How to Make Your Next Trade Show Profitable

Trade show marketing and planning begin as soon as you get the registration e-mail for a show your company will attend.

Of course, that first decision to attend or not depends on your goals, your budget and your synergy with the expected attendees. If you have participated in the show before and will be returning it was probably worthwhile. Even if it was, you need to review and analyze what could have gone better. But I get ahead of myself.

Trade show marketing can be broken down into three elements.

Pre-show
On site
Post show

Pre-show.
Many shows will supply you with the list of incoming attendees, which is excellent. However, if you do not have immediate access or real-time access to the list, I suggest using the attendees from the last year’s event for two reasons. There is a high probability that many will be returning, and secondly, you cannot wait to start your outreach. Whether you use e-mail blasts, direct mail or possibly industry-specific print ads you need to be in front of the potential audience as soon as practical.

It is a bonus if you have a booth number so people can be directed to you without them stumbling upon you by chance. You will want to entice the attendees to visit you. This outreach gives you a leg up on your completion. Sample e-blast:
XYZ Corp – The home of the Ultra Widget – will be at the Mega Trade Show – Booth #929 – Stop by for our show specials and information on our new products lines. Contact Us at ###-###-#### or e-mail sales@XYZCorp.com, and we will enter you in a drawing for an XXXXXXXXXX. Make sure that the design is consistent with your company branding and style so when attendees show up, they will recognize your display right away.

If you are new to this trade show and do not have either the past attendees or the anticipated attendee list consider acquiring opt-in e-mails or a physical mailing list.
In either case, it will be money well spent.

On-site.
Marketing efforts don’t end when you are on the trade show floor. Every handshake and word represents your brand, and the experience people will come to expect in any future business relationship. Everyone who will be at the booth needs to be playing by the same playbook. There should be a hierarchy of interaction. Understand that you and the others are only given one chance to make a first impression. The greeters are responsible for making a prospect feel welcome and important. They also have the responsibility of assessing the level of interest and buying potential. Depending on how that plays out the second line of personnel should be introduced to further the conversation and attempt to close a sale or at least schedule a follow meeting or interview.

Do not let anyone leave without getting their business card. You have paid a lot of money to design and manufacture a portable display, you have traveled and are now spending a considerable amount of time working the crowd. It is imperative that you open a conversation, make a sale or have a follow-up plan.

A new and useful social media tactic is geo-fencing the venue, capturing the mobile device addresses of anyone entering the facility and then retargeting the captured addresses with your ads for the month following the show. Anecdotally, I had a client with a device new to his industry who wanted to create pre-sale excitement and demo the equipment at his booth. We planned to geo-fence the exhibit hall and serve up a visit our booth to learn more ads to the mobile devices of the attendees. The result was a total of 137,000 impressions over four days and a .21 conversion rate which was triple the average engagement rate.

Post Show
This part of the plan should be fleshed out even before you leave for the trade show.
That plan should include who is responsible for categorizing the contact information of the attendees who visited your booth. Cool, Warm and Hot leads need to be attended too as soon as practical. What is the follow-up mechanism you will use for each? Direct mail, e-mail, phone call. Who will be responsible for the sale funnel? You can have these all crafted and ready to go. Don’t wait until you return to try and design what you will sale.

By now you might be saying some of this is pretty basic and not really about marketing. I beg to differ. One of the significant components of marketing is messaging. You, your brand, and your message should always be aligned in whatever context they will be communicated. Planning, communication, and execution are all interdependent of each other. If you plan all the aspects, I guaranteed you would have a much more successful trade show experience.

About the Author

Greg Demetriou is the founder and CEO of Lorraine Gregory Communications an integrated marketing company helping companies reach their audience worldwide. He is a nationally published author, blogger, adviser, media resource and consultant. To learn more visit his websites. www.lorrainegregory.com or www.GregsCornerOffice.com  He can be reached at greg@lgcli.com