Despite the growth of the Web, trade shows remain a great way to promote your products and services. Trade shows generally provide a concentrated stream of qualified buyers who are looking for solutions and tools that can help them do business more effectively. In recent years, technology has become one of the great "leveling factors" that can give smaller companies as much visibility as their larger competitors.
Background and History
Despite the growth of the Web, trade shows remain a great way to promote your products and services. Trade shows generally provide a concentrated stream of qualified buyers who are looking for solutions and tools that can help them do business more effectively.
In recent years, technology has become one of the great "leveling factors" that can give smaller companies as much visibility as their larger competitors. The key to attracting a large number of prospects to your booth is creativity.
The Need to be Unique
Unique promotions and marketing tools can help your company's key sales messages rise above the clutter and get noticed by more prospective customers.
Here are a number of innovative ways you can use technology to enhance your booth's drawing power and make your company stand out in the minds of prospect once they get there:
Pre-Show Promotional Effects
Your primary goal before a trade show is to drive key customers and prospects to your booth, or to your website if you can offer some form of pre-show registration to generate leads for you before show time. This means you must tell key customers and prospects, which shows you're going to be exhibiting at, where to find you, and why they should invest time visiting you.
Before hitting the road, a website, or micro site outlining your presence at upcoming tradeshows is in order. You can start getting leads from the website months before the show and continue to build buzz around your booth well in advance of your competition.
Traditionally, many marketers have relied on personalized letters or direct mail pieces to alert these key audiences of their booth number and what one can expect to see by visiting it during the show. Personalized e-mail messages can accomplish the same goal, at a significantly lower cost. Many trade shows will provide you with an e-mail list of attendees. You can also seek lists of industry associations as many of their members may be in attendance.
For best results, limit your e-mail message to one or two paragraphs of "teaser" copy -- which hints at the significant benefits they'll receive by visiting your company's trade show web site and trade show booth. Provide a link to a page on your Web site that contains more details on what you plan to introduce at the upcoming show and why your booth is a must-see.
Look for opportunities to promote your company on the trade show's Web site. This is one of the most powerful strategies you can use to help make your company and its new products more visible to key customers and prospects. That's because exposition Web sites tend to attract a steady stream of qualified buyers, who are visiting it to register for the show.
The Trade Show Alternative
A growing number of expositions offer "virtual trade shows" -- online product directories that enable buyers to search for exhibitors using multiple criteria. Often, exhibitors can upgrade a basic listing to one or more levels of enhanced "E-booths," where you can tell your story in greater detail. Often, these paid E-booths rank higher in search results than free listings, and offer many advantages in terms of the number and types of documents and other materials you can post in them. Review the material that comes into your office about trade events to see if these types of opportunities are available.
Banner advertising within an exposition's online exhibitor directory can also be very effective, especially if you can buy keywords -- so when visitors search for your product type, your company's banner ad appears at the top of the search results page.
During the Trade Show
One exciting and unique way that you can use to present your company's key sales messages is a CD business card. These look like miniature CDs with two sides trimmed off, so they resemble a rounded business card. These CDs can hold large quantities of colorful, exciting multimedia presentations, including:
- Virtual product demonstrations and walkthroughs
- Digital brochures
- Technical specifications
- Competitive comparisons
- Interactive Media kits
They can also be imprinted with your company's logo and other colorful graphics. Suppliers include PromoDisc and BizCard CD.
Set up a WebCam in your booth to do live video broadcasts during the show. This can be a powerful way to enable key prospects that are unable to come to the show to "attend" your new product launch or demonstration at the show.
If you're planning to demonstrate your company's Web site or any Web-based services from your trade show booth, I strongly recommend that you make the investment in renting a high-speed Internet connection during the show. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to demonstrate an exciting, but slow-loading Web site - and it gives visitors to your booth a negative impression. Many of the major convention centers offer wireless high-speed Web access. Hold a press conference during the trade show, and provide editors and reporters with both printed and electronic versions of your press kit (here's another use for the business card CD).
Many trade shows issue smart cards to each attendee that contain all of their contact information on a magnetic strip. Exhibitors can rent electronic card readers that capture the data on these smart cards. It's a great way to obtain sales leads during a trade show. The real key, however, is to fulfill each prospect's information request immediately and to exceed their expectations. One of your sales staff can download sales leads from your card reader each night and transmit the data to the office. There, an employee can use the data to send out the requested sales literature the next day. As a result, when many of these prospects return from the show, the brochures they requested will have beaten them there.
Be sure to get these prospects' permission to add their e-mail addresses to your database. Trade shows are a valuable way to build your e-mail distribution list with qualified sales prospects.
Post Trade Show Follow-up
Plan to send at least one follow-up personalized e-mail or letter, reminding them of the new product they saw in our booth at the trade show, and why it represents the best solution to meet their needs. Once again, keep your message brief, and be sure to include links to pages on your company's Web site where prospects can learn more about your product, how to contact your local sales representative or local dealer, and other information that your prospects need to make an informed purchase decision.