9 Secrets to a Successful Trade Show

Trade shows are a great way to gain exposure and grow your business. Whether you’re a small or large business, it’s all about getting in the path of potential customers and trade shows allow you to do just that. There are many keys to running a successful trade show booth and I’m going to share with you my top 10 tips for a successful trade show.

1.  Find The Right Tradeshows

You want to make sure that your hard earned money is working for you and you do this by getting in front of the right target market. Finding the right trade shows is imperative to your success. Do a little research and you’ll have a great idea whether the trade show has potential. A great way to do this is by getting a hold of the show’s organizer and ask them for previous shows statistics, like how many exhibitors showed in previous years, total costs, and number of attendees. Get a list of past exhibitors and contact them asking them about their experience at previous shows.

2.  Be Memorable

Your job is not only to get noticed, but to memorable. You want potential customers to remember you once they leave. You do this by using great tools like amazing trade show displays and banner stands to get noticed. Using the right tools gets you noticed and that’s that first step in being memorable in any trade show.

3.  Have A Strategy In Place

It’s’ important to have a strategy in advance. Ideally, strive to run trade shows like a finely tuned machine. Taking a systematic approach makes your job much easier. Know what you’re going to say to trade show attendees, how you’re going to get them to be interested in your product or service, and how you’re going to follow up. At the end of the day you’re at the trade show to make sales and get new leads. Constantly be working on optimizing your sales process. This is completely unique to each individual niche so there’s no cookie cutter method of doing it. No matter what your niche, your goal should always be to get the most out of each individual customer. You do this through the process of strategy implementation and optimization.

4.  Have strong communication skills

Communication is the key to your trade show success. It’s all about communication, this is the lifeblood of your business. Being approachable plays a big part in your trade show success and having the proper communication skills make all the difference in the world.

5. Have a follow up in place

Make sure to have follow up system in place. This is important because it builds a rapport with your potential customers. It’s all about the relationships you build with these potential customers and you do this by sharing your knowledge, insights, products and services with them. Many small businesses fall short in this department, make sure to be prepared for this during your trade shows and make sure to use quality trade show displays to build your brand.

6. Know your product

It’s a shame to do all this work setting up for a trade show and not knowing enough about your product. I’ve seen it many times. I go to an exhibit, am genuinely interested and I start asking the person running the exhibit questions. To my surprise, they can’t answer my questions and really have no idea. Unfortunately I’ve seen this happen more often than I’d like to admit. If you’re going to go through the effort of setting up an exhibit at a trade show make sure you know your “stuff”.

7. Do your research

Doing your research ahead of time will help with make things run smooth. From setting up your hotel reservations to checking the weather and traffic situations, researching is an integral part to being prepared. This will allow for the smoothest trade shows and make life much easier for you.

8. Advertise in advance

Depending on the market, you can put ads out in classifieds letting people know that you’ll be at a local trade show. You can expand your marketing efforts online like craigslist and other free classifieds. This can give you an edge over other exhibitors.

9. Stand out from the crowd

You want to stand out from the crowd and quality trade show displays give you the edge you need. Your trade show booth needs to differentiate you from the rest of the crowd. I’ve been to quite a number of trade shows in my time and of all the exhibits I’ve seen over the years, only a handful have been truly memorable. The common theme amongst those memorable exhibits was that they all had really great trade show displays. This is what the customer remembers most. This is why we make Iconic Displays.