Importance of participation in Trade show

Trade Shows are an important and very powerful marketing medium for many companies.
Trade shows help level the playing field for smaller firms, since booth space is generally inexpensive, and even small companies can usually afford attractive displays. With creative marketing and booth design, small businesses can actually appear as substantial as much larger corporations.

Aside from the obvious PR need to be seen at notable exhibitions, companies also hope to conclude business deals. The basic objective however, is to gather high quality sales leads resulting from conversations with prospects who’ve stopped by for information and also to try and tie up with similar companies for partnerships as channel sales strategy. I have always felt that Trade shows also ties up with branding policy of the company. It is used for enhancing your image and improving visibility for the company. Another advantage of exhibiting in trade shows is that you are reaching out to your specific audience. It is especially very useful when you are launching your products and services.

The leads generated in a trade show needs to be contacted and qualified for the sales through a proper lead qualification and intelligence gathering process. It’s essential to ascertain that all those important trade show leads return a positive ROI. One has to keep in mind that it is not always that you can measure the ROI as it is not necessary that we categorize trade show participation as tangible.
One knows from experience though that the most sales conversions come from people who have spoken to the sales personnel. A conversion rate could be anything from 5 % to 30 % from my experience. It all also depends on what you’re selling and the value of the new customer to your company.

Trade shows are always a great place to network and look for potential partners and not just customers. You get to meet similar companies and try and work out synergies between yourselves. It is a good place to learn about your competitors and their offerings.
Some suggestions which I feel one might consider when next exhibiting at a show: Invite your best prospects to a pre-scheduled meeting at the booth. Remind prospects and clients that you’ll be exhibiting. Announce new/improved product launch etc.
At the booth make sure you quickly scan in prospect names into the computer and be sure to document any important information about their needs. Speed of follow up is critical because your prospects are visiting other competitor booths too. Follow up immediately next day, to qualify and confirm the sales potential. You can electronically upload these prospects for your sales team to start work on leads ASAP. A good practice for trade shows is keeping a box for collecting Business cards especially saying that you will send brochures and more information about the company. A lot of people in hurry and who need to go through the exhibition would appreciate and drop their business cards expecting you to reach out to them.

No matter how much you invest in a trade show exhibit, your booth workers will have the biggest impact on your success at the show. Although most employees want to do a good job, many have not been taught how to conduct these brief but important conversations with attendees and represent you company to its best advantage. So make sure your best sales persons are at the booth.

Here ends my thoughts on Advantages for participating n a trade show.
Vikram Sahay Mathur.