Making the Most of Your Events

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Making the decision to invest in trade show exhibiting can be costly, but also an extremely rewarding step for your company. For the amount of time and money invested in exhibiting, you should expect a good return on your investment. However, many companies often fall short of their goals. Why? They haven’t taken the proper steps before, during and after the show to ensure its success.

Booth Location
Knowing where your booth will be located in relation to competitors, entrances and food courts will help you decide on the best display design for your budget. Be sure to notify your display designers about your location at the show so that they can create a display that will work well to gain the attention of visitors. For example, if your booth location backs up against a wall, your designers may recommend a banner or fabric pop-up, but if your display can be viewed from all sides, an island display will be necessary.

Engage Booth Visitors
Remember that acquiring the proper display design is only part of ensuring a successful exhibit. Before attending the conference, staffers should be trained at engaging the visitors to the booth. Pair an engaging trade show display with engaging trade show staffers, and your success rate will increase dramatically.

Create an Intriguing Display
It doesn’t have to be the largest or most expensive, but your message needs to be clearly communicated in a welcoming fashion.

Be Meaningful to Attendees
Your product or service must satisfy a need of the attendees. Use your display to communicate what it is that you have that they can’t do without.

Display Promotional Materials. Always have business cards, brochures, press releases and giveaways on hand to provide to the visitors.

Beware the Pitfalls of Exhibiting!
Below are several reasons why companies fall short when exhibiting.

Not setting goals and objectives: Trade show failure is often the result of not having clear goals and objectives set to support the decision of whether or not to exhibit.

Not matching “personality” of the show with your reason for exhibiting: Each trade show is different with respect to the type of people that attend the show, the types of companies that exhibit and the structure (i.e. inclusion of presentations or demonstrations). If the show’s unique characteristics are not aligned with your company’s reasons for exhibiting, then likely the ROI will be less than expected.

Overlooking pre- and post-show marketing: Marketing efforts at trade show events are more than shipping promotional materials to the venue. Strong efforts in advance of the show including direct mail campaigns and press releases, and developed strategies for in-person marketing to potential clients, will help ensure successful ROI. After the show, you can increase your ROI even more with prompt and thoughtful post-show follow up. Be sure to personally contact persons with whom you spoke during the show, and send direct mail pieces to those you weren’t able to meet with.

Inadequate training of booth staff: The booth staff represents the company, so they must be prepared with the objectives, goals and a clear picture of your marketing strategy prior to the event. Be sure your staff can speak intelligently about all of your products and services, and is accommodating to booth visitors.

Track your leads after the show and beyond: After the event, many companies fall flat by failing to plan and execute a follow-up strategy for their leads. At the show, keep good track of leads and to who they are assigned. After the show, utilize your database or a simple spreadsheet to log lead follow-up and activity.

The key to a strong trade show ROI is to carefully plan, execute and follow up on your show participation. Simply choosing the right trade show is not sufficient. Success will come when you choose the right show, set goals and objectives for, perform at the event and do the proper follow-up afterward.