With the high cost of travel, drayage, exhibit construction, and booth graphics, are trade shows still a viable marketing tool? Trade shows surely must have the highest “cost per contact” rate of any marketing tool in your toolkit so why do companies still spend millions of dollars a year on industry trade shows? Because prospects still want to touch and feel your products and want to have face-to-face contact with the company. In other words, they want to know that you are “real” and not a figment of their imagination. But, the good news is that you also reach a highly targeted group of people whom you might never reach via other marketing vehicles.
But, there are a few specific things you should know about trade shows to make your budget go further:
- Make sure you pick the “right” trade show. Don’t waste your money on shows that your potential audience doesn’t attend. With over 14,000 trade shows the task of picking the right one can be daunting. TSNN.com has a comprehensive online directory of trade show data that should help you select the proper shows. Once you have narrowed your list down, contact the organizers of the trade shows and ask them to send you a comprehensive audit and demographic information for each show.
- Teaser gifts still work. Studies have shown that sending a gift along with an invitation drew more attendees to an event that just individual invitations alone or invitations with redeemable coupons. You can certainly send the invitations to your in-house list but it is better to use the pre-registration list if the show provides access to one. That way, you are guaranteed to reach people who intend to attend the show.
- Make sure your booth is esthetically pleasing and that means really good signage. Small signage, confusing signage, or just plain bad signage is like having no signage at all. To stand out from the crowd your signage needs to blare out your message. With new digital signage it is easier than ever to present your company in a positive light.
- Staff your booth effectively. Too many staffers or not enough is a cardinal sin. When you have too many staffers, they usually have a tendency to talk to one another and ignore the prospects who want information. Too few staffers and your potential customers will go to your competitor’s booths. Have a review meeting after each show and ask the staffers what they felt went right and what went wrong. They can provide you some excellent feedback so you can plan the next show more successfully.
- And while you spent a lot of money on the trade show, now the real work begins after the show. Failure to follow up on leads is the number one way to mismanage all of your efforts. Now with the new infrared card readers, you can glean a lot more information about your prospects than ever before.
- Track your return on investment (ROI). With so many companies now demanding metrics for marketing budgets, it is important that you tie in the sales revenue that came directly from a particular trade show. With Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, it is easier than ever to track the cause and effect relationship of sales to a particular marketing activity.
So, next time you are planning your trade show schedule, keep a few of these pointers in mind to ensure you have a successful trade show season.
