Targeting with Trade Shows

You keep hearing that the economic slump is about to make a u-turn back to prosperity but your personal roadmap shows it may still be a rough journey. You’ve cut every expense you can think of from R&D to marketing. Now you’re wondering if that tradeshow that seemed so important to attend in better times is still worthwhile.

Universally, trade shows are where companies premiere their latest and greatest products. This fact is not lost on show organizers. Worldwide, there are more than 9,000 trade shows and public expositions every year. Making a choice of which show you should attend can be daunting—so you choose not to exhibit at all. But that could be a costly decision.  

A Smart Deal

According to Colorado-based Trade Show Bureau, most decision makers feel that trade shows are the number one source of obtaining purchase information. Dollar for dollar, trade shows can still be the most cost-effective way you can reach out and find those qualified buyers.  An Exhibit Surveys Inc. (link: www.tradeshowadvisor.com) study reveals that the average cost-per-visitor at a trade show is $177, while that of a sales call is $295. 

Whether you’re a buyer or exhibitor at a trade show, time is money. That’s not a cliché; it’s a fact. The less time you spend to close a sale, the higher your returns. It actually takes less effort to find leads at a trade show than in the field—they literally walk into your both. McGraw-Hill Research Foundation says that 54 percent of all orders that result from a trade show require no follow-up visits from your sales force. And even better, less than one percent of calls are required to close a qualified lead from a trade show.

While it is an accepted axiom that 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent of your clients, you still need to generate interest from new quarters on a continuous basis. That’s best accomplished at trade shows.Over 80 percent of the folks who drop by your booth will be people your sales force never called. Of these, 82 percent have buying influence and almost 50 percent of those are already planning on buying your product or service.

Importance of Presence
As with any form of advertising or public relations, when you make a choice not to come to the plate, your competitors are already up to bat and ahead of the game.By not participating at an industry trade show, you’re just giving the competition an unencumbered playing field.Buyers attend trade shows in order to window shop. If they can’t compare your product or service to your competitors’, then you just gave the game away by default.  

It’s not just a matter of putting in an appearance to show you’re still around. This is serious ‘face-time.’ Depending on the venue, it’s possible to meet more prospective clients in a two- or three-day trade show than in three months of cold calling. And talk about one-to-one. It’s just a plain fact that people tend to do more business with someone they’ve met and feel they know first-hand. It’s hard to bond over the phone or by e-mail. You need to shake hands and look them in the eye and personally thank them for dropping in or, if they’re long-standing clients, invite them to dinner or a special event.

Check Out Competition
Trade shows offer another valuable opportunity—to see what your competitors are up to. Nothing’s to keep you from venturing into foreign territory to eyeball their newest widget to see what it has to offer. It all comes under the label of market research. You might as well; they’re giving you the once-over. Whether it’s the latest data storage server or kitty litter box, you need to know what is being touted as superior to your product or service.

All these points may seem obvious to some, but you’d be surprised how quickly trade shows are cut out of the marketing budget.  Rethink your trade show strategy.  It’ll pay off.