As businesses integrate electronic technologies such as cell phones, videos on websites, WebEx or other web meeting software into their sales and marketing efforts, there still is a place for the face-to-face, and hand-to-hand selling and marketing that occurs at Trade Shows, Industry Conferences, and Exhibitions. The ability to walk from booth to booth and interact with competing products, talk to numerous representatives from remotely located companies, and compare notes with others shopping for similar products and services is still a critical aspect for helping prospects make purchase decisions. However, successfully leveraging a trade show experience as an exhibitor requires some preparation and forethought.

Strategy

Visions of prospects crowding your booth may be dancing in your head as the idea of selling out one's entire stock of product brings a smile to your lips; but that can only happen if the strategy is in place.

1. Picking the right trade show - while there are many trade shows available to choose from, do not always assume that the biggest or best attended one is the one you should participate in. Nor, pick a trade show based on the locale or exotic destination. Rather, choose the trade show that is the best fit or is best aligned for your product or service. Some trade shows are geared for businesses to sell to other businesses. Others are focused on selling to end user consumers. Still others are targeted at specific functions within companies

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like, Information Technology, Security, Sales, etc. Make sure that the likely attendees at the show are the same ones the product or service will appeal to or is being marketed to by the company. A smaller, but more targeted show that attracts the RIGHT customer is preferred over one that may have more people attending, but fewer buyers for the product or service.

2. Deciding why to participate - there are many possible reasons why a company may choose to participate as a vendor in a trade show. Before sending in a registration, selecting graphics for the booth, or contracting for new brochures to hand out; consider what your goal is in attending. Is it:
a. Generating sales to attendees
b. Developing marketing awareness in the industry
c. Seeking strategic alliances with other vendors offering complementary offerings
d. Performing competitive intelligence on suppliers or vendors that have recently entered the market and developing insight on how to best compete against them.

e. Interacting with prospects and customers to improve customer service
While a company may seek to do more than one of the above at a given show, it is important to determine what the goal(s) of the show are for the company prior to attending.

3. Choosing location on the trade show floor - In choosing where to locate the booth, be mindful of likely traffic patterns, where entrances, exits, bathrooms, food service, or other places people are likely to congregate or at least pass through will be located. A well designed booth that is not seen by many is an inefficient use of time, resources, and effort. Also be mindful of where competitors will be located, or other vendors that may offer complementary products or services may reside in the trade show floor plan. Depending on the specifics of what the business seeks to communicate at the show; it may be desirable to be close to or far away from other specific vendor booths.

Pre-Show

Depending on the strategy or strategies to be employed at the show, the preparation may differ from company to company. However, what will remain constant is that there needs to be forethought, analysis, and planning that occurs prior to attending the show. Consider doing the following:

1. Assess the attendees - Understand why people attend the show. Some shows may attract browsers looking for a peek into the future, while others may be scouting missions done on behalf of more senior members of an organization. Know who attends and why they attend as best as can be done by asking the show administrators for a breakdown of attendees by important characteristics (geography, age, job title, industry, or whatever other variables are meaningful to the company). Align the booth's presence with the needs of the attendees.

2. Make plans for meetings to occur at the show before attending - relying on just catching up with someone while there will limit the likelihood of success. If a key customer will be attending, or a supplier essential to the product is exhibiting; schedule to meet ahead of time so that the meeting is not left to chance.

3. Publicize attendance at the trade show - if relevant, let customers or others know that the business will be at the show and even provide the booth location and welcome prospects, customers, or others to stop by the booth. Some companies even offer an inducement like bringing a pre-mailed coupon for a discount at the show or providing a chance at a drawing to be conducted at the show, etc.

During The Show

It is far too common at many trade shows to see someone from a company sitting behind a table with brochures, maybe a sample product nearby, and not at all interacting with attendees passing by. A trade show is an opportunity to interact and if the booth is not inviting or engaging to get people to stop, look, touch, interact, etc., and the person or people in the booth look bored or are not giving a reason to want to linger at the booth; most attendees will pass by in search of some other booth.

Offering something unique, arresting or disrupting their attention, standing out from others is the only way to ensure that attendees are aware of your presence and seek the booth out from all other options. Again, depending on the strategy chosen for attending, the booth and booth personnel should be consistent with that mission. It does not mean having to hire firewalkers or jugglers to draw people to the booth; but it does mean that as people walk by, they need to quickly assess what the company and the booth are selling and why it is worth breaking stride to investigate further.

Follow Up

After a trade show ends, a company will often walk away with business cards that had been collected, stray pieces of paper, food wrappers, or other writing surfaces with notes scribbled upon them and try to reconstruct what the conversations were about, what commitments were made, promises to be kept, etc. Unfortunately, things will fall through the cracks if there is no method for follow up.

Write on the back of a business card received notes about the conversation, follow up activities, etc. helps some business show exhibitors keep straight what actions need to be taken once back in the office. Still others will scan the cards into a database for subsequent mailing list inclusion or additional follow up. No matter what techniques are used, failure to follow up on a potential lead or a prospect's inquiry is a wasted opportunity and can land the company in the negative perceptions of the prospect. It is frustrating for a trade show attendee to expect to hear back from a company, only to never have a continuation of a discussion started on the trade show floor.

There are many reasons to attend trade shows, and each comes with it a specific set of actions and expectations. The preceding tricks or hints are general enough to capture the majority of situations a company is likely to confront when determining trade show participation. Specific techniques though will vary based on the exact objectives of the company in choosing to attend a trade show.

David Zahn is a serial entrepreneur and consultant to Fortune 100 businesses (www.zahnconsulting.com) as well as entrepreneurial startups (www.startupbuilder.com). His books, "How To Succeed As An Independent Consultant, 4th Ed.," and "The Quintessential Guide To Using Consultants" are frequently cited by other authors and have been used as textbooks in college and MBA classes.

The opinions expressed are the author's and not necessarily those of connpost.com. Please direct comments to cdauber@ctpost.com.