How to be a successful trade show exhibitor: Planning

Most people are not familiar with the words trade show and often ask “what is a trade show?” Is it different from a conference or exhibition?  You bet it is.

A trade show is a B2B (business-to-business) oriented expo aimed at other businesses relevant to corporate or government audiences, rather than the general public or individual consumers. 

The main focus is to provide companies in specific industries the chance to showcase and demonstrate their latest products and services, study activities of rivals and examine recent market trends and opportunities. 

Read on to discover how to plan your trade show.

Set goals that are specific

A lot of planning well before your expo will be instrumental in executing your exhibit successfully. Firstly you need to appoint a show manager (be it yourself or another team member) and work out what goals you need to achieve. These goals may include:

• Generating sales leads

• Launching new products

• Demonstrating your product

• Making new appointments

• Testing a new idea

• Selling products directly from your stand

• Sampling your product

 Plan your exhibit to meet your show

How many staff will you need to man the stand? Will you require technical staff, building staff or extroverts with maximum smiling power? Tailor your exhibit specific to your audience – it should reflect what you hope to achieve. When planning don’t forget to include your whole sales team - it will help them feel part of the event and motivate them. 

• People make the stand
• It’s a well-known fact that people make the stand.  Train your staff so they have all the tools they need to:
• Understand your shows objectives
• Be thorough
• Work well with people

Set a budget

How much you want to spend depends on what you aim to achieve and its value to your business. When you’re calculating what your show might be worth, don’t forget to allow for future sales and brand awareness. Use a budget checklist to help you stay within your budget.

What are your objectives?

Always start your meeting by setting some objectives.  To help you to do this, it’s useful to ask yourself some important questions: 

• Why are you holding the event? 
• How does holding this event assist you in achieving your business plan? 

Set realistic objectives, knowing what you want to achieve will help you communicate better to your staff, focus your selling message and design your stand.  

Using a objectives checklist

Give a copy to your team and ask them to fill in the boxes. Once you’ve decided the key areas to focus on - you should end up with something like this: 

• Generate 80 sales leads
• Achieve: 10 one-on-one meetings with key accounts
• Identify: 10 new distributors

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Jo Kane

Events Gold Coast