Why Exhibit at Trade Shows?
Exhibiting at a trade show offers you one of the best ways to get in front of a lot of customers and prospects in a relatively short amount of time. Trade shows give you the opportunity to not only show your product or describe your service, but also create that all important first impression. According to a Simmons Market Research Bureau study, 91% of respondents ranked trade shows as "extremely useful" as a source for product purchasing information. This was higher than any other source, including on-site visits from reps. Also, nearly half of the respondents had purchased products or services at the trade show.
At a typical national trade show, with 10,000 attendees and 1,000 exhibitors, you can realistically have 200 visitors per day. If you were making sales calls, you could not even approach that number. Granted, you don't always have the opportunity to go into as much detail in your presentation as you would like, but it opens the door for future communications -- a door that sometimes is very difficult to get your foot into.
So for most companies, trade shows are worth the effort. In fact, before you decide to nix a show your company has attended for years, think about what that might say to your current customers who expect to see you there. This is especially damaging if your company has been through recent staffing/management changes, mergers, acquisitions, or other changes your clients may have caught wind of. Your competition will use your absence to their advantage. This doesn't mean you can't ever stop attending a show, but just be sure you think about whom you see there and what your company's absence may lead them to believe. If necessary, send a post card to your primary clients that you know attend that particular show, and explain your decision to attend show B rather than show A.
Before you even start looking for shows, you need to set your goals. To help you do this, there are four questions you need to ask yourself:
Why are you exhibiting?
Are you trying to extend your relationship with existing customers? Introducing a new product? Positioning your company within the market? Generating qualified leads for new sales? Countering a competitor's claim?
Who is your target audience?
What is the message you want to convey?
What do you want to get out of the show?
Do you want to bring home leads, sell your product/service, or create/improve/build upon your company image?
You need specific, measurable goals if you want your trade show activities to succeed.
Another thing to consider is whether your product or service should be presented at horizontal- or vertical-based shows, or both. Horizontal shows are shows with vendors who are selling a broader variety of products or services, and the attendees usually come from a single market segment and are looking for either very specific products or services or a broader variety. Vertical shows are more narrowly focused to just one type of product and market. The advantage of vertical shows is that the attendees are all from a very specific market, and your objectives for the show can be more focused. The disadvantage is that your product or service must fall exactly within the focus for the show, or you won't get the results you want.
Here is an example of these two types of markets: Shows for physical therapists or boating would be vertical, while shows for occupational safety and health services would most likely be horizontal because the attendees would be from all types of markets. There are also variations, with shows that bring in vertical sellers and horizontal buyers and vice versa. This is usually apparent when you look at the list of vendors and the list of attendees. Just remember to keep it in mind when making your choices.
Unless you have unlimited budgets and resources, once you have a list of potential shows to attend, you need to find out which of those shows are the best. The key to finding the best shows lies in finding the shows that pull in the most decision makers for your industry. For example, you may find that one of the very large shows in your industry brings in a lot of non-decision makers because their union specifies that members get to attend one national conference each year, and that's the show most of them choose.
To find out who attends, ask the show management for a demographic profile of their attendees. Typically, show literature will list only the numbers and general titles of their attendees. Check the titles and purchasing responsibility if that information is available.
Another route to finding the best shows is to contact past attendees. Have a list of questions ready that will tell you if they are indeed the decision makers, and what value they placed on their time spent in the exhibit hall. You can also check out the exhibitor list from the previous year, and ask those non-competing exhibitors what their impressions of the show were and whether they will be attending again. Or, if possible, go to the show as an attendee and walk the exhibit floor so you'll know if you want to attend it next year. You can get an exhibit-only pass for many shows, so you're not paying the entire fee.
You also need to check with the show managers and ask how they are promoting the show and about their strategy for getting people to the exhibit hall. If it's a new show, there has to be very good promotion to get the traffic you need to make it worthwhile. Often, the conference schedules are set up so that luncheons and socials are held in the exhibit hall to ensure that attendees spend time with vendors. While it is nice to get them into the exhibits (and to your booth), food-related functions aren't always the best arenas for talking with prospects, mainly because it's hard to handle a plate of food, a drink, and your company's literature at the same time. Make sure the schedule allows for plenty of time around those events so attendees can eat and visit your booth. If it doesn't, let the show management know so they can plan better the following year. (Or better yet, if it's a show that you do well at, volunteer for the planning committee, if there is one.)
Once you've nailed down the best shows to attend, you need to figure out what you're going to be standing in front of. Next, we'll solve that problem with information on how to design and care for your booth.
There are lots of things to take into consideration when purchasing and designing your booth. These include the size and type of booth; that is, do you need a floor model or tabletop model? And, if you need a floor model, does it need to be a large custom booth to communicate the right corporate image, or will a smaller, more versatile floor model work? There is a huge variety of configurations for booths. You can have a large custom booth built that will require multiple booth spaces and a crew of workers to assemble, or you can opt for a smaller, 10-foot (3-meter) size that can be easily shipped and assembled and disassembled by your booth staffers. Often, these smaller, modular versions can be broken down and used as two tabletop booths as well.
Here are the main things to think about when deciding what type of booth you need:
What are your functional needs for the booth?
Do you need seating so you can sit and discuss at length with prospects the great benefits of your services or products? If your product or service is more complicated or technical, this functionality might work well for you.
Do you need shelving for books or product displays, video capability, or storage?
Do you need the booth to be easily assembled, disassembled and packed?
Do you need to be able to reconfigure it for different shows or other uses?
What kind of traffic flow do you need through your booth?
What are your aesthetic needs?
Do you need a display with movement to illustrate your product?
Does it need to be backlit to illustrate the detail of your product?
Does your corporate image necessitate a certain "look" that would require curves, sharp/crisp lines, or colors?
What are your marketing needs?
What is the message you need to communicate?
Do you have strong name/logo recognition already?
Are you a start-up trying to make a name for yourself?
What is your booth budget?
Booth prices vary greatly depending on the size and format. Figure $1,000 (more or less) for a tabletop (graphics make a big difference in pricing); around the $5,000-to-$15,000 range for a 10-foot (3-meter) portable with graphics; and for large 20x20-foot, 20x30-foot or 30x30-foot custom booths, the sky is the limit. (The rule of thumb is $92 to $120 per square foot depending on the design.)
Once you've answered these questions, you should have a better idea of the type of booth you need, but the trickiest part of all is determining how the booth will look.
How do you get your exhibit booth to communicate who you are, what you do, and what your product or service is -- all in three seconds? Sounds impossible, but it isn't. Think about the billboards that you pass on the highway. They have the exact same job. They have to tell you who the company is and what it's selling as you zoom past at 55+ miles per hour. Some work and some don't. The key is usually in the graphics.
Graphics can communicate a whole host of impressions at a single glance. Think about the Chick-fil-A billboard with the cows painting the "Eat More Chick'n" sign. It's quick, and to the point. Think of your booth in the same way. Trade show attendees are strolling down the aisle looking at hundreds of booths, and unless you've pulled them to your booth with a pre-show promotion, you have to very quickly make them notice you and want to walk over to your booth.
To make your booth graphics have impact and work for you rather than against you, remember:
Focus on your products or service's "benefits" rather than "services."
Use text very sparingly. You want your booth to look more like a billboard than a brochure.
Make sure there is a single focal point. Find the essence of your business and make sure everything revolves around that central idea.
Make sure your name and your positioning statement are very prominent in the design. Remember, if you're a new company, you have to create an impression, and if you're an existing company you have to maintain and build on that impression.
The trends these days in booth graphics are large visual backdrops with only the most concise, key text statements to communicate a message or theme. For example, a company that manufactures scissors or chain saws could use a single, larger-than-life photograph of its product as the background for the booth. The message is immediately obvious, as opposed to the booth that posts several small photos of its products with descriptive text along side them that can only be read at a distance of 2 feet (0.6 m).
Now, if your company is a service-oriented company, you may have more difficulty posting a single image, but think hard about it. You can usually come up with an image or simple montage that can communicate the essence of your business.
So now you have an idea about the type of booth you want and how you want it to look. How do you make it happen?
First, check with booth vendors in your area. It is important to have local access to your vendor so you can easily go to the showroom to see the products, get ideas, and also be able to easily get support, extra parts, and supplies. Most sales reps will also bring a booth to your office and set it up so you can see it firsthand in your own environment. Many times, booth sales reps are also great resources for ideas for designing your booth. They know what works and how to make your booth effective. Use their experience and advice -- it's typically free! Check references of the vendors you speak with. Talk to their customers and see if they are happy with both their booth and the service from the vendor. Or, go to a local trade show and ask some of the show vendors about their booths and whom they work with. You are about to make a potentially large investment, and a little product research is very valuable.
Also, many vendors will store your booth in their warehouse or showroom while it's not in use, for no additional charge. Some will also make sure it's clean and in good shape, and ship it for you when you need it. Make sure you know what they charge for this service (if anything -- some vendors provide it free) because those fees can add up.
Usually, the booth vendor can either create your graphics from images you supply, or they may offer services to create the images for you. Here, cost is usually the key difference. If you have an internal graphics staff, you'll save money, but make sure they are in good communication with the vendor graphics staff to ensure that the appropriate sizes and formats are supplied
It seems there are always little things you didn't think about that greatly affect how much you love or hate a product you've purchased. Exhibit booths are no exception. First, if you plan on shipping the booth yourself, know the size and weight limitations of your shippers, as well as the conference locations for the trade shows you are attending. One company purchased a large custom 20-foot (6-meter) booth that could be broken down into two 10-foot booths for smaller shows, but didn't take into consideration the weight and size of each of the 10-foot sections. The company shipped a 10-foot section to a small regional show that did not have the equipment in their facility to move a 700-pound (318-kg) carton into their exhibit hall. The company's sales reps had to quickly and creatively come up with a good reason for why they were standing in an empty booth space!
Second, know the tools you need to put the booth together, as well as the muscle required to do it. This comes into play both from your booth staffing standpoint, and the convention center requirements. Always check to see if the conference facility requires that union labor assemble the booths. Typically, if a facility has an agreement with the labor union, then anything that requires tools to put together or can't be carried without the help of a hand truck or dolly must be put together by union labor.
Third, if you get a portable booth, make sure the cases that your booth ships in are very durable, as well as replaceable. Shippers never give your shipments the tender loving care you would like, and it won't take long for cases to start showing wear. Once this happens, you stand the chance of having your booth damaged, which can be a disaster if it's en route to an important show.
Now you have your booth, and it's time to start getting out there in front of customers. How do you manage this process? Let's go over the nuts and bolts of paperwork, scheduling, and all of the other dirty work of trade shows.
At a typical national trade show, with 10,000 attendees and 1,000 exhibitors, you can realistically have 200 visitors per day. If you were making sales calls, you could not even approach that number. Granted, you don't always have the opportunity to go into as much detail in your presentation as you would like, but it opens the door for future communications -- a door that sometimes is very difficult to get your foot into.
So for most companies, trade shows are worth the effort. In fact, before you decide to nix a show your company has attended for years, think about what that might say to your current customers who expect to see you there. This is especially damaging if your company has been through recent staffing/management changes, mergers, acquisitions, or other changes your clients may have caught wind of. Your competition will use your absence to their advantage. This doesn't mean you can't ever stop attending a show, but just be sure you think about whom you see there and what your company's absence may lead them to believe. If necessary, send a post card to your primary clients that you know attend that particular show, and explain your decision to attend show B rather than show A.
Before you even start looking for shows, you need to set your goals. To help you do this, there are four questions you need to ask yourself:
Why are you exhibiting?
Are you trying to extend your relationship with existing customers? Introducing a new product? Positioning your company within the market? Generating qualified leads for new sales? Countering a competitor's claim?
Who is your target audience?
What is the message you want to convey?
What do you want to get out of the show?
Do you want to bring home leads, sell your product/service, or create/improve/build upon your company image?
You need specific, measurable goals if you want your trade show activities to succeed.
Another thing to consider is whether your product or service should be presented at horizontal- or vertical-based shows, or both. Horizontal shows are shows with vendors who are selling a broader variety of products or services, and the attendees usually come from a single market segment and are looking for either very specific products or services or a broader variety. Vertical shows are more narrowly focused to just one type of product and market. The advantage of vertical shows is that the attendees are all from a very specific market, and your objectives for the show can be more focused. The disadvantage is that your product or service must fall exactly within the focus for the show, or you won't get the results you want.
Here is an example of these two types of markets: Shows for physical therapists or boating would be vertical, while shows for occupational safety and health services would most likely be horizontal because the attendees would be from all types of markets. There are also variations, with shows that bring in vertical sellers and horizontal buyers and vice versa. This is usually apparent when you look at the list of vendors and the list of attendees. Just remember to keep it in mind when making your choices.
Unless you have unlimited budgets and resources, once you have a list of potential shows to attend, you need to find out which of those shows are the best. The key to finding the best shows lies in finding the shows that pull in the most decision makers for your industry. For example, you may find that one of the very large shows in your industry brings in a lot of non-decision makers because their union specifies that members get to attend one national conference each year, and that's the show most of them choose.
To find out who attends, ask the show management for a demographic profile of their attendees. Typically, show literature will list only the numbers and general titles of their attendees. Check the titles and purchasing responsibility if that information is available.
Another route to finding the best shows is to contact past attendees. Have a list of questions ready that will tell you if they are indeed the decision makers, and what value they placed on their time spent in the exhibit hall. You can also check out the exhibitor list from the previous year, and ask those non-competing exhibitors what their impressions of the show were and whether they will be attending again. Or, if possible, go to the show as an attendee and walk the exhibit floor so you'll know if you want to attend it next year. You can get an exhibit-only pass for many shows, so you're not paying the entire fee.
You also need to check with the show managers and ask how they are promoting the show and about their strategy for getting people to the exhibit hall. If it's a new show, there has to be very good promotion to get the traffic you need to make it worthwhile. Often, the conference schedules are set up so that luncheons and socials are held in the exhibit hall to ensure that attendees spend time with vendors. While it is nice to get them into the exhibits (and to your booth), food-related functions aren't always the best arenas for talking with prospects, mainly because it's hard to handle a plate of food, a drink, and your company's literature at the same time. Make sure the schedule allows for plenty of time around those events so attendees can eat and visit your booth. If it doesn't, let the show management know so they can plan better the following year. (Or better yet, if it's a show that you do well at, volunteer for the planning committee, if there is one.)
Once you've nailed down the best shows to attend, you need to figure out what you're going to be standing in front of. Next, we'll solve that problem with information on how to design and care for your booth.
There are lots of things to take into consideration when purchasing and designing your booth. These include the size and type of booth; that is, do you need a floor model or tabletop model? And, if you need a floor model, does it need to be a large custom booth to communicate the right corporate image, or will a smaller, more versatile floor model work? There is a huge variety of configurations for booths. You can have a large custom booth built that will require multiple booth spaces and a crew of workers to assemble, or you can opt for a smaller, 10-foot (3-meter) size that can be easily shipped and assembled and disassembled by your booth staffers. Often, these smaller, modular versions can be broken down and used as two tabletop booths as well.
Here are the main things to think about when deciding what type of booth you need:
What are your functional needs for the booth?
Do you need seating so you can sit and discuss at length with prospects the great benefits of your services or products? If your product or service is more complicated or technical, this functionality might work well for you.
Do you need shelving for books or product displays, video capability, or storage?
Do you need the booth to be easily assembled, disassembled and packed?
Do you need to be able to reconfigure it for different shows or other uses?
What kind of traffic flow do you need through your booth?
What are your aesthetic needs?
Do you need a display with movement to illustrate your product?
Does it need to be backlit to illustrate the detail of your product?
Does your corporate image necessitate a certain "look" that would require curves, sharp/crisp lines, or colors?
What are your marketing needs?
What is the message you need to communicate?
Do you have strong name/logo recognition already?
Are you a start-up trying to make a name for yourself?
What is your booth budget?
Booth prices vary greatly depending on the size and format. Figure $1,000 (more or less) for a tabletop (graphics make a big difference in pricing); around the $5,000-to-$15,000 range for a 10-foot (3-meter) portable with graphics; and for large 20x20-foot, 20x30-foot or 30x30-foot custom booths, the sky is the limit. (The rule of thumb is $92 to $120 per square foot depending on the design.)
Once you've answered these questions, you should have a better idea of the type of booth you need, but the trickiest part of all is determining how the booth will look.
How do you get your exhibit booth to communicate who you are, what you do, and what your product or service is -- all in three seconds? Sounds impossible, but it isn't. Think about the billboards that you pass on the highway. They have the exact same job. They have to tell you who the company is and what it's selling as you zoom past at 55+ miles per hour. Some work and some don't. The key is usually in the graphics.
Graphics can communicate a whole host of impressions at a single glance. Think about the Chick-fil-A billboard with the cows painting the "Eat More Chick'n" sign. It's quick, and to the point. Think of your booth in the same way. Trade show attendees are strolling down the aisle looking at hundreds of booths, and unless you've pulled them to your booth with a pre-show promotion, you have to very quickly make them notice you and want to walk over to your booth.
To make your booth graphics have impact and work for you rather than against you, remember:
Focus on your products or service's "benefits" rather than "services."
Use text very sparingly. You want your booth to look more like a billboard than a brochure.
Make sure there is a single focal point. Find the essence of your business and make sure everything revolves around that central idea.
Make sure your name and your positioning statement are very prominent in the design. Remember, if you're a new company, you have to create an impression, and if you're an existing company you have to maintain and build on that impression.
The trends these days in booth graphics are large visual backdrops with only the most concise, key text statements to communicate a message or theme. For example, a company that manufactures scissors or chain saws could use a single, larger-than-life photograph of its product as the background for the booth. The message is immediately obvious, as opposed to the booth that posts several small photos of its products with descriptive text along side them that can only be read at a distance of 2 feet (0.6 m).
Now, if your company is a service-oriented company, you may have more difficulty posting a single image, but think hard about it. You can usually come up with an image or simple montage that can communicate the essence of your business.
So now you have an idea about the type of booth you want and how you want it to look. How do you make it happen?
First, check with booth vendors in your area. It is important to have local access to your vendor so you can easily go to the showroom to see the products, get ideas, and also be able to easily get support, extra parts, and supplies. Most sales reps will also bring a booth to your office and set it up so you can see it firsthand in your own environment. Many times, booth sales reps are also great resources for ideas for designing your booth. They know what works and how to make your booth effective. Use their experience and advice -- it's typically free! Check references of the vendors you speak with. Talk to their customers and see if they are happy with both their booth and the service from the vendor. Or, go to a local trade show and ask some of the show vendors about their booths and whom they work with. You are about to make a potentially large investment, and a little product research is very valuable.
Also, many vendors will store your booth in their warehouse or showroom while it's not in use, for no additional charge. Some will also make sure it's clean and in good shape, and ship it for you when you need it. Make sure you know what they charge for this service (if anything -- some vendors provide it free) because those fees can add up.
Usually, the booth vendor can either create your graphics from images you supply, or they may offer services to create the images for you. Here, cost is usually the key difference. If you have an internal graphics staff, you'll save money, but make sure they are in good communication with the vendor graphics staff to ensure that the appropriate sizes and formats are supplied
It seems there are always little things you didn't think about that greatly affect how much you love or hate a product you've purchased. Exhibit booths are no exception. First, if you plan on shipping the booth yourself, know the size and weight limitations of your shippers, as well as the conference locations for the trade shows you are attending. One company purchased a large custom 20-foot (6-meter) booth that could be broken down into two 10-foot booths for smaller shows, but didn't take into consideration the weight and size of each of the 10-foot sections. The company shipped a 10-foot section to a small regional show that did not have the equipment in their facility to move a 700-pound (318-kg) carton into their exhibit hall. The company's sales reps had to quickly and creatively come up with a good reason for why they were standing in an empty booth space!
Second, know the tools you need to put the booth together, as well as the muscle required to do it. This comes into play both from your booth staffing standpoint, and the convention center requirements. Always check to see if the conference facility requires that union labor assemble the booths. Typically, if a facility has an agreement with the labor union, then anything that requires tools to put together or can't be carried without the help of a hand truck or dolly must be put together by union labor.
Third, if you get a portable booth, make sure the cases that your booth ships in are very durable, as well as replaceable. Shippers never give your shipments the tender loving care you would like, and it won't take long for cases to start showing wear. Once this happens, you stand the chance of having your booth damaged, which can be a disaster if it's en route to an important show.
Now you have your booth, and it's time to start getting out there in front of customers. How do you manage this process? Let's go over the nuts and bolts of paperwork, scheduling, and all of the other dirty work of trade shows.
