After countless research, we believe in pre-show marketing and targeting your show selection.

Show selection is one point that continued to come up in many conversations and was a key factor in driving results and helping reduce costs. By targeting your “niche market” with a larger presence, your company can stand out as a leader in your market.

With more careful and earlier planning of your trade show season, you can reduce unnecessary expenses. Many exhibitors rely on online trade show management programs, that allow them access 24/7 to their booth staff, shipping and scheduling of events. This way you are not over staffing your booth, and you know when and where items will be at any given time. Reducing the last minute shipping charges for literature or missing components.

Lighter weight exhibits and modular solutions also will decrease your shipping and drayage costs drastically. With re-configurable portable solutions, you can stretch your marketing dollars.

Creating a process for follow up to measure your results to target your most successful shows will also help stretch your marketing dollars. If you notice poor performance from a certain trade show but fairly decent performance from another trade show, why not concentrate your efforts on the show that gives you the best results.

Managing your trade show leads is one of the best practices for success at trade shows. Always implement a plan for lead follow up, even before the doors to the trade show open. Whether it be outsourcing your trade show lead follow up or implementing your staff into using online software to manage and track your leads, you will see the results and see where your efforts are paying off.

This is one of the main reasons companies choose to exhibit, to find potential clients and prospects.  Trade show attendees are people that are looking for solutions to help make their goals easier to achieve.

Trade shows are a valuable source to advertise your business and meet potential clients.  The objective of trade shows is to emerge as a leader, your business, service or products are the foundation of your placement in your industry, your trade show display is the vehicle in which to drive them home.

Attracting attention with your exhibit and creating an inviting environment is essential to your marketing goals when it comes to exhibiting.  Designing a trade show display to enhance your overall goal will solidify your strengths and solutions.

Staffing your display with professional team members will help not only attract visitors into your trade show booth, but will help present your company as an authority in your market.  Trade show attendees often times feel intimidated when they walk into an exhibit and feel they are “infiltrating” a group.   If your booth staff is lingering and talking among themselves, attendees are less likely to approach them with their concerns or needs for your products and services.

Companies are looking for more cost effective solutions and are seeking advice of industry leaders to provide them with those solutions.  When you show a potential client positive results with your product/services, they will feel they have found a common ground, and their interests in your offerings will grow.

Keeping detailed notes on your prospects issues can help in your post show marketing. Research the issues that they are facing, and show them how in their circumstances your products and services will be valuable in their daily efforts.

By addressing their issues and concerns, potential clients will turn into solid partnerships.

Determining how your company will relay its message to a trade show audience establishes the basic criteria you will need in selecting a trade show presenter.  Will your criteria’s be scripting, podium presentation, using audio visual technology, gimmicks, over the top presentations, or the presenter’s ability to communicate?  Successful exhibitors understand that each trade show has its own budget constraints, booth size and marketing objectives and not all trade show presenters are appropriate for every environment.

The basic goal of every trade booth is to generate leads and to educate the consumer about your company’s service or product.  You can achieve this by simply utilizing the trade show presenter as a sideshow attraction or as a Hollywood stage presentation.

The sideshow attraction works best in small booths and allows education, entertaining, and  lead generation to occur when the trade show presenter interacts with the attendee and inquisitively seek out key information to assess their need level.   The higher the need level, the faster the trade show presenter turns the attendee over to qualified sales staff.

Hollywood presentations educate attendees on products and services requiring attention getting tactics and typically larger booth space.  High tech displays and performance are there to dazzle the crowd into staying and watching the presentation with trade show jargon, sales pitch and information all rolled up into a 10 minute production.  These normally happen 3-4 times an hour. Lead generation occurs when the trade show presenter requests the audience to enter into a raffle or qualifying them for an immediate discount for participating in the show presentation.

The return on investment is what a company looks for when hiring a trade show presenter.  Accomplishing this is by knowing the companies specific needs and knowing what the presenter can offer.  Once the issues are address, selection of a qualified trade show presenter is easy.

About the Author:
Dale Obrochta is a professional trade show presenter who uses promotional balloon entertainment to build trade show booth traffic. He is a leading entertainer in the balloon entertainment industry who consistently works trade shows and corporate events. Magical Balloon-dude Dale is balloon entertainment at its best!

Trade Shows, your platform for customized marketing solutions.

Whether you are an exhibitor in Las Vegas, Chicago, Orlando or New York City,  trade shows offer great potential for defining relationships.

It does not matter if you exhibit in a 10 x 10 display, a 10 x 20 inline exhibit or a 20 x 20trade show booth.

There are always details to cover and items can get over looked.  Have you run into the missing graphic? The lost box of literature?

What are your biggest trade show frustrations? We here at TradeShowHelp.org would love to hear from you about your exhibiting experiences.

Are you exhibiting more now through the economic downturn?

Are you exhibiting at smaller niche trade shows?

Have you experienced something that frustrates you each and every time you exhibit?

What would make your exhibiting experience easier?

How do you conduct your post show follow up?

We want to hear from exhibitors, their success stories, their failures.  By defining each part of your exhibiting experience and with strategical  planning you will find it easier to define your marketing ROI.

“There is a need for a robust solution that gives accurate and detailed information on conferences and trade shows to all the professionals out there.  With Bvents.com, we tried to build a tool that lets you search and find that information” said Yoav Markiewicz, Co-founder & VP Product Management at Bvents.

Nimrod Raizner, Co-founder & CEO at Bvents says: “A substantial amount of our resources were devoted to building sophisticated tools that work at the backend of our website. These tools allowed us to create, edit and improve the information.

With the ability to find exhibitors, keynote speakers and look into detailed floor plans, organizers and exhibitors have a wealth of information at their fingertips for early event planning.

Typical site visitors to Bvents.com are conference and trade shows attendees and exhibitors, as well as event industry professionals.

Mark

This is a point that is being talked about in board rooms all the time, I find one of the best answers, is to pose the question – Do you want to keep in touch with prospective clients?

This is the time to continue to market products and services by way of trade shows.   By exhibiting smarter, but not less often.

Competitors may pull out of shows and this gives you the opportunity to earn business on the trade show floor.  Companies may be sending less of their staff to the trade shows, but these are the decision makers and they have the buying authority.

Exhibitors need to determine which shows are giving the best ROI, the best way to do so is with detailed event management software, keeping detailed records and being able to report on any trade show will show where your marketing dollars are being best used.

Being able to access and compile the data at your fingertips will prove not only valuable now, but in the long run you will be able to show detailed information on any trade show you have attended.

I have heard discussion from some newer or smaller companies that they are concerned with the costs of trade shows, but yet want to harness the potential that now exists.

Exhibit Rental is a great option for companies that want to test the waters of trade shows.  This allows you to get the exposure you need without the heavy costs of purchasing an exhibit.  Modular exhibits are light weight and reconfigurable, so they can grow with you as your company grows, or be broken down so that you can try any of the smaller niche shows you may be considering.

Marketing in a recession is challenging, but planning accordingly and keeping focused on “potential clients” is worth the effort.

Thanks

April

Hello April,

We have seen smaller companies grow their business because of their trade show marketing strategies.  I actually just read the following information pertaining to CES in Las Vegas -

The 2009 International CES runs January 8-11 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and will feature 2,700 exhibitors, including more than 300 companies exhibiting for the first time. These companies will unveil their
latest CE S products on more than 1.7 million net square feet of exhibit space.

More than 300 companies exhibiting for the first time, that’s quite impressive.  With such a huge market place and stiff competition in the electronic industry, many of the smaller companies are branching out and taking advantage of trade shows and going after their potential buyers and customers on the trade show floors.

It is necessary to do your research to find out where similar companies are exhibiting and what shows they attend on an annual basis.

Finding an exhibit house that can assist with every facet of your trade show display and exhibit program is one of the best solutions, especially if you are new to trade show marketing.  Being able to show the value of your trade show program is an absolute must.  Having a system in place for budgeting, analysis, follow up and reporting will help you immensely when it comes to planning your trade show.   Here is a unique offering for not only a trade show display but a comprehensive exhibit program management tool, this may be a great place to start.

Andrea

There are several trade shows that focus on the fashion and apparel industry, one of the leading is the
M A G I C Trade Show which will take place in Las Vegas, February 17-19th, 2009, thousands of buyers attend this event each year.

There are several smaller trade shows throughout the country that also focus specifically on the fashion industry as well as focusing on specific niches within the fashion and apparel industry, i.e. men’s clothing, shoes, leather goods and teens & juniors.

Here is a small sampling of Fashion and Apparel Trade Shows by the largest number of attendee’s that may be a good starting place when you are planning your trade show display and exhibiting strategies.

Private Label Manufacturers Association – PLMA
MAGIC Marketplace – February
Chicago Midwest Beauty Expo
Premiere Beauty Show
WSA Show/Spring
WSA Show/Fall
Cosmoprof North America
Action Sports Retailer Expo – ASR
Action Sports Retailer Expo – ASR
Health & Beauty America – HBA
Outdoor Retailer Winter Market
Allied Beauty Association
ABC Kids Expo
AccessoriesTheShow – Las Vegas
Moda Las Vegas
Imprinted Sportswear Long Beach – ISS
IBS Las Vegas
Western & English Sales Market – WESA
Off-Price Show Fall
Off-Price Show Spring
Allied Beauty Association

Ryan

Exhibiting smarter is a great strategy with the current economy and you are not alone in changing up your trade show marketing and exhibit booth size.

Small exhibits can be vibrant and can accomplish the same goals and objectives as large exhibits.  It is much better to define your plan with a smaller exhibit than it is to eliminate trade shows completely.

Companies that send their buyers to trade shows are being more selective of who they send and why they are sending them.  With a more focused and qualified audience walking the trade show floor your opportunities to receive qualified leads seems to be increasing.

Redefining your marketing to encompass all the trade shows you are looking to get exposure at is a good marketing strategy.

Finding out the prospect’s main reason for attending the trade show and what their lead objective is,  you will be a step closer to finding a solution for them.  Solutions for Simplification are what most trade show attendee’s are looking for, looking for better performance from their employee’s or their manufacturing process.  Finding out up front their main concerns when it comes to their daily operations, will help in the process of finding them a solution that will simplify their daily routines.

Find out about your prospects entire team, seldom is a single trade show attendee solely responsible for the entire project, there are always members that work in the background and collectively they make their decisions.  Keep everyone on the same page,  a detailed list of each team member’s priorities will help you offer a solution that has balance and will touch on the main goals of each member, not overlooking any of their concerns will show them how your entire product/service offering will impact their process.

Consider your trade show display to be a presentation of your credentials and your professional position in the marketplace.  Demonstrate to your prospect how you take into account their specific needs and concerns. Simplifying your prospects daily routines and business concerns should be incorporated into your  trade show management & marketing.

Start with developing a relationship your exhibit house, conveying exactly what you want your trade show exhibit display to convey and how you want to be seen in the marketplace.  Exhibit designers will help define your trade show space and produce a center of attraction that will allow your company to be seen as a leader and allow you the area to offer and provide simplified solutions.