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View Full Version : Does exhibiting at trade shows bring sales?



Marcomguy
09-17-2008, 08:22 AM
Whenever I walk around a trade show floor and ask exhibitors at random how the show is working for them, they say, "Not well."

The location is bad, or there's no traffic, or it's unqualified traffic.

Remembering back to my corporate days when I used to be an exhibitor, I kind of agree. We seldom got good leads. The ones we got almost never converted to sales. The main benefit of exhibiting was that you got to meet your remote clients face to face.

What has been your experience? Have trade shows paid off for you? If yes, what did you do that led to success?

Blessed
09-17-2008, 09:34 AM
It's been a long time since I worked a trade show but I do know that when we were in the right trade show for our business it did help.

I was the Manager's Assistant for a small retail gift shop that did gift baskets. We went to a holiday trade show hosted by our local Chamber of Commerce and were overwhelmed with orders from businesses for gift baskets going to either individuals or offices. Additionally we got orders from individuals that worked for those companies for gift baskets to send to their friends and family.

We were very much a "niche" shop - specializing in products manufactured in our state. At the trade show we offered samples of some of the food goods we sold and gave away key chains with our name and logo on them. We were downtown in the middle of a business district and a lot of the people at the trade show were also from downtown and that is where most of our business came from.

However, I've also been involved in trade show events that didn't net any measurable results - I think location, and the purpose of the trade show are very important when deciding what shows you should participate in.

KristineS
09-17-2008, 10:59 AM
We do trade shows for two of our companies. In one industry the trade shows are great, and do generate business and contacts for us. Of course the shows are very industry specific and the people in the industry and conditioned to attend shows and find new vendors there. So trade shows are a pretty effective method of meeting new customers and generating sales.

If should also be noted that we do a lot of follow-up on our trade show attendance too. We have e-mail newsletters and a blog that we use to keep in contact with those we meet at trade shows.

In the other industry, the trade show is a must attend event, but it generates absolutely nothing for us. It is more a "see and be seen" sort of thing. You have to go or the industry would think your company was in trouble, but there's really no value to being there, other than the value of being seen to be there.

cbscreative
09-17-2008, 11:37 AM
I would have to agree that it's industry specific, and specific to the tradeshow itself. I've never participated as a vendor, but I can offer perspective on having been to tradeshows, and having worked in the promotional products industry which supplies the give-aways used in tradeshows.

As an attendee, it was primarily when I was in the sign biz. It helped to see vendors who demonstrated their products, equipment, or service. So I did make purchasing decisions based on attending tradeshows. There were also those things I could drool over but could not afford because of the small size and budget of my company, but just the awareness of these options were beneficial. Indirectly, it still benefitted the vendor because if I was subcontracting a service that used the equipment I saw in the tradeshow, I was better equipped to sell things even if I did not produce them myself.

Another example would be extruded signs like an apartment complex or manufacting facility might use. These companies often sell to sign shops at wholesale and the sign shops serve as their sales force. To not participate in a tradeshow would be suicidal to their business. It might also be difficult to track if the sale was because of a tradeshow, but if I was not as familiar with the product, it would have been more difficult to sell when it met the need of one of my customers. There were even times when I made additional effort to seek out opportunities to sell things I saw at tradeshows.

From my experience in selling the give-aways and talking to those who were vendors at tradeshows, one of the things that helps is being creative in your handouts. Pens and keychains are so common they are mostly ineffective. Think creatively. If you talk with a good ad specialities company, they have a database of hundreds of thousands of products, so you're sure to find something that works and meets your budget. One option to check on that's extremely inexpensive is plastic bags. If someone is not already furnishing them (they usually are but I would check), you have your advertisement displayed on the bag that everyone needs to put all their other goodies in.

orion_joel
09-17-2008, 07:08 PM
Many of the trade shows in the IT market, at least in Australia have dropped off the radar. There use to be multiple shows a year in most of the capitals in Australia, however i think they finally realized many people did not go to buy anything but more to have a play with new things and try and get freebies.

Even the trade shows that are still on going in IT are mostly either once a year in only one or two cities, or put on by the Wholesalers (for resellers only, no public) Really though if any business is done through these shows it would be a miracle. To me they generally seem mostly to be about getting freebie pens, caps, shirts, ect. And then chatting and hanging round till they bring out the free beer and wine. While i don't disagree with this type of show it gets you to see new products and stuff, i think it could be a major cost burden for some companies.

Paul Elliott
09-19-2008, 03:24 PM
I'm sure it all centers around the organization and goals of the TS. Clearly, just from the experience here, the attendees need to be properly targeted--"qualified"--to come to the TS.

I suspect the TS promoters lose sight of that fact and prefer to get anyone who will pay the fee.

Paul

Marcomguy
09-20-2008, 10:21 AM
If should also be noted that we do a lot of follow-up on our trade show attendance too. We have e-mail newsletters and a blog that we use to keep in contact with those we meet at trade shows.

It's great that you do that kind of follow-up. Often, people from marketing departments work trade show booths and turn the leads over to sales. Then whether the salesperson follows up consistently is up to them.

For best results, both marketing and sales should be following up.

cbs, your comment about plastic bags reminded me of a trade show I was at when I was working for 3M. About half an hour into the trade show, the regional sales manager realized none of the visitors were carrying around any plastic bags. We had a couple of cartons full of our own bags, but nobody had gotten around to opening them.

So we quickly tore open the cartons and started handing out bags to everyone who passed our booth, whether that person was a prospect or not. For the next two hours, the only plastic bags people were toting around the trade show floor were these white ones with the big red 3M logo on them. They were pretty distinctive.

We got quite a lot of traffic because of those bags. But then again, I don't know how much of the traffic was qualified.

Paul Elliott
09-21-2008, 03:18 PM
In the other industry, the trade show is a must attend event, but it generates absolutely nothing for us. It is more a "see and be seen" sort of thing. You have to go or the industry would think your company was in trouble, but there's really no value to being there, other than the value of being seen to be there.

Kristine, perhaps there are some marketing ways to maintain one's "visibility" and enhance it with continued contact with the other attendees throughout the ensuing year.

That wouldn't obviate the need to attend annually, it would simply leverage your attendance each year . . . and keep in touch with those who may not choose to attend on an annual basis.

Since we human beings have short memories, you can use techniques to prevent "corporate Alzheimer's." :D

If corporate visibility is important in your industry, do it for all it's worth . . . and keep on doing it! There is bound to be a payoff of some sort, if there is truly a benefit, vs. a perceived benefit, of attendance.

Paul

orion_joel
09-21-2008, 06:12 PM
I have a book, about maintaining contact with clients and the one point that it drive's home it would seem is that keeping the period between contact less then 90 days is a must. Can anyone confirm this?

Paul Elliott
09-21-2008, 10:24 PM
I have a book, about maintaining contact with clients and the one point that it drive's home it would seem is that keeping the period between contact less then 90 days is a must. Can anyone confirm this?

I strongly agree, Joel. You don't want that contact to forget who you are between mailings. This where a logo helps. I any case you want to develop the "affinity bond" with your customer--the relationship.

I have a more lengthy discussion of the benefits of affinity bonding--relationship building in a blog, The Power of Continued Customer Connections (http://marketingsuccessblueprint.com/blog/the-power-of-continued-customer-connections/)

WARNING . . . there is a link to my card affiliate program. You can at least follow it and get a couple of free cards to find out how the process works. The service offers cards (2- or 3-panels in an envelope) or postcards mailed first class in the US.

For Jenn (Blessed) and others who have a lot of offline customers, here is something I do as a separate line of service.

I take a business's customer lists, upload them, add their logos, and do the mailings for them. I can make a little on each card and have someone who does it for me on a piece-work basis.

Businesses love me doing it for them. Of course, as a copywriter, and marketer, I can offer them more than most mailers.

Paul

Blessed
09-22-2008, 12:17 AM
For Jenn (Blessed) and others who have a lot of offline customers, here is something I do as a separate line of service.

I take a business's customer lists, upload them, add their logos, and do the mailings for them. I can make a little on each card and have someone who does it for me on a piece-work basis.

Businesses love me doing it for them. Of course, as a copywriter, and marketer, I can offer them more than most mailers.

Paul

hmmm.... I do this too for my customers - it's one of the many regular things I get asked to do! :D

Paul Elliott
09-22-2008, 12:47 AM
hmmm.... I do this too for my customers - it's one of the many regular things I get asked to do! :D

That's a great added line of income, isn't it? I use the automated system, but there is a vendor in our area who is doing it by hand--awfully labor-intensive IMO.

Do you use an automated system?

Paul

orion_joel
09-22-2008, 02:22 AM
I think that the range and variation of ways to stay in contact with clients/potential clients is so wide. But the number of businesses that don't spend the money or time to make use of this is amazing.

For the last 4 or 5 years i have attended one trade show, the set-up that they have uses an ATM like swipe card and every vendor has the little box to swipe it through. Swiping it effectively gives them all your details to send direct mail to you. Most of them use it as a we swipe your card and then you can have a t-shirt or whatever it is they are giving away. Most years on average my card would have been swiped up to 30 or 40 times maybe more. Generally for the most part i may end up with 2 or 3 things in the mail over the next 6 months.

I am effectively giving my permission to all these companies to send me whatever they want about there products, and yet almost none of them take any advantage of that at all. Now i am a small business and maybe sending stuff to me is not going to profit for them that much, although they would not know this from the information. But the range of other businesses there they would be missing out on an absolutely massive potential.

Blessed
09-22-2008, 07:39 AM
Paul - I do the "data entry" if they haven't already done it, I buy lists whenever possible to avoid the "data entry" (however, if they have a sheet filled out with their customers names and addresses - we type it all in, I charge big time for that (I hate data entry) or I let the customer do it, either way I send it to my mail guru to have the list certified.)

I do the design of the mail piece, have it printed and then send everything to my mail guy whose printing prices are outlandish but whose mailing prices are quite reasonable and let him handle the post office part of it. He does automated - no hand labeling, unless of course the customer asked for both sides of a postcard to be varnished... then they pay more for mailing labels and hand labeling.

Joel - I agree, it's amazing how many businesses don't take advantage of the contact information we give them.

Paul Elliott
09-22-2008, 10:03 AM
I think that the range and variation of ways to stay in contact with clients/potential clients is so wide. But the number of businesses that don't spend the money or time to make use of this is amazing.

Joel, this is an excellent example of the business focusing on "what we have for you" rather than "what are your needs." Focusing on the customer's needs and how the business can offer solutions with its products or services is the clue to massive success, no matter what the industry.


For the last 4 or 5 years i have attended one trade show, the set-up that they have uses an ATM like swipe card and every vendor has the little box to swipe it through. Swiping it effectively gives them all your details to send direct mail to you. Most of them use it as a we swipe your card and then you can have a t-shirt or whatever it is they are giving away. Most years on average my card would have been swiped up to 30 or 40 times maybe more. Generally for the most part i may end up with 2 or 3 things in the mail over the next 6 months.

It's an amazing failure, isn't it. They believe "they" are "everything." In fact "Your list is everything!" (From the "88" below)

I'm sure many companies who don't contact you will say that they tried this and it didn't work. Yes, they tried it once and that didn't work. Not only that, a junior executive with business degree was given the task of wording the letter. While that person may have been great at his or her main responsibility, writing a direct mail marketing piece wasn't what that person was prepared to do.

I understand this because I've studied the letters I've gotten over the years from many sources.

If you want an example of a direct mail package that works, read and analyze the Publishers Clearing House mailings. They are rigidly tested--EVERY element--on large numbers. The PCH mailing in January is the largest direct mailing "drop" ever . . . every year. Their goal is to reach every household in the US, and they do a pretty good job.

Guess why they do it. For the magazine sales? No. For the good will of the public? No. So they can offer other things to their subscribers? Not exactly.

They do it because, with all the expenses and the cost of the $15 million and other prizes, that is the least expensive way to get their LIST! You might argue that you can get that list from the white pages of the phone book.

You would be wrong! The PCH list has one essential element the white pages don't. The PCH list is made up of "responders!" These people have "raised their hands," so to speak.



From the marketing standpoint, one can draw a number of valuable conclusions about any person who will respond to the piece. Some of these are:
They respond.
They respond to a direct mail piece.
They are willing to respond to a longshot offer.
They are willing to go through a process for the offer.
They are willing to spend their time.
They are willing to spend their money--the postage stamp.
They respond to "process marketing"--look at all the processes involved--letter (carefully notice the construction and formatting), accept tag YES/NO, "lift" pieces, "if you've decided not to purchase" pieces, "double your winnings" pieces, not to mention the stamps of the magazines you take off and post to the response card, etc., etc.
Following the money? Here it is. PCH places its maillist (ML) database over the US Census Bureau's TIGR data. The USCB releases its demographic data on household numbers, ages, income, etc., without the specific addresses or names, but down to essentially the city block averaged and divided by the number of households in that city block (ZIP+4).

Of course that is averaged data. For example, if you look at the data for your city block, it won't have your precise income, but will report that of the household average for your block. You probably live in a neighborhood of similar demographics. These averaged data are imputed to every address in that block.

Then, PCH sells this ML in every conceivable fashion to millions of people doing mailing. If you are mailing to every household with 2 adults, 2 children below the age of 10, and a household income of >$100,000 in a single zip code, the list probably came originally from the PCH list regardless of the list broker's source.


I am effectively giving my permission to all these companies to send me whatever they want about there products, and yet almost none of them take any advantage of that at all. Now i am a small business and maybe sending stuff to me is not going to profit for them that much, although they would not know this from the information. But the range of other businesses there they would be missing out on an absolutely massive potential.

Though they may be "succeeding," they are certainly failing on the track of massive success.

Look at what is happening to Microsoft's flagship cash cow, Windows. Since MS's foundation, it has had a rather callous disregard for the true needs and problems of the customer. Most of us have seethed at the problems we've encountered with their software and their seemingly confrontational attitude toward bug reports and fixing customers' problems.

They have muscled out the competition like the other DOS solutions, then the Windows competitors with heavyhanded threats to hardware manufacturers, and protracted legal action against browsers like Netscape, etc., etc. They appeared to care little about the customer. We customers haven't liked it . . . for years. There is now a whole culture in the business and personal computing customer database which despises the very name of Microsoft. Yes, it has stemmed from the founders and persists as a corporate culture.

By their focus on themselves and their products rather than the best value for their customers, they are stumbling economically. The Vista release has a lot of problems and, only if you're a big enough business, can you still purchase XP from MS.

An MS employee told me many years ago, during the DOS days, of an internal saying, "Windows isn't done 'til DOS won't run." It was their goal to stamp out DOS. Whether it would have died on its own was immaterial.

Where is the market now? IMO, MS has opened the door for a re-emergence of Apple with a superior OS and hardware . . . or someone else. But with Apple's history of poor judgment and missteps, who knows.

Marketing 101 class dismissed! <whew>

<SET SOAPBOX MODE = OFF>

Paul :D

KristineS
09-22-2008, 12:13 PM
I am effectively giving my permission to all these companies to send me whatever they want about there products, and yet almost none of them take any advantage of that at all. Now i am a small business and maybe sending stuff to me is not going to profit for them that much, although they would not know this from the information. But the range of other businesses there they would be missing out on an absolutely massive potential.

It always amazes me how many companies fail to follow up on these lists. We get a list of attendees who allowed us to scan their badges from every trade show we attend. We always follow up. It has paid off in contacts and in sales.

Why would you go to all the expense and time of attending a trade show and then not follow up on the leads you got there? That doesn't make any sense.

Paul Elliott
09-23-2008, 09:27 PM
Why would you go to all the expense and time of attending a trade show and then not follow up on the leads you got there? That doesn't make any sense.

Many companies think of it as a schmoozing social event. They go and have a great time with one another and the select customers they think they have the best chance with. They also view it as a chance to entertain their best customers.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem that they consider it as a mere prospecting event with the bulk of the work developing the relationships in the days, weeks, and months thereafter.

You're very right, Kristine, they are missing a great opportunity.

Paul