Trade shows are your best-concentrated sales opportunity. A host of interested prospects and customers come to you. (The days of “trade show trips” are over. If they attend, they’re interested.) But instead of viewing trade shows as an opportunity to meet prospects face to face, some companies attend only to prevent competitors from saying they’re out of business. A trade show is no place to be defensive.

With fewer people attending trade shows today, you enjoy a greater concentration of serious buyers — a target-rich environment. Here are some ways to run smarter so you hit more of those targets at your next show.

Measure your ROI

40,000 attendees at FRAMMIS 2003! Sure, but how many real prospects can you talk to? Not 40,000, that’s for sure!

• Serious prospects spend about 15 minutes in a booth that has something of value.
• One person can qualify about 25 prospects in an eight-hour show day (minus breaks and lunch).
• Multiply 25 times the number of days (typically four) and the number of people in your booth (let’s use two) and you get 200 potential sales opportunities. (25×4x2=200)

Trade show surveys indicate about 10% of trade show prospects will be “hot” prospects — people who came to the show looking to fill a specific need, wanting information and expecting immediate follow-up.

Did you average 10 hot prospects per person in your last four-day trade show? (Whether you talked to 200 potentials or not.)

Get more hot prospects into your booth

Lots of prospects, but how do you get the “hot” ones to YOUR booth? The same way you sell your product once you’re face-to-face — lead with your strongest benefit.

• Booth header — concisely state your product’s #1 benefit. (Example: 33% more pieces per hour with the new hole puncher.) Do NOT lead with your logo.
• Highlight secondary benefits on large captions next to clear benefit photos.
• Your name and logo are placed in the booth, near the benefit photos, and large enough to connect the benefits with your company.

Your booth header should pull in prospects looking for the specific solution met by your product. Your benefits will stop them. Your name (95% of the time) won’t. Additionally, benefits get people familiar with your process to stop, even if they have no immediate need.

Isolate the hot prospects

You’re getting lots of people to visit your booth. How do you quickly isolate the hot prospects and make sure you get significant return on your valuable time? Go for the throat — immediately ask about THEIR needs.

• First contact — Watch for even casual interest in your booth’s benefit header. Then ask “Do you (insert your PROCESS) now?”
  Do NOT ask if they need your product. No one needs a product; they need a result.
• If they do — “What would improve your current process?”
  If they don’t — “Could better (insert your best process benefit here) improve your profit/productivity?”
• Next, meet the prospect’s stated specific needs with continued product benefits.
• Obviously, if the answer to the two questions is “no,” move on (politely).

Since you can qualify only around 25 prospects per day, each minute wasted on non-prospects costs you lost opportunity. Additionally, you’ll be doing that person a favor by not wasting his time.

Keep the hot prospects hot

Everyone returns to a full desk after a week-long trade show. The only way to properly handle the valuable contacts you paid for is to be ready BEFORE you go to the show.

Draft three letters: for hot prospects, delayed purchasers and those only “interested” in your product. Leave the first paragraph open and, on your return, personalize it (with notes you made in the booth).

• Hot prospects — Call them immediately. And “visit” each week — personally, by phone, by e-mail, by snail mail — until you are asked to present a proposal. DON’T mail a wad of literature. They’re ready to buy. Or at least you’ll keep them hot if this is a capital equipment purchase and the committee is very cautious.
• Delayed purchasers — Send a letter only after you’ve finished the hot prospects, but give them the chance to call you if you’ve misread their level of interest.
• Just “interested” — Send the literature and follow-up in six months, perhaps with one of the series mailings you sent to the hot prospects.

Making strong follow-up contact puts you ahead of 80% of the other exhibitors. (Attendees report they only get a follow-up in 20% of the cases.)

Get more real prospects to visit the show you’re in

Give real prospects a REASON to visit your booth. Just letting them know where you’ll be is hardly unique or compelling. Immediately ask about THEIR needs.

• Send an invitation a week or so before the start of the show. Give them a business reason to seek you out.
• Use NEWS — New products, new sales people, new literature, new pricing, whatever.
• Just make sure it’s not the same old stuff.
• If you have no news, offer them a reasonably valuable handout — something they’ll use at work, or even a toy if it’s intriguing. Then trade it for information on how/when/why they use your product.
• Avoid hiring “trade show decoration” to hand out the premium. They know nothing about your product and can’t evaluate the prospect. Your reps should offer the handout, after getting the prospect info.

Poor trade show attendance can be blamed on not giving your prospects a good reason to attend. Give them a reason and you’ll get a very nice return on your investment.

Need better results? Tracking trade show success is just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your specific sales communications goals, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you're really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm