It is one of the best ways to get customers and client leads. But starting to exhibit your business at a trade show can be overwhelming. After all, there are so many other companies out there looking to make a big impact. What can you do to ensure that you survive your first trade show, live to tell the tale, but also get the results you want?
Pre-Planning
As obvious as it sounds, preparing appropriately gives you a far better opportunity to make an impact. You can begin by assessing the type of booth you want. Look at the venue and see how much it can accommodate your needs but also look at how much of an impact do you want to make. There are numerous 10×20 booths to consider and once you acquire the right booth you’ve got the framework in which to build your overall appearance. As well as this, you need to think about the audience you’re targeting, planning your budget, but also making sure that you market yourself as soon as possible. When we go to trade shows we see those booths that have many people buzzing around them. They’ve done a lot in the pre-planning stage. It wasn’t a stroke of luck!
Navigating The Show
Preparing your booth at the event is crucial but you also have to remember that there can be changes during the day itself. Your display could look somewhat cluttered or you brought too many unnecessary accessories. When we start to think about marketing ourselves, sometimes simple is better. There are so many booths out there that have interactive tech or massive displays and we can very easily find ourselves seething with jealousy but the trick is to be confident in what we’ve got to offer as a product and a service. One of the biggest components of making an impact at a trade show is lack of preparation on the day itself. If you get trade show booth staff you need to make sure they are trained up. Sometimes it’s a case about hiring the right employees to make sure they communicate the brand. But when you hire trade show staff you could be hiring people that aren’t necessarily doing everything for your business. Sometimes it’s better to get people who have relevant knowledge.
It’s Not Just About The Event
The event is all about doing what you can to entice people in, keeping a clean booth, but also remember that once the day is done, you’re not finished. After working hard in finding people to help bolster a brand you’ve got to build on that relationship. Follow up with these people by sending emails with offers but if you work harder to acquire clients sometimes it can be difficult because they’ve met so many different people during the show. Think of a way for you to stand out during the trade show event with something quirky, this will work in your favour.
As stressful as a trade show could be, you could relax in the knowledge that you won’t get a better opportunity to network and sell your business.
