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It’s Only Common Sense: Tips for Attending Trade Shows

As we near 2019 and the upcoming trade show season, I thought it would be interesting to discuss some of the best ways to get the most use from your hard-earned trade show spending.

First, regardless of what everyone seems to think, trades shows are not for selling. I’d love to get a dollar every time I hear someone say with great disappointment that they did not get any new customers from attending a given trade show. Instead, trade shows are for branding, being seen, and sharing your message with people so they can find out who you are and what you do.

Sure, you will get some business and new customers from a trade show once and a while, especially when it is a show focused on technology or a specialized market segment like medical. However, most trade shows are designed to brand your company and position it in the marketplace. It is also critical to focus on your message and image.

Here are a few points you should concentrate on to prepare for a trade show.

• Choose carefully: Will a particular trade show provide the right audience for you, and are the people at the show interested in what you are selling? That may sound obvious, but it’s not always. I have seen companies attend a show based on geography rather than the market, which results in a complete waste of time and money. Make sure you are getting your message in front of the right audience.
• Develop the right message for your audience: You want to understand what the people and companies attending the show are looking for. Why are they attending this show in the first place? Once you know that, develop your message based on their interests and needs.
• Make your message attractive, appealing, and unique: The chances are good that your company is not the only one that has done its homework. Other companies exhibiting at trade shows may sell similar products as you. Sometimes, trade show management even likes to group similar types of companies together in the same aisle. Imagine that—a whole aisle of a trade show lined with companies just like yours selling the same products that you do. This situation makes it critical that you come up with a unique and distinctive message—one that will differentiate your booth from all of the others.
• Be professional: Make your product message stand out, but don’t be unprofessional—no dancing girls, crazy games, or huge giveaways. These things will make your booth stand out, but it will not deliver the right message or forward your brand. Fill your booth with graphics that tell your company’s story, and highlight your products in all of their uniqueness. Display what makes your product better graphically and dramatically so that your message will gain the right kind of attention rather than meaningless attention from stunts that will end up hurting your company more than helping it. You want to be remembered for your great products—not by the kind of candy you were giving away.
• Make your giveaways pertinent to your message: The things you give away should represent what you do. If you are in the heavy copper business, consider giving away some dramatic 18-ounce copper samples or a micro book about copper and its applications—something that will brand you as the expert in that market. There is no way a Hershey’s kiss can compete with a solid sample to people interested in heavy copper boards.
• Learn something: Talk to people and ask them what they need, are interested in, and would like to know more about. Listen and respond. That is really why you are there—to be branded as the absolute product expert in your market.

It’s only common sense.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D.B. Management Group.