Getting the most out of trade shows and expos

Copy Express is proud to have been part of the 2014 Business Expo held by the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce. It was good to meet up with the other business out there and catch up with them. I made a few new business connections and renewed some old ones. I’ve also never have talked so much in my life, 8+ hours almost non-stop; boy did my jaw ache at the end of it! Despite my constant jibber-jabber I was still able to get a little time out of the booth to have a look at what everyone else did. I noticed some common trends and a few big mistakes so I thought it would be a great time to talk about what you need to think about when you are setting up yours.

Don’t rely on technology to do your selling

While doing the walk around I spotted a couple of booths where the computer systems running their screens had crashed leaving the people stuck.  Without their videos they had nothing to promote their businesses apart from some very generic signage. With nothing big to capture people’s attention, they were passed over for booths that did have shows running. While we had a rolling slideshow on our screen, we also had the keynote slides replicated on a 900mm x 2000mm banners we stuck on the booth walls so that it gave us the ‘big wow’ to help with getting people to stop and talk to us.

Make your material reusable but also unique

There’s a trade off when it comes to getting printed items for a show. You one hand you want to use standard content because you already have it and it works outside the event so there’s no waste. On the other hand you want to have items that relate directly to the theme of the expo (if there is one) so that way it has more direct relationship and impact with the visitors, the cost is that left overs have to be written off after the event. We went the smart route by supplying visitors our branded presentation folder, printed in house, containing a selection of items that are our standard marketing material but also adding a small flyer specifically for the event that was cheap to print so giving us the best of both worlds.

Minimise the ‘give aways’ on hand

Everyone had stuff to give away at the expo, from candy, pens & pads, to desk toys and stress balls. The problem is that often they just gave them to people for talking to them. I also know that there were visitors who stole the giveaways from the booth while the exhibitors were talking to actual prospects. While it’s nice to be able to do that, it’s not cheap and I suspect that unless you offer a very high priced service, the amount of free stuff give may cancel out what you get in sales. The smart exhibitors had some sort of competition that made the visitors give their details to win the free stuff. We did it as well, we gave away free business card printing and/or reports for the cost of some contact details filled on an information pad.

Have plenty of business cards on hand

People like the personal touch. Visitors like to know that the exhibitor that you chatted with at an event is a person you can call up at a later date to do business with. Business cards are cheap to print, especially through us, and are easy given to people even when you can’t give them your expo pack. There were several people visiting the Expo who didn’t have enough business cards – missing a golden opportunity.

Hit up the other Exhibitors

Really do this. Trade shows and Expos are as much about businesses meeting businesses as talking to random visitors. By getting out there not only can you find out what your competition is doing, but meet new businesses who you can do business with. Having a pack that you can give them about your business is a great way of selling yourself while getting information about them. It’s also a useful tool in finding out how your business is perceived in the marketplace. We tried to walk around with our information packs and talk to everyone who was there and got a lot of great feedback that will help us shape our future marketing.

Everyone does sweets

Seriously, every booth in the expo had bowls of sweets. Do the round of a big expo and you will end up with a killer sugar rush (and extra few pounds on the waist!) There were only two businesses that didn’t do that so consequently people noticed the difference.  One company gave away boxes of fresh popped popcorn with their name stuck on them and Copy Express where we had free water. In a event where every bit of food and drink costs visitors both money and time to get, giving away something more substantial than sweets made us stand out. All it cost us was the effort of lugging our water cooler there and a few packs of cups, and in return we got the chance to talk to several people who wouldn’t have stopped at our booth otherwise.

Follow up after the event quickly

After you have grabbed all the business cards and visitor details you have a limited time window to make the ‘sale’ to a visitor after an event. Soon people will get distracted by the day to day matters of running their business so you need to follow up while the good impression you have made is fresh in their mind. It’s important to plan time after the event to process the information you have collected and to follow up it up. With our giveaway of free business cards, we have a double whammy of both following up with the client to get their design for print, and after that the delivery of the cards where we will deliver them in person and a chance to talk about what we can do for their business on site with them.

This has been just some of my thoughts on maximising the returns on doing a trade show or expo. If you are getting ready for a big event, why not call us Copy Express to help you plan for it to get the most out of it.