Tips to Create an Effective Trade Show Strategy Plan
If you have decided to exhibit at a trade show, you may be wondering how to create a trade show strategy to generate hype on the day. Trade shows are an excellent marketing tool because they focus on specific industry niches. This means that the people attending will be business owners and potential clients with a genuine interest in that niche. So the hard part is done, right? Wrong! You don’t want to rely on this alone for a successful show, so you need to come up with an effective marketing strategy that will generate quality leads so you can see a bigger ROI. How do you do this? Well, let’s get into it.
What is trade show marketing?
Trade show marketing is exactly the same as regular marketing, but on a bigger scale. You’re essentially selling yourself, your business and your product to a massive room of your biggest competitors and potential clients; so you need to be strategic about it. The first thing you need to determine is whether the show you are attending is B2B or B2C as this will become the foundations for your marketing strategy.
How to create a trade show plan
1. Plan the events you want to attend in a year
First things first, pull out your calendar and look at the upcoming year for your business. Identify key dates for new product releases or significant dates for the industry and search for shows that correlate with these. Give yourself a purpose to attend, otherwise it will feel more like a slog.
2. Establish your goals
Before you book onto the shows you’ve identified as relevant, you need to determine exactly what you want to achieve from exhibiting. Set some achievable goals such as; getting 25 emails, selling x amount of products, speaking at the event, having x amount of warm leads/prospects attend. If you are struggling to set goals, exhibiting at a trade show may not be the right marketing choice for your business.
3. Set a budget
Once step two has been completed, it’s time to budget. Grab a pen and paper and write down your budget and then a list of things you need to allocate that budget to. Think about staffing costs, space reservation, your stand budget, freebies, hotels, expenses, getting to and from the venue etc. We recommend splitting your budget into thirds and using one third of that on your stand design.
4. Reserving a space
When looking for the best stand space to reserve, try to identify places with the most footfall. These will be more expensive and will be snapped up quickly so be prepared! If you can, see if you’re able to attend a show at the venue before your exhibition. This will give you a good idea of the organic footfall in the area and will help you plan your exhibition space.
5. Design your stand
Next up is stand design, our forté. One thing to consider here is your budget. Don’t spend all of your budget on reserving the space because you need to pack a punch at the show. Stand reservation and design is what we know, so get in touch if you need help!
6. Determine your target audience
Don’t start shouting about the event until you have a clear idea of who you’re targeting. Think about your ideal client and do some research. Create some personas and don’t skip any details! Think about their interests, hobbies, age, gender etc. See if you can find people that match these descriptions online and see what content they’re interacting with, how they speak and what they tend to share. Then you can fine tune your content to the best of your ability to get it in front of these people.
7. Spread the word
Create some valuable content about the trade show and push the news on social media platforms that align the most with your audience. If you use email as a marketing tool, make sure you inform your subscribers via newsletter. Don’t forget to have a clear call to action so people can sign up to say they will be attending. This means you can get a rough idea of numbers and see the types of people who are engaging to further tailor content and get this message in front of the right people.
8. On the day plan
Create a clear and concise on-the-day to do list so everyone on your staff knows exactly what they should be doing on your stand to maximise your stand and get potential prospects. You want friendly faces, eye contact and lots of chat. People like to tell you about themselves and, while they are at a sales event, they don’t necessarily like sales jargon and being sold to. So be yourself, get to know people who are giving you their time, find out things about them and use that to your advantage when selling yourself and your product.
9. Post event strategy
Your post marketing strategy is just as important as the pre strategy. Make sure you follow up your leads pretty sharply as you don’t know how many businesses these prospects gave information to. Remember when we said to get to know your customers? Following up with a more personal angle will make them feel important because you remembered them in that sea of people. This will also communicate that you are focussed on more than just the sale. If you need further guidance on this, we have some tips on how to write a follow up email.
As with any marketing practice, a lot of this is trial and error. Starting out broad and slowly fine tuning your strategy when you start seeing results and what works will take time and patience. Until then do your research, follow our helpful trade show tips, get experimenting, but, above all, make sure you have fun doing it!