into the booth rather than repel the potential leads?

- Have an attendee/qualified lead exhibit flow mapped out?

- Contain trade show booth trained exhibit staff with assigned roles and understands their objectives.

Does my strategy include:

- A pre-trade show strategy that will attract qualified leads to our exhibit before the show even begins?

- An at-trade show show strategy that will utilize our unique opportunity to gain brand awareness, roll out a new product, social media opportunities, maximize the number of qualified leads into the booth, which will increase sales?

- A post-trade show follow-up strategy that will yield a high return on investment and successfully get show lead responses and help convert them into sales?

- A trained sales staff that understands the marketing strategy and how to use the social media and other great techniques to increase their lead to sale conversions?

If you answered no to any of these questions or don’t really know what I am talking about here, feel free to contact us for a free exhibitor assessment where we will look at your exhibit design and strategy to provide you with free exhibitor consulting that will help you improve your results and lead to greater success!

Companies have been using collateral at trade shows for years as a marketing technique.  How effective is this and what is it hurting?  Most collateral that is used at a trade show is thrown out.

Why is this?  Well, trade show attendees are walking by all of the booths and collecting collateral from the different companies exhibiting.  They take all of this information with the best intention to read it over, but because of busy schedules and large workloads, most of this material is simply thrown out.  The only hope is that your collateral stands out among the crowd, which leads to marketing departments spending additional time and money to do so.  Also, all of your extra collateral will most likely be thrown out because it will either cost more to ship it back than it would to reproduce it or the material is no longer relevant.  The amount of paper thrown out is staggering and is obviously not good for the environment.  What does this mean to you?  It means that if you use a lot of collateral at your trade shows you are wasting your marketing dollars and hurting the environment.

I’m not saying don’t use any collateral; however use it in a way that is more strategic and effective.  Here are some tips on effectively using collateral:

1^st Don’t have a large amount of collateral at the show.
Just have a little on hand for very “hot” leads.

2^nd If a lead asks for any marketing material, explain to them that your company has eliminated a lot of trade show collateral because so much was thrown away, and the company wanted to be more eco-friendly.

3^rd Explain to the lead that you will be sending the requested information to them through email and direct mail.  This way they don’t have to carry more stuff and you will follow-up with them to make sure they got the information the wanted and answer any questions.  “Is that ok?”  This qualifies the lead, provides you with contact information, and allows you to set up a follow-up phone call.

4^th Record the person’s information and what they would like to learn more about.  Make sure you verify all of the information.

What does this mean for you?  You are sending specific information to qualified trade show leads instead of just wasting money one useless collateral.

For more helpful trade show marketing advice, contact www.TMGExhibits.com

Inbound marketing is all the rage right now, however not everyone is taking advantage of it’s usefulness, especially when it comes to following up on trade show leads.  Inbound marketing then uses social media to then stay connected to these qualified leads.  Those that find your content to be of value will want to stay connected to you in hope they will get more valuable content.  This is why they follow your blogs and twitter.

At a trade show you may meet a qualified lead that is not interested in your service right now, however they might need your service in a month or a year.  Sales personnel cannot follow and stay in contact with all of these leads, nor does this lead want the sale person to hound them.  This is where using inbound marketing and social networking outlets can be applied to trade show lead follow-up strategy.  Your follow-up emails should include an invitation to follow your company on twitter, or your blogs, or facebook etc, for them receive more information of value, such as tips.

In addition to this, your company can stay in contact with them so that
even if they are not interested now, you will stay in-touch with them for
potential business in the future.

This is just one way you can use social media and inbound marketing as part of your trade show follow-up strategy.  I hope this gets you thinking of ways to get better results out of your trade show exhibiting experience.  If you do find this information to be of value, follow us!

Do you struggle with what to have for your promotional giveaways?  Having custom playing cards for your custom exhibits is a great idea.  Jason Arakelian of The 1 Eyed Jack blogged about his Hero Decks being a good promotional giveaway at trade shows.  In his blog about using custom playing cards as part of your thank you strategy, he said,

“I know people that have the same deck of cards in their kitchen drawer for the last 30 yrs.  That being said when I give someone a deck of cards as a thank you, I know they keep it, use it and remember me whenever they use it. Playing Cards bring people and families together.”

Your message, constantly in front of people, over a long period of time – isn’t that the perfect strategy for promotional giveaways?  If you want some other trade show strategies for custom playing cards, read Novelty playing cards are trade show magic.  There’s even a Go Green idea!

Tell us how you have used custom playing cards for your custom exhibits.

You may have the best custom exhibit, but if you attend the wrong show, then you’ve wasted a lot of money.  B to B Online, a site for b2b marketing strategists, posted an article discussing a survey that states:

…exhibitors rank the purchasing influence and buying power of attendees as the top factors when deciding whether to exhibit at a given event.

I would take quality over quantity every time.

The Trade Show Calendar is a great site to find out valuable information about shows.  It also allows you to sort by many categories and add information about a show.  You’ll want to add that site to your favorites.

Make sure to qualify your business to business lead generation strategy by contacting the show management and asking for data that they have collected over the last few years.  How many people are already signed up for a show is an indicator of its strength.

While attending  the 2008′ National Stationary Show in NYC with my client “CHECKERBOARD” I realized what this show really was all about.  New products sure, but there was more. Each company was also networking with their competition and everyone had nothing but positive comments about each other. Strange for me to experience such civilized business practice in the trade show industry.

Now the real highlight of this show for me, was to meet the “Arthur Chase” of CHECKERBOARD LTD.
This was when CHECKERBOARD LTD. just received an Award for a “NEW” product design, and being a designer myself, I was very impressed with how many of these awards were displayed throughout their 22′ x 60′ foot Exhibit space.

After speaking with Mr. Chase I realized why CHECKERBOARD LTD. is such an “award winning company” and why they have lead this industry for so long and continue doing so.