Do These Things First While Participating In Trade Show

Participation in trade shows is certainly not pointless—there are numerous advantages. When you exhibit your products and services in trade shows, you find ample opportunities to interact with your existing as well as prospective customers, helping you to expand your market. Furthermore, trade show participation also enables you to establish your presence among your competitors.  You will be able to see the competition: how your competitors interact with customers, their product quality, your product features vis-a-vis theirs and how they present themselves.  Using the opportunity, you can implement smart tactics to outshine your competitors and prove to your potential customers why your business is the best one to choose.

But, how to smartly participate in a trade show, executing the entire cycle of activities—from trade show booth rentals to following up leads, extracting the maximum benefits? Here are some prudent tips:

Goal Setting

Firstly set the goals you intend to achieve via the trade show—whether it is brand awareness, lead generation or sales.  Creating a list of the goals you aim to achieve at the trade show will set clear directions to your team,imparting clarity on the prime purpose of your trade show participation, so is important. 

A Bit of Research

After setting the goals, it is now the time for you to sit back and engage in some research to formulate an effective game plan.  Firstly, research on the upcoming trade shows, and then figure out which of the trade shows most of your target audience are likely to attend. This will give you an idea of the specific trade shows you should target.

Budget Preparation

Preparation of a good budget is the key to the success of your participation. Remember, the latent objective of any trade show exhibit is the achievement of a higher return on investment, so it is imperative that you should prepare a well-planned budget.  Take time in preparing the budget, incorporating all the necessary costs.  Also, compare prices of trade show booth rental of different vendors. A carefully crafted budget will help a lot in reducing your overall expenditure.

Marketing Strategy Formulation

After your budget preparation is over, get ready to prepare for the actual show.  Start formulating a prudent marketing strategy, which will be in synchrony with the needs of your target audience. To accomplish this, you could think like an attendee. What actions would have grabbed your attention, helped you to remember the company’s name, perked your interest in a company and prompted you to research the brand, and so on.  Ask yourself such questions and compile the answers in a list and that will help you formulate the best marketing strategy well-ahead of your participation.

Booth Location Selection

One of the most decisive aspects in your trade show seeing success is the location of your booth. It is needless to say that your motive is to drive as many traffic as possible to your booth to increase the chances of collecting leads and acquiring new customers.  To succeed in drawing more visitors to your booth it is essential that your booth location has dense traffic flow. So, do not choose the most popular location, instead choose the most relevant location to impart visibility of your booth so that your potential customers can easily find you. So, examine the trade show floor and select a relevant location which you feel would be dense in traffic flow. And that will have a direct impact on your success. 

Spicing Up Your Booth

Spice up your booth and create an appealing atmosphere to differentiate it from your competitors. Creation of an appealing atmosphere in your booth will attract the visitors into it to have a pleasant experience, and that in turn will help you to generate more leads. Besides the visitors are likely to remember you long after the show gets over.  You can set up an appealing booth in the following ways:

• Layout: A simple booth layout design always works the best. Design your booth in such a way that it is visible to attendees, and each display can be seen clearly from all angles.
• Lighting: Focus your lighting on your promotional products to quickly draw the attention of your target audience. 
• Style: Build your booth in the lines of your brand image. Use your brand’s trademark as well as the colour scheme to connect your booth with your brand.
• Attractions: Stuff like interactive trade show games and contests are great ways to attract visitors to your booth and also to make memorable booth experience for them. Booths, filled with fun and excitement, are attractive to the visitors and are sure to generate more leads.  

Initiate Communication

Put your sales team to initiate communication with the visitors. Do not wait for the visitors to approach you, instead find ways for your sales team to interact and attract the attendees. Also, make sure that your sales team collectseach visitor’s business card.

Organize Contacts

At the end of the day, make sure that your sales team properly organizes the contact information received during the day. This activity helps in following them up post the trade show.