Trade Show ROI for Manufacturers

Updated February 23, 2020. Original post published on Nov 26, 2012

Are Trade Shows Still Worth It for Manufacturers?

While the original article, with updated links, appears below, Industrial Maintenance & Plant Operations (IMPO) published a similar article, “Are Trade Shows Still Worth It for Manufacturers?“, at the end of 2019 and it is definitely worth reading!

Like the older article, it touches on the importance of preparing for a trade show ahead of time in order to maximize your opportunities while at the show. But it also brings a few important new points.

1. Go Where Your Clients Are… This is an excellent point. There are numerous, somewhat generic annual industrial trade shows like Design 2 Part shows across the country and the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago every year. While both are excellent shows offering incredible chances to meet new, potential customers, they are also both full of more of your competitors than you can count. The point the newer article makes is that if you can find a trade show that has fewer of your competitors and more of your niche target customers, you might be better off.  So look for trade shows that are about your customers and specifically for your customers. Those might be the best trade shows for you to target. At Baer Web Design, we think that is a great idea!
2. Meet with Potential Customers Every Moment Available… This goes back to some points from the original article. Specifically, if you want to be successful and have good ROI on your trade show investment, then you need to do a lot of pre-show preparation, starting long before the show so that you can maximize every moment there. Even before you arrive, you should have meetings, lunches, breakfasts, dinners, etc. setup with your existing and potential customers. And that takes a lot of preparation. To quote the new article, “Where else can you meet with so many key people like that over the course of 3 days?…. To spend that money on flying our salespeople all over the world to have these meetings would cost more than the actual trade show…”
3. Send the Right People… In 20+ years of sales and marketing, I’ve seen this happen many, many times. Marketing staff are not sales people and sending them to a trade show to cover your booth might not be the best use of their time and your ROI. I have worked in both sales and marketing roles, and I know from working both sides of that equation that marketers are usually uncomfortable probing, subtly directing a conversation through smart questions, and in using anything a potential customer says, against them to try to close a sale, or at least to further the sales process along. I’ve always joked that anything somebody says to me can and will be used against them in the sales process. Marketing personnel are just not  like that. Marketing is about tracking and using data for promotional effectiveness. It is about creativity and the art of making you pause to look or read something. Sales, however, is about making a personal connection, listening, learning and persuading, and closing. The two roles are very different. Your folks going to a trade show on your company’s behalf should be those who can sell. You may not close sales at a show, but it’s definitely part of a sales process. So send the right people!

Please read on to see the points made in the earlier article!

ORIGINAL ARTICLE (published on Nov 26, 2012 – links updated Feb 23, 2020)

Make The Most Of Trade Shows

from Industrial Maintenance & Plant Operations
(NOTE: Link updated on February 23, 2020 to the archived version of the original article because the original version is no longer available on IMPOmag.com)*

A successful trade show means more than just showing up in your booth, talking to a bunch of people, collecting business cards and then emailing everyone afterward. As this article shows, you can maximize your ROI and sales opportunities by carefully planning an executing a pre-show strategy, an at-show strategy, and a post-show strategy.

Pre-show activities:

• contacting prospects ahead of time
• media outreach
• booth planning
• social media announcements of your booth # and show dates
• email your contacts with your booth # and show dates

At-show activities:

• incentives & give-aways
• new product promotions
• eye-catching spectacle – video, LED message board
• check out your competition
• speaking opportunities – presentations, panels, etc.
• record video clips for later use

Post-show activities:

• I use CloudContacts.com for fast transcription of business cards to spreadsheets & easy entry or import into a Client Relationship Management (CRM) system for easy and organized follow-up. Updated Links February 20, 2020: 10 Best Business Card Scanner Apps in 2020 or 6 Best Business Card Scanner Apps 2019
• call your hottest prospects
• email everyone
• add your new contacts to an email newsletter list
• friend / follow new contacts on social media and touch base via social media
• follow-up with any media contacts you made
• share pictures or video clips from the show
• call Baer Marketing to put together a video montage of your trade show using your images and video clips. We’ll help you post it on your website and via social media. (Links were updated February 20, 2020)

So check out this article, Make The Most Of The Trade Show, from Industrial Maintenance & Plant Operations, and make the most out of your trade show investment!

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Notes:

* Thank you to the Internet Archive Way Back Machine for helping preserve a digital archive of the World Wide Web, even when websites shut down or pages get taken down over time. They have archived over 400 billion web pages since 1996! More about the Wayback Machine