Trade Show Essay, Research Paper
Trade Shows: Making Yours A Success
Trade shows, done right, can be the crown jewel of your marketing mix. Here’s how to make trade shows pay off for your company.
+ Set quantitative goals for each show at which you exhibit: There s an old saying that goes, We don t know where we re headed, but we re getting there fast. If you don t have established goals for your trade show how many customers you want to prospect, how many deals you want to close and with whom, and a dance card filled with appointments in advance of the show you aren t maximizing your staff s time. This extra preparation can mean the difference between an uncertain return on your investment and a healthy one.
+ Use trade shows to test market new products: Sometimes, instead of putting together an expensive market research study, consider bringing product prototypes and demonstrations to show in a private space of your booth, or in a hotel suite. This can save time and money and give you qualitative data you might otherwise miss.
+ Gather competitive intelligence: You don t even need a booth to gather tremendous competitive intelligence at a show. Give yourself and your staff time to walk the floor and attend the product demos of all of your competitors, then put together a report for management after the show encapsulating your findings.
+ Don t choose a show for its location: Sure, we d all like to attend the convention in Hawaii. But sometimes the show in the less desirable location is the one that will produce the most serious buyers. Make sure the trade show organizer shows you the demographic data from past events to get a feel for the type of attendee.
+ First-time events are risky: It can be costly to exhibit at a show that has no track record. If a new show is in or near your hometown or a major office, the costs can be mitigated to a degree. But sometimes it pays to wait until the show has a track record before jumping in.
How to Use Promotions Effectively at Your Trade Show
Is it necessary to offer promotional items at my trade show booth?
Part of the excitement in going to a trade show is coming home with interesting giveaways. Since being at a trade show means being close to your prospective customers, it s important that you offer unique items they will remember you by.
Aside from giving the trade show go-ers the gift they ve come to expect, promotional items can work some other wonders for you as well:
+ Drive traffic to your booth. You can draw a huge crowd in front of your booth (as well as connect with lots of prospects) just by having an interesting gift. Everyone will want to know what s going on and who you are. While they wait in line, you ll have the perfect opportunity to explain your services and collect leads to follow-up on after the show. When people are in other locations of the convention center and see your name on a bag or a cool item, they ll seek you out.
+ Leave behind a good feeling about your company. While any gift is appreciated, a special one can create a connection between what you do and your prospect s needs.
What are the best items to give out?
Be creative! Try to pick a gift that will not only incite your prospects curiosity but also tie in with your business. For example, a beauty website or fashion magazine might give out a lip-gloss or a compact. An investment bank might think about a translucent calculator.
Pens, while they may seem like a naturally inexpensive choice, are an effective way to establish your brand. Experts say that pens have a high pass-along value and can actually promote your company up to 8 times longer than any other giveaway. Once given to a prospect, the pen will be used at work, could be lent to a colleague, or left behind in an office. As a result, your company name will travel and inspire brand recognition.
How much should I spend on promotional items for the show?
This is largely dependent on your budget. Your best bet is to spend between $1 and $5 per person.
Also, note that it is acceptable to buy two different sets of giveaways to distinguish between good leads and serious prospects:
If someone approaches you with an interest in learning about your business, consider them a good lead. The best you can do to make an impression (aside from a winning sales pitch) is to give them a little something to remember your name. By spending between $1 and $5 per person, you can find products with enough flare to draw a crowd without breaking the bank. There are a number of unique items which, when used in combination, can make an influential giveaway package.
A serious lead is someone who not only has established a need for the resources you offer but also is able to influence purchase decisions. For these prospects, you may want to spend between $7 and $10 per person on incentives. Offer the gift with some discretion and point out that these are not for everyone, just special people you look forward to working with. By letting them know that you highly value their prospective business, the $10 you spend will surely pay you back.
Reaching Buyers At The Trade Show
By Alyson Hendrickson Wentz, CAS
Attendees walking onto a trade show floor are greeted with a multitude of sights and sounds. Banners, posters, video screens, music, sound effects, product demonstrations, models, magicians, clowns, mimes, robots and many other marketing ploys vie for their attention. It’s no wonder that the average show attendee goes into sensory overload after only a few hours on the floor. As a trade show exhibitor, your mission is to develop a promotion that will attract qualified buyers to your booth before they become overwhelmed by the promotional strategies of your competitors.
The most effective way to cut through the clutter of competing trade show promotions is to market to prospective buyers before they get to the show. Ideas for successful pre-show promotions are outlined in the article, Pre-Trade Show Marketing: Get Them Before They Get There. But, if you choose not to run a pre-show promotion, there are still many effective at-show marketing strategies that you can use.
At the show you can still target buyers before they reach the show floor. Find out where your prospects will be staying during the show, and then send targeted flyers or imprinted products to their hotel rooms. At a Comdex show in Las Vegas, Microsoft arranged for a silk-screened pillowcase to be put on the pillows in every hotel room in the city. When show attendees (and other visitors) pulled back their bed covers at night they saw the Microsoft logo and booth number imprinted on their pillows.
Another at-show promotion that utilized hotel rooms as the point of delivery was a campaign by IntelliData (Springfield, VA) at the Retail Delivery trade show. The company had one-page floor plans of the show delivered to its prospects’ rooms. Prospects who brought the floor plan to IntelliData’s booth at the show received a complimentary pair of boxer shorts as a gift.
“Any advertising specialty item should reflect the quality of your product and the good reputation of your firm,” says Jay Conrad Levinson in Guerilla Trade Show Selling. “There is a subconscious discounting of who you are when a prospect has to throw away something you’ve given them.” Therefore, it is ineffective, and a waste of money, to purchase thousands of cheap promotional items to be handed out indiscriminately, or to be left out on a table for attendees to scoop into their bags by the handful.
“If you decide to use premiums, select something meaningful and useful to your customer or prospect, and then use it as a parting gift,” Levinson says. “Insist on making your giveaway work hard to get you sales.” Some examples of hard-working premiums are those that are presented after the prospect has completed a survey/questionnaire, sat through a presentation or set up a sales appointment.
To thank computer programmers for completing a demonstration of a new product at a computer trade show, Integrated Chipware (Reston, VA) presented them with an imprinted juggling set. The programmers were first invited to the booth through the distribution of invitation buttons imprinted with the message “I’ve Seen the Future in Real Time.” Those who visited the booth and completed the demonstration received the juggling sets. The juggling sets were chosen as the appropriate gifts because stress- and boredom-relieving toys are favorites of computer programmers. To further reinforce the promotion, booth staffers wore custom-imprinted shirts, ties and earrings that echoed the shapes and colors of the juggling set.
According to Guerilla Trade Show Selling, the best premiums/promotional help your prospects/clients get their job done faster. “Information premiums have the highest perceived value and the lowest relative reproduction costs,” Levinson says. Examples of information premiums are reprints of articles, special reports, audio and videotapes, computer software and books related to your field. “Such premiums self-select your prime prospects, because they are of little use to the general public,” he adds.
If you choose to use an “information premium” as your trade-show gift, add further value to it by including an appropriate promotional product. Clip together articles or reports with a giant imprinted paper clip. Present a book with an engraved metal or embossed leather bookmark inside, or include an imprinted highlighter that the recipient can use to mark important passages. Audio and videotapes can be placed inside an imprinted tote bag or portfolio. Computer discs can be given out in imprinted CD cases. Whatever product you choose, it’s important that it complement the “information premium.”
The next best premium, according to Levinson, is a specialized tool that would appeal to a specific group of recipients. For example, a fertilizer company might want to give out an imprinted plastic slide rule to landscapers who need to calculate application rates for fertilizer. Another example is a hotel or restaurant exhibitor giving out imprinted wine selection books to meeting planners
When choosing an appropriate trade show premium, the exhibitor also wants to consider his objectives at the show. Some companies use incentives only if they have a new product release or a new product application to promote, and then the incentive is closely tied to the product. Other companies might use premium gifts to tie in with particular benefits or features of their products or services that they want to sell. A heating and air conditioning company in North Carolina wanted to impress on trade show attendees the savings they would recognize by buying the company’s products. Booth staff at the show distributed imprinted money clips to reinforce the savings connection.
Along with giving out an appropriate promotional item, trade show exhibitors need to make the most of other opportunities to reach show attendees. One such opportunity is the design of your booth and the copy and graphics that are displayed on and in it. “Your graphics must show what you do,” Levinson says. “They must be clear and compelling. They must be colorful and attractive, and they must sell.” Read the article Branding Your Trade Show Booth for more ideas on effective booth promotion.
Your booth staffers can also serve as promotional vehicles for your company. Dress them in golf shirts, denim shirts or oxford shirts embroidered with your corporate logo. The shirts will present a professional and unified image of your company to show-goers, while also simplifying your employees’ show wardrobes. Attendees will appreciate being able to separate booth staff from the crowd when they need to ask a question, or place an order. The logoed shirts will also serve to promote your company when booth staffers are outside of the booth — on a lunch break, etc. Have some extra shirts on hand, so that you can present them as gifts to customers who might ask for one. You can also build in a follow-up opportunity by promising the client you’ll send them a shirt after the show.
Another item to keep on hand is a high-quality pen. Levinson suggests keeping a supply of high-end pens in your exhibit to present to clients when they need to complete an order. “When they offer it back to you, respond with, ‘I believe that’s yours.’ They’ll say, ‘No, you just gave it to me.’ And you’ll respond, ‘Yes. That’s right.’ They will put it in their pocket with a smile and remember you every time they use it,” Levinson says. Don’t pass up the chance to have a subtle logo imprinted on the pen, or perhaps simply your company’s web address engraved on the pen cap.
Remember to ask the recipient how they’re enjoying the pen or whatever show gift your gave them when you follow up with them after the show. If they mention any problem that they’re having — the pen stopped writing, the imprint wore off the juggling set, etc. — apologize and promise to send them a new gift. Then send it out right away with a note thanking them again for stopping by your booth. Other ideas for effective follow-up promotions are discussed in Post-Trade Show Follow Up — Turning Leads Into Sales.
Alyson Hendrickson Wentz, CAS, is a freelance writer specializing in articles about marketing with promotional products. She spent six years on the editorial staff of The Counselor magazine, the preeminent publication for the promotional products industry, and earned the Certified Advertising Specialist (CAS) designation from the Promotional Products Association International.
Turning Leads into Sales after the Trade Show
By Alyson Hendrickson Wentz, CAS
Imagine planning a huge party and sparing no expense to do it right. You’ve hired the best caterer in town. Bought out the most elegant florist. Sent engraved invitations to all of your friends and colleagues. And then on the day of the party, after you’ve spent months planning it, you change your mind and call the whole thing off. You wouldn’t do that, right? Of course not. But, that’s just what some exhibitors are doing when they spend months of planning (and thousands of dollars) to make a splash at a trade show, and then don’t follow up with the prospects that they went to the show to meet. They’ve wasted their time and money. They might as well have stayed home.
The Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) reports that 80 percent of exhibitors make no attempts to follow up on their leads from trade shows. In a study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Center for Marketing Communications, 43 percent of prospective buyers reported receiving materials that they had requested at a trade show after they had already made a buying decision. Another 18 percent said that they never received the materials that they had requested. “Unfortunately, the longer you wait, the less likely you are to close,” says Jay Conrad Levinson in Guerilla Trade Show Selling.
There are three components to effective trade show marketing — pre-show, at-show and post-show. Without the post-show component, the marketing strategy is not complete and often the sale is not made. Therefore, developing a creative and effective post-show promotion is just as important as, or even more important than, your pre- and at-show promotions.
According one a government-funded study, when service is perceived to be immediate, 95 percent of customers will do business with you again. So, follow up right away. “Just as you scheduled time before the show for planning and preparation, reserve time immediately after the show to manage your new leads,” Levinson says. “It’s your company’s responsibility to keep the promises that your exhibit staff made to visitors. Send visitors what you promised, when you promised. Call them. Visit them. Don’t ignore them! Follow up your hot leads within two to three days, and tend to the rest within a week.”
A tough timeline to meet? Not if you plan ahead. Before leaving for the show, make up the sales literature packages that will be sent out when you return, or have them made up while you’re at the show. You can also have several form letters prepared that can be customized with the pertinent client name and information when you return from the show. Make sure that all of the letters are signed, and write a longhand note on the envelope — “Here’s the information you requested.” You’ll also want to choose an attention-getting promotional product to include with your follow-up literature. It should follow the same theme or idea that your pre- and at-show promotional items did, and it should tie in with your products and/or services. Another study by CEIR indicated that the triple gift approach to trade show promotion resulted in the greatest increase in awareness of the exhibitor’s identity, product or service. It also resulted in a 70-precent increase in preference for the exhibiting company compared to no gift.
In the article Reaching Buyers At The Trade Show, we discussed a North Carolina heating and air conditioning company that gave out imprinted money clips at a trade show to tie in with the idea that its services would save the prospects money. After the show, the company followed up on qualified prospects by sending them a dollar bill encased in Lucite to further drive home the savings angle. The program had a 15-percent success rate.
Along with including a promotional product, another way to make sure your follow-up package gets opened is to make the package something special. Send your literature and promotional item by Federal Express, UPS Red, Airborne or Express Mail. Better yet, send it in unique packaging, such as a tube, a wooden crate, a Chinese food container, a bottle, etc. Custom packaging gets your package noticed and opened.