17 Great Reasons to Exhibit at a Trade Show

There are hundreds of different reasons to exhibit at a Trade Show and one unique benefit of the trade show environment is that it’s possible to accomplish a variety of highly strategic objectives within a short period of time. Trade shows aren’t simply for meeting with customers and new prospects, they’re a unique “pop up community” of exactly the customers, prospects, partners, and media that you need to be influencing to grow your business.

We’ve broken down the list below into the following key strategic functions which can benefit from a trade show. The ordering is based on the typical product lifecycle rather than strategic importance since that will depend on your particular situation

• Research
• Build your Team
• Brand
• Launch
• Sell

Research

• Research a potential new market and quickly understand customer needs and reactions to current or planned future product or service offerings.
• Obtain product or service feedback

Build your Team

• Find and recruit new channel partners
• Build sales team moral
• Educate your sales team and channel partners
• Find potential technology partners

Launch

• Demo new products or new service offerings to potential customers
• Launch a new brand or company to your target market and media targets

Brand

• Create or reinforce your brand image and potentially gain leadership positioning
• Re-position your company within your market
• Meet with key members of the press and media (PR) to generate free publicity and a deeper understanding of your products and corporate messaging.

Sell

• Meet with hundreds of prospects in your target market many of whom are actively searching for your products or services
• Shorten the buying cycle through product demonstrations, meetings with key executives, and access to key technical personnel and decision makers
• Gain immediate sales revenues through on show sales events and promotions
• Enter new markets quickly
• Reach existing customers and new prospects at a much lower cost per personal interaction
• Generate hundreds of sales leads and qualify those leads