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The Shaughnessy Report: After The Show, Now What?

You’ve spent a good part of your month either planning for, attending, or traveling home from a trade show, most likely. Now you have a pocketful of new business cards, and your company has a whole slew of leads for potential customers. You’ve learned a few things at conference classes and met a few dozen experts that you plan to chat with ASAP.

You’ve networked so much that your voice is just about gone. You actually sound like a sick bullfrog, but hopefully you’ve at least tested negative for COVID. (Not mentioning any names.)

It’s tempting to kick back for a while, especially with all that goes into attending a trade show.

I’m sure we’re all guilty of this over the years: You get home from the airport and sleep for four hours. Then you attend the one meeting that you can’t miss, hit the high spots on your emails, finish off whatever you were working on before the show started, start a load of laundry, and go back to sleep.

Sure, you’ve earned a little R&R time. But in the meantime, you need to do some serious trade show follow-up. The impact of the show does not end when the show closes its doors. A good post-show plan may not guarantee success, but it puts you on a good path.

How do you carry the momentum you felt during the trade show, when you had that “a-ha” moment and knew you were onto something really new and innovative? You can’t let up. You have to be relentless, because all of your competitors are being relentless. You can’t take your foot off the gas.

Your company spent some money sending you to the show; what are you bringing back to justify your trip and your likely frequent visits to the bar? What was the biggest takeaway? What were your rivals doing? And what’s the best way to disseminate the new technical information you learned at the show to the rest of your team? You’ll probably have to be the champion responsible for that.

How do you and your company build upon what you’ve learned—and the new relationships you’ve built—and move forward for the rest of the year? In an industry like ours, relationships are everything.

As we learned from our experts this month, one thing is certain: Your marketing campaign shouldn’t end when the trade show does. Avoid the temptation to pull back your marketing. In fact, post-show marketing is an important tool in your toolbox.

In the February 2023 issue of PCB007 Magazine, our expert contributors provide us with methodologies to create your own post-show plan of action and identify the important points to consider within that plan. We also provide ways to implement these process steps. Readers will learn various paths for implementing their post-show plan across multiple teams within their company.

First, columnist Dan Beaulieu explains how to set up a solid pre-show plan—one that leads you directly into your post-show follow-up actions. Next, Barry Matties presents a plan of action for all those juicy leads you gathered during the trade show. IPC instructor Kris Moyer explains how to pass on the new knowledge that you acquired during the technical classes. Taiyo’s Kiki Shemomae lays out a post-show plan that includes maintaining a constant presence on social media—something that many “old school” folks in our industry often neglect.

If you came home from IPC APEX EXPO with a plan to launch a start-up fabrication facility, columnist Christopher Bonsell has what you need to know about setting up wet processing in your new venture, from workplace layout through waste processes. Another interesting perspective is the one offered by columnist Hannah Nelson, who explains why we need volunteers like you to join the standards committees that meet at shows like IPC APEX EXPO, and how to get involved and make a difference in this industry. We also have columns from Happy Holden and Mike Carano, as well as an interview with John Hendrickson, Frank Harrill, and Jessi Hall of Schweitzer Electronics.

So, after you do your laundry, it’s time to act—and act fast—while the show is still fresh in everyone’s minds. Eventually, the inexorable march of time wins out. There will be another show, another conference, and customers to visit, and these ideas will all take precedence over that special week at the show.

You put in a lot of effort, and now it’s time to take advantage of it.

This column originally appeared in the February 2023 issue of PCB007 Magazine.