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 Trade
Shows Effective Sales Forums
December 1, 2003
By Jerry Freisleben
Your salespeople
can phone clients and prospects across the country for a nickel
a minute, and back up their sales pitch with an elaborate presentation
on your website. In this era of ubiquitous technology, does it still
make sense to spend three days standing on tired feet in a trade
show exhibit booth?
Yes, it does. About 10,000 business-to-business trade expositions
will be held this year across America. That number has grown steadily
despite the advent of the Web, video conferencing and other technologies
that serve to replace face-to-face meetings.
Travel cutbacks
triggered by security concerns and by tight budgets have not noticeably
reduced the number of trade show visitors or exhibitors. Shows have
become more focused, with huge, glitzy mega-shows supplanted by
down-to-business regional events. Booths are more likely to be staffed
by knowledgeable company employees rather than lovely but uninformed
models. In other words, the trade show has moved closer to its roots
as an effective way for business people to buy and sell.
Why the continuing popularity of trade shows? Because exhibitions
and conferences work. Closing a sale after a trade show costs an
average of $625 and takes 1.3 follow-up calls, compared to more
than $1,100 and 3.7 phone calls to make a sale through other channels.
It's not unusual for a small company to book a month's worth of
sales in two or three days at a show booth.
BusinessWeek
magazine says the trade show "…has become a must-seize
marketing opportunity. It's a time to meet prospective customers,
get valuable feedback on your product or service, and close sales."
At a booth,
you see the look on prospects' faces when they pick up your new
product. You can learn in a quick conversation about a simple change
that will get you the order. Meeting prospects or customers in person
creates all-important relationships that you can sustain afterward
by phone and e-mail. And shows are probably the most effective way
to get almost any new product to market quickly.
There's another advantage: only at a trade show can you see the
latest offerings and marketing strategies of a dozen or more of
your key competitors in half an hour.
True, trade shows can be expensive, in dollars and staff time. The
typical cost is about $10,000. Several key people will be tied up
for most of a week, plus the time needed for preparation and post-show
follow-up.
To make sure
that investment of time and money pays off, select the right shows.
Ask your customers and prospects which events they attend. Quiz
show organizers about the number of attendees at last year's event,
their company affiliations and job titles. Find out how the show
will be promoted, and to whom. Talk to companies that have exhibited
at the show.
Set objectives
that are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and
Time-related. How many customers and prospects do you want to meet?
How many sales should result? An example: your average customer
spends $10,000 a year with your company; a show that produces 50
qualified leads that turn into 25 new customers will generate $250,000
in annual revenue. Your numbers will be different, of course, but
the goal is to measure the payback on your investment of time and
money in exhibiting.
Here are some
basic steps to help maximize your return:
- Send pre-show
letters or invitations to customers and prospects, and include
your booth number. This enables them to include you when they
plan which exhibits they intend to visit (as about 75 percent
of attendees do). Coupons for "show specials" or premiums
can encourage them to visit your booth.
- Announce
the new products you plan to display at the show a week or so
before the event, so your news won't be drowned out by other company
announcements. Then prepare press kits, with new product releases
and company information, for the trade and business journalists
who will attend the show, and put them in the show's media room.
- Bring enough
staff. A rule of thumb is that one out of eight visitors is interested
enough in your product or service to stop by your booth. If a
trade show has 20,000 attendees over three six-hour days, that's
about 2,500 visitors to your booth, or 140 each hour. To spend
three minutes per visitor, you'll need six or seven people working
the booth.
- Rehearse
your booth staff. A trade show is very different from a sales
call. You have five to 15 seconds to engage a visitor. Then you
need to qualify them, answer their questions, capture their contact
information, arrange for a later follow-up and gracefully end
the conversation, all in a few minutes. You want to move on to
the next visitor, and your visitor wants to go on to another booth.
- Train your
people to ask visitors about problems they need solved. Asking
closed-end questions like "Can I help you?" is a mistake,
since the easy answer is, "No thanks, I'm just looking."
Have your show staff memorize a short sales pitch that focuses
on customer benefits and new features. Remind them not to "clump
up" and talk among themselves; visitors won't interrupt,
and will move on to another booth.
- Control your
edifice complex. You can buy or rent a booth that looks good without
costing a fortune. Use big, eye-level graphics that promote key
benefits, not features - "Four Times the Throughput At Half
the Cost" is a lot better than "Multiplexed VOIP."
Keep literature at the back of the booth, and hand it only to
interested prospects as they leave, so they are not distracted
while they should be talking to you.
Beyond The
Booth
A trade show
offers opportunities for you to create relationships and leverage
the money you're already spending on your booth:
- Ask conference
organizers if you can give a speech or serve on a panel. Organizers
start looking for speakers a year in advance, so contact them
early.
- Host a hospitality
suite and let your prospects and clients know about it prior to
the show. This is a great way to spend a little extra time with
key clients and prospects.
- Issue your
new product release a week or two prior to the show. A pre-show
announcement is less likely to get lost in the "noise"
of show news, and can increase the traffic to see your new products
on display.
- Ask show
organizers for the list of journalists who attended last year's
show and who have pre-registered for the upcoming event. Make
sure the media get your press materials and invite them to your
booth or hospitality suite. Book interviews in advance for specific
times if possible, so journalists put you on their schedules.
They are more likely to keep an appointment than to "just
drop by."
The most profitable
work starts when the show ends. Follow up on the leads you've collected
as quickly as possible. To beat your competitors, e-mail a quick
"thanks for visiting our booth" message from your hotel
room each evening. Prepare information kits before the show, and
mail them out, with cover letters, as soon as you are back in the
office. Stay in touch with prospects over the following months.
Trade shows are hard work, but for smaller companies they can be
a fast track to growth, market share and profitability.
Gerald S.
Freisleben is president of Foley/Freisleben LLC, a Los Angeles-based
investor relations, marketing and public relations firm that specializes
in business-to-business and technology companies, from start-ups
to Fortune 100 corporations.
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