Saturday, 4 February 2012

Top 5 Trade-show Practices


Bring the relevant staff on the trade-booth:
Usually businesses bring only Sales staff on the trade booth, which is a good idea but can be problematic if the attendees of the show have diversified demographics, which is the case majority of the time. Exhibitions attract different group of stakeholders for instance; students, customers, media, competitors and so on. Therefore, your trade-booth must have HR personnel, sales personnel, PR personnel and so on, in order to have effective participation in the event & save one another time to be consumed by a irrelevant individual.

Contact the leads while they are hot:
Usually sales people contact the leads generated during the show after a considerably long time. This is just like investing on a venture and leave it right at the point it starts generating ROI. Sales people should contact the leads within a week of a show else your competition, who were in the event as well, will take away the business from you.

Create a buzz before the event:
I consider it as a sin if you don’t market your presence in the event before-hand. In order to make your investment effective, it is important to market the event to your stakeholders. You can take a look to some of the tips for how you can market your event effectively.

Make your presence noteworthy:
Try to be different from your competition and other exhibitors in the event. Entrepreneur, Joseph Cossmon, was a master of promotion. To create a buzz around his new toy spud fun at a big toy show, Cossmon, ordered hundereds of pounds of potatoes and invited local orphanage to come and play. The Spud Gun was the hit of the show. You can also think of an interesting and catchy idea to make your presence above competition.

Be an attendee, not an exhibitor:
If your budgets are tight or the exhibition is new, then it is not necessary to invest your money in exhibiting. You can also participate in the event as attendee or  a speaker. As a speaker, you can grab more attention towards your business/idea. The key is to make the best use of the event by keeping all the circumstances and your objectives under consideration.