14 keys to a successful trade show

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Three out of every four respondents to CMI’s B2B content marketing benchmark study for North America said in-person events are effective. In fact, face-to-face interaction, such as at trade shows, open houses, and demo days, was the highest–ranked approach on the list, beating out content marketing methods such as webinars, case studies, white papers, videos, research reports, eNewsletters, blogs, and infographics.

Trade shows Are Worth It

Trade shows are expensive and consume a lot of resources, making them risky endeavors. However, there is a return on investment. Trade shows are highly effective for B2B marketers, especially those selling high-dollar products. Shows deliver more benefits than just lead generation. They enable you to:

• Uncover customer needs and investigate new markets.
• Gather valuable competitive intelligence.
• Deliver a predictable number of leads, if you have exhibited at a show before.
• Train your sales team on new products and sales strategies.

Here are 14 ways to maximize your investment:

1. Attend the Right Shows.
   Before signing up as an exhibitor, test any new trade shows. Have your top sales and marketing people walk the show, study the attendee and exhibitor lists, evaluate the best floor locations and exhibitor booth sizes, note direct competitors attending, and evaluate their success. This information will help you decide whether to attend the following year.
2. Create the Right Booth.
   Two factors are most important when designing your booth: ambiance and message attractiveness. You have one second to catch a passerby’s attention. Your booth must be interesting and inviting, and needs to tell a story on its own, much like a museum display. Use sight, sound, and touch to attract and retain visitors. Provide thick padding so tired feet can get a break.
3. Prepare Your Messaging Carefully.With only one second to grab attention, create strong, simple messaging-- what you do and why attendees should care. Use the Barbell Message Creation Exercise™ to create the best message for the show. A trade show is the ultimate integrated marketing activity, so your booth messaging also should be delivered by booth staff, prominent on your website, included in your invitations, and part of your post-show follow-up.
4. Use Multimedia.
   Design your content for those prospects who respond to sight, sound, or touch. Manage the visuals well, as sight is the number one sense at a show. Video is a must,even for a small pop-up booth, as it provides movement, acts as a sales prop, gives an impression of credibility, acts as a conversation starter, and helps communicate your message. When attending a large trade show, create your video specifically for the show and make sure to align it with your trade show message.
   
   If your offering supports it, consider giving live presentations at large shows. Presenters on PAs create interest and excitement and increase awareness among bystanders who are not yet ready to become leads. Have staff available to pick off likely prospects from the presentation audience, answer specific questions, and qualify the potential customers. Use the presentation as a place to send your low quality leads to free up your sales staff.
   
   Finally, leave sample components and equipment out where it can be touched and, if possible, picked up.
5. Offer Branded Giveaways.
   A great way to extend the reach of your message is by offering a carefully branded trade show giveaway. Many giveaway options exist, but one in particular can be offered by any company—a high-quality plastic or canvas logo bag with a shoulder strap. The quality is important. If your bag is of high quality, you’ll find prospects will stuff the lower-quality bags into yours, leaving your brand message walking the hall for all to see.
6. Don’t Leave Literature Out for the Taking.
   Although you need literature on hand in the booth for sales people to use when selling, leaving it out and available to be grabbed at the show by a casual passerby is not recommended. Your goal is to make contact and collect information, so the passerby becomes a lead, not to have prospects walk away with your literature feeling they now have everything they need from you. If someone asks for literature, tell them you’d be happy to send it to them, so they don’t have to carry it around the show. Get their contact information and qualify them.
7. Use Scanners Wisely.
   Electronic badge scanners are recommended only if they are equipped with a printing function that allows you to print out the contact information and add notes. Simply obtaining the information is not enough; you need to qualify the lead as best you can on the show floor and collect conversation notes. Later, all information should be loaded into your customer relationship management (CRM) program for sales and marketing to use. Blindly scanning badges, without qualification and notes attached, slows effective follow-up and greatly reduces the value of the show.
8. Set Goals and Incentives.
   Your entire trade show team—all booth staff—needs to know the show goals and should be updated on each day’s progress. Providing incentives for leads generated or sales made is key. My personal favorite is to pay each staff member $3 or $4 for each lead they obtain, an effective way to keep momentum and energy. Does such an incentive risk the generation of too many low-quality leads? No. I have seen over and over that prospects who are willing to let you collect their contact information are just as likely to be hot opportunities as any other lead. If they are not interested, they won’t let you gather their information.
9. Work the Show Hard.
   A company culture of hard work at shows directly affects to your return on investment (ROI). Walk a trade show and you can easily see which companies are sincere and which are not.
   • Meet each day. A brief mandatory meeting with all staff creates positive energy. Review performance and behavior and lead goals.
   • Stay focused on selling. None of your booth staff may conduct personal work, read the show daily, eat, text, or chat on the phone in your booth. If any of these things cannot wait until after the show, then your staff must leave the booth. This includes the executives.
   • Have everyone collect leads.All people supporting your trade show booth (sales, marketing, technical, executives) need to be well-trained on how to stand, approach a prospect, qualify a potential customer in 60 seconds, collect a lead, and make your booth environment welcoming and efficient.
   • Break the ice. The first seconds of interaction are key. Your delightful, enthusiastic, and welcoming staff should have an icebreaker comment as well as a physical component or sample (not a piece of literature) to help them approach booth visitors or stop likely prospects in the aisle as they pass.
     
     An effective icebreaker comment is, “Are you familiar with ?” If they answer, “Yes,” then ask them how. If they answer, “No,” then ask them what they do at their place of work. Don’t ask them, “May I help you?” The common reply is, “No.”
   • Have top salespeople work high-quality opportunities. Your best salespeople should hand off low-quality leads to others. Non-salespeople should hand high-quality leads to top sales people.
   • Use the aisles. Extend your conversations into the aisle to slow traffic and make the booth appear to be a hot spot. You didn’t pay for the aisle space, but it’s still available for you to use.
   • Keep the booth busy. An empty booth can be intimidating for a passerby. When things slow down, maintain the staff/visitor balance by sending some of your people back to the hotel, scheduling voice-of-the-customer (VOC) interviews with your customers in the booth, and keeping low-quality leads longer than usual.
10. Qualify Prospects in 60 Seconds.
    When the aisles and your booth get busy, your team must run at peak efficiency. Train your staff to qualify prospects in 60 seconds. Lead qualification is too large a subject to cover comprehensively in this article. In general, qualify your visitors on the spot so you can send top prospects who are considering or are in the buying cycle to the appropriate salespeople.
    
    If you are lucky, you’ll get questions from the visitor sparked by your intriguing booth display. Answer no more than two or three questions,, insert some key credibility building statements, and then take control of the conversation briefly to qualify the prospect. Your time is valuable, so spend it on the right prospects. Be thorough in writing down any pertinent information about the conversation, so that the next interaction does not start from ground zero.
    
    Finally, give each prospect the right amount of attention. The efficiency of your booth depends on it.
11. Use Social Media at the Show.
    Tightly integrate a social media plan with your show. Post upcoming show schedules, talk about the booth message, post live video feeds of a walk through the booth, post video of customers who stop by and help promote their business, and put up blog posts about the show. Make it an exciting event for your followers.
12. Invite Loyal Customers—Your Best Sales Tool.
    A trade show is a great opportunity to thank your key customers, have them meet staff, learn more about their current needs, and take them to dinner. In addition, your loyal customers can be your best salespeople by having them to talk to buyers about their experience.
13. Invite Potential Customers to Your Booth.
    Your CRM is full of low-quality leads and high-quality opportunities. Invite all the low-quality leads to your booth. As for high-quality leads, a different strategy is in order. If a high-quality opportunity has indicated they are coming to the show, then monopolize their time as much as possible to reduce competitive involvement. If they are not planning on attending, then don’t encourage them. Instead, set up site visits to meet with these high-potential opportunities, either at their facility, a local customer facility, or your facility.
14. Follow Up!
    Effective follow-up is the key to trade show success. Many of your competitors will be lethargic in their follow-up, and a third of all leads won’t be followed up on at all (amazing but true). Follow up as fast as possible with relevant content and discussion.

Trade shows are expensive, but the ROI can be excellent and easier to predict than many other activities. Make the most of these costly investments.