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maintenanceguy
01-02-2011, 11:33 AM
Ok everyone. I need a little advice if you can. My company has decided to do a trade show. More specifically The Wichita Womens fair. As the name implies, it will be alot of vendors geared towards a female audience. There will however be some other displays similar to my type of business. i.e construction, plumber, electrician. We realize that this is a good market for our product as there are alot more single women homeowners nowdays as well as women typically control the finances of a home. There will be elderly women in attendance as well as women tired of trying to get their husbands to do the work that we perform. Young women may see this as a great gift for their elderly parents, etc. My delima is how to present and what to present. I was thinking of handing out business cards with a discount offer on the back as well as the brochures my company has. The brochures are a little expensive at about sixty cents each so I thought of only giving them to what I considered truly interested parties. I also thought of a freebie of some kind? Any suggestions for that? Do you think I am approaching this in the wrong manner? Should I hand brochures to evryone I can? Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Patrysha
01-02-2011, 12:40 PM
I wouldn't necessarily want to give them to everyone, but one doesn't want to be too stingy about their marketing materials either. I have found it helpful to look at things like brochures from the other end, (ie. how much potential business will it bring when someone responds to the call to action in the brochure?) rather than the per cost rate. I have to do it that way or I wouldn't spend enough to generate interest because I'm a bit on the frugal, stingy, tightwad side.

That being said...don't be focused so much on getting your information out there as taking information in! That's the sweet spot of trade shows...generating leads that you can follow up and close the sale process after the show. The truth of the matter is that the people going through are looking at 150 (or more...at the shows I've done it's in around 150) displays and booths and most of them are really there for the mini-donuts (maybe that's just here...we live in small town)...much of the paper in the swag bag gets tossed and forgotten while the useful stuff gets used...even if they are interested and do keep what they've picked up, your material is mixed in with a pile of other stuff that they've picked up from the show and they may or may not get around to following up depending on where it is in the priority zone of their lives.

I'm a multi-media nutter so my first impulse is to create a loop of "commercials" and then drag my TV along...that hasn't failed to draw attention yet...

Spider
01-02-2011, 12:47 PM
At fairs of this nature, I have noticed that many, many people go around and collect stuff. Who has the most stuff at the end of the day wins!

I suggest you hand out trifold flier-brochures (8½x11, folded twice to give 6 surfaces 8½x3½) If you stick with black print on a colored paper, they will be very cheap and you can give one or several to everyone who comes within arm's reach of your table. (2-sided printing + folding would cost about $100-$150 for 1,000) Give them out to EVERYONE! Treat it as advertising.

Keep your glossy, informative brochures under the table for people who ask for more information specifically. In fact, I would be inclined to not take any of the glossy brochures to the fair, and mention in the flier that a brochure is available giving a phone number or e-mail address where they can get one. Alternatively or in addition, make the glossy brochure into a pdf and make it available on your website.

The objective of this approach is to give everyone at the fair something with your information and contact but not go to the expense of having high quality brochures being dumped as soon as the people get home. While I am a great believer in ad specialties (key tags, calendars, printed pens, pads/notebooks, etc.) they should be used in a more targetted fashion that giving them out to everyone.

Best of luck at the fair.

maintenanceguy
01-02-2011, 03:30 PM
Thankyou both for your insite. I have considered taking my flat panel and laptop to play a recorded loop of information but trying to come up with the media has been the interesting part. I don't really have any videos and very few pics of work we have done. Any suggestions for this? I have also thought about a coupon with company info on it to hand out. Kind of a call to action but it may help bring them to the website as well.

Steve B
01-02-2011, 06:16 PM
I've done our local Home show for the last 3 years. I've decided to skip it this year. I've never gotten enough business from it to justify the cost of the booth plus three days of my time. Also, I usually pay 2 other people to help me for the three days. We have a very large home show here - I think it's in the top 5 for attendance even though we're the 16th largest city. Anyway, I've tried different approaches and always had a booth that attracted tons and tons of people that sounded very interested. Anyway, my point is to make sure you have reasonable expectations. I don't regret doing the shows in the past because I think there was some value in the exposure, but the direct sales I got as a result of contacts at the show have been dissapointing. I'm sure the economy hasn't helped either.

barbara
01-03-2011, 10:14 PM
Hi Dan,

One of the most important things you want to do during a trade show is to capture as many details of the stand visitors as possible.

I suggest, given that you're already giving a people a chance to win one years free service on your website, you use this as a hook for visitors to register at the show.

I suggest you make up a big banner and having entry form that they fill in at the show.

After the winner(s) are drawn notify not only the winner but every entrant as to who won, which keeps your name in front of them.

During the year, say on a monthly basis, keep in touch (email, mail etc) with special home maintenance tips (which add value to your subscribers).

You may want to give away more prizes during the year or offer specials for subscribers if they stay on your list.

From a marketing point of view it's always better to keep "control" by getting their details rather than relying on your prospect to keep your card.

Hope this helps.

Barbara

KristineS
01-04-2011, 12:45 PM
We do a lot of trade shows in a year (10 or so in 2011) so we've got this down to a science. First of all, make sure you hand something out, a brochure with your business card attached, or something that people can keep and look at after the show.

Second, you have to have a way to record who you talked to and how to contact them. Even if it's something as simple as writing names and phone number or e-mails down on a piece of paper, you want to have a way to contact the people you saw and follow-up on your discussions. It isn't likely that you'll sign a lot of business on the spot, but if you follow-up, you keep your name in front of the potential customer. Having a way to record who you have seen is vital.

maintenanceguy
01-05-2011, 08:57 PM
Steve, the show cost 525 for small booth and of course have to pay extra for electricity and furniture rentals etc. but should come away only spending about a grand. That is only three contracts roughly. I certainly hope I can a least do that much or has your experience really been that bad with this type of show?

Steve B
01-06-2011, 05:24 AM
Yes, my experience has really been that bad. My payback numbers would be roughly the same. 2 customers would pay for my booth. 4 customers would pay for my booth and my time. If I don't get more than 4, then I would rather have spent the weekend with my kids.

Most of my Trade Show experience has been after the economy slowed down. So, my experience is probably not representative of trade shows in general. I'll do them again in the future because I have heard from lots of other venders that it was always a huge success for them in the past. In recent years, most of them tell me they aren't getting as much as they used to.

I think you should do it - especially as a new company. Each year I did it I learned a lot and made changes to my approach. I also met lots of contacts that have been beneficial over the years. Of course, it may work very well for you. But, even if you don't get a single customer it will be great marketing research for you to see how people react to your service.

Blessed
01-06-2011, 11:42 AM
I'm going to disagree with Spider here - if you hand anything out make sure it looks good. You are better off to hand out a glossy, nicely done postcard (which really can be printed very reasonably!) with some sort of coupon/call to action than to hand out a cheap-o tri-fold brochure. Your marketing materials speak loud and clear for you - if you want to be seen as a discount guy who does cheap work, hand out cheap stuff. If you want to be seen as a guy that knows what he's doing and does it right hand out nice stuff. It's all in first impressions. Spend your marketing money wisely - you need a good display and you need something bigger than a business card that looks nice for people to take away.

Barbara and Kristine both bring up the most important aspect of the trade show - collecting information from those who stop by your booth and then follow-up with them in the future. Get email addresses? Send out an email to everyone who signed up after the show. Get mailing addresses? Send them a postcard, letter or something else in the mail. Better yet - get them to answer a question - i.e. What one home improvement would you like to make in the next 6 months? And respond specifically to that answer in your follow-up.

If you have any specific questions about material design and where to get things printed without draining your bank account PM me! Good luck with the show - I've participated in some that have been well worth the effort and in others that made you scratch your head and go "now why were we here exactly?"