Effective Marketing at Trade Shows
The key to a truly successful trade show is marketing. You only have a couple of days at a trade show to make sure your product or services are viewed by as many people as possible. It is important to use marketing strategies to your advantage. Your exhibit marketing plan should be in alignment with your overall marketing strategy. Prior to the show, it is important to use direct mail, broadcast faxes, advertising and the internet to reach your target audience. All of these methods will help to ensure you get the traffic you desire.
Give the trade show attendees a reason to visit your booth, whether this is through display of new, and cutting edge technology or a promotional giveaway; it gets people in front of your product. If you choose to use giveaways as an incentive they should be designed to increase recognition and memorability of your company or product. It should be a useful item, something that helps the visitor do his or her job better or something they cannot get elsewhere. Consider using these materials as a reward or token of appreciation for visitors participating in a demonstration, contest or providing useful, qualifying information.
It is important to realize that the people manning your exhibit booth are a great marketing tool as well. They should be neat and professional in appearance, open and friendly and well educated about your company and products. They should be well aware of the goals you are trying to achieve and what role they play in making these goals a reality. Avoid overstaffing your booth, too many staff members will make the booth look overcrowded and discourage potential customers from stopping in.
Follow-up marketing is extremely important. The best time to plan for follow-up is before the show. Have a protocol in place so that as soon as you have returned from the show the leads you generated can be contacted. Assessing the return on your investment is also critical after a trade show. This will let you know if the money invested in the show was well spent or could have better been used elsewhere. If the show was a success, you may want to consider what, specifically, made it successful and concentrate more of next year’s budget in that particular direction.
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