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Trade Show Stategies And Measures
Posted By: Carmilla on 1/7/2005 8:21 AM (CST) 250 Points
I am responsible for a trade show which will take place in March. The company that I work for will actually have 2 different booths at the show and they both fall under my responsibility. Historically the company's approach to trade show is to show up and go out to dinner. I would like to create some structure/strategy around this years show. The company is very low keyed and very laxed in their approach - in fact no one is sure what happened to the leads from the show or if they were even processed/follow-up on.

If anyone has an idea or a book they can recommend that would be great. I know I need to develop a system for collection and tracking requests for the show so any insight on that will also be appreciated (fyi - there are no existing systems for this..no ACT...no CRM)

Thanks
Cathy

Posted by: Rick Sebok* Member Response
1/7/2005 8:34 AM (CST)
Cathy -

Take away the show! (not really)

Ask the representatives from your company that will be attending this event the following question:

- what would happen if we didn't attend the trade show this year?

The answers you receive may help you determine the underlying rationale to attend this year's show and determine a more results-driven action plan.

Best,
Rick
 
Posted by: SRyan ;] Member Response
1/7/2005 11:15 AM (CST)
Hi, Cathy --

Don't forget to take advantage of all of the info you can use in this forum's archives. I think you'll find useful stuff for this and your previous question.

Click the Search Questions link on the right side of this page. Try using the keywords "tradeshow" and look through some of the Q&A threads that come up in the results.

You might try separate searches on "trade show" or "exhibit" as well. (The search tool here is pretty limited, so for the best results you should follow the hints on the bottom half of that page for using Google's advanced features to dig for buried treasure here.)

One last piece of unsolicited advice:
You might think about filling out your Profile page. Any info you provide about yourself and your company will be useful for this and all future questions you post here.

Shelley ;]
 
Posted by: Pepper Blue Member Response
1/7/2005 11:16 AM (CST)
Hi Cindy,

If you have not read them, there are some great trade show questions and answers on strategies, maximizing your presence, how to follow up etc. in the Know-How Exchange archive.

Click here and enter "trade show".

http://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_search.asp

I hope that helps!
 
Posted by: SRyan ;] Member Response
1/7/2005 11:16 AM (CST)
Great minds, Tim! Great minds!
 
Posted by: thinkmor Accepted Answer
1/7/2005 11:25 AM (CST)
Hi Cathy

Do you have any data from previous trade shows? customer metrics, sources, leads, appointments followed up etc?

Your trade show activities should be incorporated and work from your overall marketing plan so you can combine pre and post activities, do you have one in place or are you not at that stage?

What are your objectives for the Trade show?

The type of trade shows we've organized tend have seminars, workshops with companies displaying their products and services through stands and booths. You get a burst of traffic in and out of the seminars and workshops but some are generally busy all the time if they involve the public too.

If you are starting from scratch contact your customers - did any of them become a customer that visited the show last year? Get as much feedback as possible. Ask the trade show rep to send you last years catalogue/brochure of the exhibitors.

Ideally, you need to be telling all your customers about the event a month or two before with supporting ads, direct mailing, website, email etc to raise awareness. If this a chargeable event, you can possibly get a discount and offer them to clients. Make sure to ask them to bring a colleague that could also be interested in your services (if applicable).

I'm sure you have thought about getting plastic bags made for your company and these do create additional brand awareness that doesn't have to break your budget either.

I assume you will have some sort of container for people to drop their cards in as this can also generate leads or you can ask you sales reps just to ask for them.

Try and be a speaker at the show if possible. Your real problem is going to the qulaity of your sales people (you can hire sales reps too) and getting them to record details of prospects etc. I presume you will laptops or a PC there so you can record the info. You can simply make a excel sheet to record contact details.

If you have time, Cathy, you can prepare a Free Report this will be help in filtering time wasters at the show. You should send this report to prospects after the event by email and post - simply addressed e.g. The report you requested at the ABC show - "How to Avoid the Top 10 mistakes when choosing an X IT system". The report should focus on a pertinent/pain issue and how to go about solving it.

You did not mention what you sell, I assume it's B2B.

Attend the show and network as much as you can in seminars, workshops and fix as many 1-1 meetings as possible. Follow up all contacts taken at the show as your sales letter and pack will state and send out the Free Report, followed up with a pre arranged call.

Your follow up willl be the key to getting a ROI and sometimes it can take as many as 7 contact follow ups to secure a client. Consider an introductory offer or lower value service as an incentive.

Why not offer a specific prize to your target audience at the show which only they will value?

You can also offer a discount on your product/service for a limited time e.g up to 2 months past the show so you can follow up your leads after the event to remind and incentivize them and will make calculating $ ROI easier.

For a simple analysis, you can measure Cost Per Lead (Total $ expenses and costs / number of leads generated) & Cost Per Lead v $Value from Leads generated.

The latter will only be available after you follow up post the event and you may not get actual figures until end of the year depending on the buying cycle of your type of customers.

You need to measure both pre and post activities to get a real figure and ROI and this involves both sales and marketing.

There is a good website by one of the KHE experts called Leaky Funnel - Hugh Macfarlane- I think his website was http://www.leakyfunnel.com

He also has a basic sales funnel calculator that may help once you get some metrics down- http://www.funnelcalculator.com

Hope this helps.


Zahid Adil
 
Posted by: jong Accepted Answer
1/7/2005 12:55 PM (CST)
Hi Cathy, call an objectives/goals meeting for this show and invite the key players to attend (should be mainly sales people). Discuss the goals and objectives that are to be accomplished from this show, and the best ways to accomplish these. Develop your booth layout based on the goals and objectives. For example, if your company is launching a new product, that product will need to have prime positioning in your booth.

Develop a master schedule that shows tasks, person responsible, due dates, status, etc. As much as possible, make sure that everyone involved follows and adheres to the schedule. Would recommend holding status meetings to make sure that everything is getting done and going according to schedule.

Determine the best way to draw traffic to your booth. You can prepare pre-show mailers, have a demonstration in your booth, activities, enter-to-win, etc. Make sure that the right people are working the booth (knowledgeable, friendly, upbeat, approachable).

Business card lead scanners are also important to have in your booth. Otherwise, you're collecting business cards and handwriting leads on paper. The lead scanner will scan in pertinent information about prospects. You can also tailor the scanner to incorporate specific questions that may help your sales team follow up on these leads.

Make your company/products a big deal with the media in your industry. Put together press kits for the media. Submit editorial articles for trade publications. These trade publications get extra distribution at trade shows, so more people will have access to info. about your company/products.

Since your company has not taken trade shows seriously in the past, you may need to make it a big deal (by incorporating the above and more) to get them to see how beneficial trade shows can be.

www.tsnn.com is a useful trade show site. http://www.tsnn.com/multinl/frntpage.cfm has newsletters with helpful tips.
 
Posted by: ASVP/ChrisB Accepted Answer
1/7/2005 7:04 PM (CST)
Jong has provided some excellent input.

Here's a few more ideas:

Look at what the whole show is costing you and decide whether it should be paying for itself from the sales generated or whether it is justifiable partly as a branding exercise where you will get the benefits say for the next 9-12 months.

When you figure the whole cost make sure you include booth costs, transport, travel, samples and freebies, sales incentives and salespersons commissions, printing and advertising, seminar attendances, lodgings and subsistence, meals, airfares, taxis, entertainment, staff time and support staff costs. Pick a percentage of those costs you think you should recoup. (Based on previous paragraph).

Work out what you need to sell to make back that amount in gross profit (margin generated from the sale).

Develop your sales target for the show based on generating the profit back. add a percentage to give yourself a buffer if you like.

Now break that budget back against the products or services you need to sell, i.e.. x of product A, y of product B, and so on. And then break the product budget back into your sales people who will be working at the show.

Now make sure everyone knows what their personal budget is. And what are the incentives for achieving it.

If the show goes a few days, hold a breakfast meeting in a private room each morning to talk about the offers, the sales, the progress versus budget, and the lessons learned from talking to customers and observing competitors.

First time I followed this plan, we wrote 300% of the budget which was 1200% of what we had sold at any previous show. The method works! People do what you expect when you measure them!

Remember too, a trade show is a fantastic level playing field to review what you competitors are doing and how your (and their) customers are reacting to the various products and services on offer. One company I worked with brought its engineers to trade shows to review every competitors products with the aim of improving our own. Each year we developed a "best of breed" list of product enhancements that constantly kept us ahead of all others in the field.

Hope this helps.

ChrisB
 
Posted by: Wiglaf Accepted Answer
1/12/2005 2:41 PM (CST)
Great question. I had developed a series of articles that address this specific question, with an eye towards getting the value out of trade shows, and measuring to maximize that value.

In the end, it comes down to how many prospects are you meeting at these tradeshows, where they are in the purhase cycle, how do you increase the number of meetings held at trade show, and how do these meetings advance your cause.

Take a look and tell me if they help. They all focus on Trade Shows.

http://www.wiglafjournal.com/Articles/2002/2002-04-17%20Trade%20Shows,%20Pa...

http://www.wiglafjournal.com/Articles/2002/2002-04-18%20Trade%20Shows,%20Pa...

http://www.wiglafjournal.com/Articles/2002/2002-04-19%20Trade%20Shows,%20Pa...

Play Hard and Win
Tim
 
Posted by: Val (Moderator)* Moderator Response
2/4/2005 2:45 PM (CST)
Hello all. I am closing this question, since its more than two weeks old. We do this to make sure members' contributions are rewarded in a timely manner and to improve the visibility of newer questions.

Thanks, so much, for participating!
Val (Moderator)
 


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