The Exhibit Source Blog

With the right planning, B2B marketers can use trade shows to speed up the sales cycle, reduce the cost of sales, and reach customers and prospects.

Many feel that exhibit marketing is the most cost-effective means of reaching customers and prospects; it reduces the buying cycle; it allows you to reach hidden buyers.  Most important, though, is that it can reduce the cost of a sale by as much as 75%.

However, to attain those kinds of results, planning is essential.  And that’s where many trade show exhibitors fall short.

71% of all exhibitors have no measurable goals or objectives or even a written marketing plan.

Here is a 12-step planning process that can be very helpful for B2B companies who are actively marketing or considering marketing at trade shows.

1. Define the Situation – Who is your company? What is your product and its real benefit? Who are your competitors?
2. Identify Your Target Audience – This needs to go beyond just the procurement people. Think about the end users and those who influences the buying decision.  You probably have multiple, distinct audiences.
3. Pre-show Research – Not all trade shows are a good investment of your time and money.  
4. Set Goals and Measurable Objectives – Sales goals are not a realistic metric given the long sales cycles for most B2B sales, but other goals should be set and measured such as contact and qualified leads.
5. Have Management Support and Input – To be effective, management needs to perceive trade show marketing as a cost rather than an investment.  Don’t exhibit if you can’t get management support and input.
6. Strategies and Tactics – This contains the specifics of how to achieve the goals and objectives from #4 above.  Unfortunately, many exhibitors skip #’s 1-5 and start here.
7. Include Current Advertising and Corporate Communications – Your trade show message needs to be consistent with all other corporate brand touch points.
8. Pre-Show/At-Show Promotion – After you’ve determined who you really need to see at the show, develop a promotion beforehand targeting that group to drive them to you.
9. Design a trade show Exhibit to Support Steps 1-8 – Take the perspective of the visitor whose mindset is “what’s in it for me?”
10. Plan the Follow-Up Plan – According to some experts, 80% of exhibitors don’t follow up on leads. By developing a follow-up program beforehand, this problem can be eliminated.
11. Involve and Train Your Staff – One of the biggest challenges is getting staff to listen to visitors before jumping into a presentation.
12. Measure Results and Make Money – This involves getting back to management, comparing results to objectives and determining if a return to that show is in order.

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Trade show exhibits are an investment and when you invest in having one created, you most certainly want to do it right. Obviously, getting the most out of your investment in key to justifying the investment, and ROI is the point of the show, right?

But there is another way to make use of your trade show display to expand your brand after the event is over that can further help their ROI. How? Use your trade show exhibit to recruit at job fairs and college campuses.

When your organization participates in regional job fairs or recruits at college campuses your trade show display will prominently display your logo, brand, and top products or services to help you recruit the top talent.
 
Rather than the traditional marketing materials your HR department can create specific recruiting material to hand out along with business cards and product information.

The Exhibit Source designs customized trade show displays that help businesses in any industry get noticed at any trade show. Looking for visually impacting trade show booths? Contact The Exhibit Source.

In designing your trade show exhibit the use of graphics is always important and necessary. But it is the type of graphic that catches the eye first that is most important. In creating graphics be sure to do this first and foremost: Quickly and easily show who you are, and what you do.

This seems like common sense. It is so basic and it is so important in your trade show display, but you would be so surprised at how many people don’t do this.

Remember that you have no more than 5 seconds to catch that potential client’s attention with your trade show exhibit.  Potential customers need to see immediately who you are and what your company does. If they don’t then you have a slim chance at attracting their interest.

You have been to a trade show; you know that there are just too many other marketing messages competing for the attention of attendees. No one has the time to try and figure out what you can provide.

Be sure to concisely state what you do.  Show what problems you solve, solutions you offer and what sets you apart.  Show potential clients that your company can meet their needs.  This also saves your staff time and energy. It helps you qualify the visitors that stop at your trade show booth.

Adding visual graphics help too. Use bullet points, color images or testimonials to encourage people to stop at your booth. Ensure too that your staff knows your product, service and business in order to help increase your trade show ROI.

For help designing your trade show display, contact The Exhibit Source in Newton.

Trade shows are your company’s chance to debut a new product, find better vendors and suppliers, reach out to potential clients and find new talent to bring in to your company. But if you want to grab people’s attention at a trade show, then you will need to make and follow a plan and use some good trade show techniques. The company that is prepared to maximize the opportunities at a trade show is the company that will walk away feeling like the investment in the event was worth it.

Marketing Materials

One of the biggest mistakes companies make when they prepare for a trade show is a mediocre trade show display and deciding to use the existing marketing materials they have on hand. In order to make a big impact at a trade show, you need to give people something that will make your products stand out. You need to have new marketing materials and pop up trade show displays made up for the products and services you will be featuring at the show.

Make and Follow a Plan

Your company is investing a lot of money into being on a trade show floor. Do not go into the show without having a plan. Your trade show booth may look impressive, but if you do not have a message for attendees that they can understand, then you will not draw traffic.

If you want to release new products at this trade show, then develop your approach around those products. If you are going to use this trade show to try and attract new distributors for your products, then you will need a presentation more geared towards the benefits of doing business with your company as opposed to just product benefits.

Have the Right Team

If you are focusing on product sales at the show, then you will need sales people and you will need product engineers to answer detailed questions. If your presence at the show is designed to attract vendors or distributors, then you will want members of the logistics team, marketing department and executive team on hand to make a good impression.

The Giveaway

Too many companies underestimate the power of the free giveaway at trade shows. Giving away toys or notepads with your company logo on them is nice, but if you give people something they can use word will travel fast among the crowds.

When you have a good plan for a trade show, then you can maximize your investment in show resources. Take the time to plan your presence in advance so that you can attract more visitors and collect more useful information.

LuxeLounge

It’s time to change the conversation about trade shows. Stop thinking about monetary ROI from trade shows and move on to more urgent and practical matters.

What do you want to get from trade show spend?

There is a simple answer: Leads and sales.

Exhibit marketing isn’t like the other popular B2B marketing tactics. B2B marketing needs personal selling.

Websites, Webinars, SEO, paid search, e-mail, PR, print advertising, direct mail and social media are all one or more steps removed from personal selling.

Executives demand need evidence of ROI in the above, because they can readily suck up time and money without clearly driving sales.

But exhibit marketing is different.

It’s so closely tied to personal selling that you shouldn’t demand elaborate proof of ROI in it. You can’t demand that sales people prove their ROI with charts and graphs of phone calls, travel, hospitality and gifts.

Judge a trade show, like a salesperson is judged.

In assessing trade show performance, this is what executives want to know:

• Does the show help our company communicate effectively?
• Does it help us establish industry leadership?
• Does it let us identify promising accounts?
• Does it help us educate and develop buyers?
• Does it create valuable relationships?
• And does it, when all’s said and done, produce sales?

To accomplish the above, send the right people and have the right trade show display. For a captivating trade show exhibit, contact The Exhibit Source.
 
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Despite repeated rumors of their decline, industry trade shows are alive and well. Since 2008, the $100 billion trade show industry has been growing nearly 3% over the past 18 months. Beyond the obvious networking, learning, and sales opportunities, trade shows can also be an excellent place to launch a new company or product. Here are some tips on how entrepreneurs can identify the right shows to attend and get the most out of them.

During the financial crisis many people predicted that professional conventions and industry trade shows would become obsolete, replaced by videoconferencing and Web events. Has that happened?

The Internet is not doing anything at all to displace face-to-face events. In fact, demand for face-to-face is growing as a result of the Internet facilitating transactions and opportunities, and extending the trade show’s reach before and after it occurs. People will always have the need to explore, travel, and meet others in person.

Have trade shows recovered from the financial crisis and recession?

You can’t really say how the industry is doing as a whole because you have to look at specific industries within the exhibition space.

Look at the energy space, especially alternative energy like wind and solar, and they are drawing 20,000 to 30,000 attendees at shows that are not even five years old. We measure metrics across 14 different industry sectors and we track 10,000 events in the U.S., including 7,000 professional events and 3,000 public events that draw between 20 and 30 million consumers annually. We are forecasting overall growth of 2.9 percent this year and 3 percent in 2013.

What do you tell would-be entrepreneurs about the best way to find a trade show and get the most out of attending?

It’s important to set objectives first. Too many people go to trade shows without knowing what they want to get out of them, and the results they achieve are disappointing. It is easy to find online directories that list upcoming events by date, by industry, by show type, by region, and other specifics.

Next, find out who the exhibitors are, look at the floor plan online, and put together a daily agenda for which exhibitors you want to talk to and when. There can be hundreds of exhibits at big shows, so you don’t want to run around helter-skelter trying to find booths. The real benefit is that you have a very efficient platform that aggregates all these people with similar interests under one roof, and they typically have the same broad objectives as the attendees. So you don’t have to fly around the country talking to 15 or 20 different companies about carrying their products or selling them yours.

Can you give some tips for small businesses that are considering exhibiting?

The exhibition is an excellent platform to launch a new business. Especially for small and medium-size enterprises, they are an enormously efficient way to gain market entry. With an established business, first decide what you want to achieve with your marketing budget for the year and what you’re going to spend on trade shows vs. other advertising. Again, set objectives and find events where you can talk to buyers who will help you achieve those objectives.

Calculate how much space you’ll need and how much staff you need to take based on how many buyers you want to touch over how many days. Get the attendee demographics and contacts from the show organizer and do pre-show promotions three months ahead of time, instead of just getting a big space and expecting the right people to magically come by.

After the show, thank them for meeting you, extend any discounts or promos you offered during the show for an additional 10 days, and let them know where they can reach you if they’re interested.

How much does all this cost?

Many trade shows are free, but they’re open only to qualified professionals. For those that charge admission, most are well under $500. Of course you have to factor in travel, accommodations, and time away from work, but you shouldn’t think of it as an expense but an investment in your business.

Business Week

Pop up displays and enhancements for your trade show exhibits are easy and versatile. The Exhibit Source in Newton, MA now offers pop-up displays and trade show booth enhancements that are affordable and easy to set up. If you are creating a new exhibit or if you are trying to jazz up your existing trade show displays, these pop up enhancements and accessories make a big hit with booth visitors. Trade show pop-ups and enhancements are available for 10' x 10' and 20' x 20' displays.

Portable Pop Up Display Systems add a new dimension in flexibility to portable displays:

• Create a dynamic custom look
• Easily reconfigure for 10ft, linear, or island booth spaces
• Endless configuration possibilities
• Wide variety of frame sizes, fabric colors and accessories

These pop-up displays are available for rent or for purchase. Contact The Exhibit Source for availability.

If you are looking for a low-cost trade show display that is sure to stand out from the crowd, look at “Glide”. Glide has an unusual oval-shaped graphic background that will set your trade show exhibit apart. But just as important, it's the first portable exhibit that was designed to support a large-screen LCD monitor.

The 8' tall tower not only holds the video monitor and a shelf, but also provides integrated locking storage. Mounted to the sides of the tower is the large oval background banner, illuminated by a compact fluorescent edge lighting or optional LED lighting.

Experience the Portable Strength of these trade show displays. Built around a strong central tower, Glide blends true portability with incomparable strength and function.

No other portable trade show booth can support a TV screen this large! This trade show booth display is the Winner of the Best New Product Award at the Exhibitor 2009 Conference and The Only Portable System to receive an honor.

• Supports a 36” Monitor
• Integrated Locking Storage
• Choose the innovative oval shape or traditional rectangular fabric banner
• Sets up in less than 30 minutes
• Packs in one small, wheeled case weighing under 100 lbs.
• Save on shipping and storage costs!

Available for rent or for purchase. Contact The Exhibit Source.

Finding the right trade show to take your business to is very important. Trade shows can be expensive, when you consider staffing, your trade show booth, promotional items and literature, and you want to make sure you’re going to be getting the best value for money. Going to the right trade shows means you will find the right target audience.

Determining your objectives

The first thing that you need to think about is what you actually want to accomplish at the trade show. Do you want to generate leads? Meet existing customers? Get exposure for your brand? Meet industry experts? Branch out into a new sector? Get contacts in the media?

Once this is decided, you can better research which types of events would most likely to help you achieve your objectives?

Finding an exhibition

Of course you have some knowledge about what events take place throughout the year, but it always pays to be thorough. There are several ways you can find out about exhibitions that are taking place.

• Trade show search engines and directories – yes there are such things! These are databases of events that are taking place that are searchable by various criteria such as dates, location and industry. Try http://www.tsnn.com/, http://www.biztradeshows.com/ .
• Industry publications – these are really good for finding events in your sector. They’ll probably list all the big industry-wide events. Individual publications may also list events they have organized themselves.
• Your contacts – Ask around people in the industry that you know. You can find out quite a lot by word of mouth. This can also help when narrowing down your list – if someone mentions that an event was badly organized, you might think twice before signing up.
• Your competitors – take a sneaky peek at your competitors’ websites. They may have lists of or news items about the exhibitions they’re attending over the next few months. And if you go to the shows your competitors are going to, it not only gives you the chance to compete for the same audience, but also to find out what your competitors are doing in terms of marketing, products and services.
• Industry associations – check their websites for event listings or give them a call to find out if there are any upcoming events.
• Local event and convention centers or chambers of commerce – these will often have events listings on their websites, or you can call them up and ask. If you’re not looking to go too far afield, this could be a good option for reaching new local customers.

After you have done your research, you need to collate the results and weigh them against your objectives. Which shows are most likely to help you achieve these? And how good is the ROI likely to be? Those trades shows that require you to travel, consider whether the expense is worth it.

Your customers

Think about where your customers are most likely to be. If you can, talk to them and see if they’re going to any upcoming exhibitions or trade shows. If your existing customers are going, then the chances are that other attendees will be interested in you too.

Once you have narrowed down your list a bit, you could also try contacting the organizers of the exhibitions and asking them for lists of last year’s attendees. This will help you narrow down your list even further. Review your list whilst keeping your objectives in mind, and you should arrive at a shortlist of the events that are most likely to help you achieve them.

Then all you need to do is sign up for each event and contact The Exhibit Source so we can get to work on an incredible trade show booth display that will wow your target audience and make them want to know more about you.

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