Promoting Yourself at Trade Shows

Last Friday, the Social Media Mentors officially launched into the ‘real world’ by exhibiting at the Richmond Business Expo a local trade show that gathers the best of Richmond’s businesses and professionals from the surrounding areas. Having attended last year as a visitor, when the opportunity opened up to take part as an Exhibitor to launch our business to the local area, we didn’t hesitate. Quite frankly, this was the best decision we could have made as the event was a great success and we made many fantastic connections with business owners in the local area.

Many people are very weary about attending trade shows: it can become costly, take up lots of time and on many occasions the return on investment is hard to measure. When you do, the results may tell you it was not worth it. The truth is that this is a very usual scenario: because booking a stand alone is not enough to guarantee to give you what you’re hoping to get out of it. After having a 100% successful experience – as individuals we had taken part in many trade shows for other companies – let us share our secrets and tips to make YOUR experience just as great, whether it’s at the Richmond Expo or any other trade show.

1) Pick the right event: It’s not enough to pick an event related to your trade and browse the brochure and go with your gut feeling. Ask yourself who is going? What are they going for? Are they the right people you want to connect with? Will your service or product meet their needs, demands and budgets?

2) Who else is exhibiting: make sure the event is not saturated with competitors. A little bit of competition is always good, but if everyone is offering the same service it may be difficult to stand out. If you really want to go to the event, make sure you highlight one particular service or product that is going to make you stand out from the rest.

3) Set your budgets according to your expectations: Rather than telling yourself you “need to make £XX.XX back” from the event, realistically try to estimate the worst case scenario. If I only make one sale / contract – how much can I spare. If you set your expectations up too high in terms of ROI you might be too focused on making sales rather than enjoying the day and focusing on interesting connections with other business owners. A sale is not the only positive outcome you can get from a trade show: finding business owners with common goals to share and embark upon a joint venture is equally as beneficial, if not more.

4) Have a strategy (give people a reason to come to you): Visitors will be meandering around looking for exciting things to catch their attention. Make sure you have a reason for people to come see you: giving a useful freebie and running a competition to win one of your products and services is always a great way to attract people to your stand.

5) Let people know you will be there: This is the biggest step that the majority of people miss. Unfortunately, it is the one step that will guarantee your stand will be buzzing on the day with people queuing up to speak to you – so if you miss it you may as well stay home! The key here is to make new connections and remind other business acquaintances that you will be there. The full checklist which everyone should be able to do in a few hours is:

• Send a newsletter to your network and let them know where you will be, how to get tickets, etc

• Post the event on facebook and invite your connections, or find the official event on facebook

• Send a personalized email to important contacts to invite them personally to meet you there so you can have a good conversation and revive old discussions

• Collaborate with the event organizers to help you with your marketing: they will want to help you! Make sure you make the most of the opportunities they offer

• TWEET!! This is SO important to make new connections. Make sure you find and connect with all the people you would like to come and see you at your stand. Find them, follow them and send them a message to ask if they will be attending and that you look forward to meeting them

• Connect on LinkedIn – send a personalized message to handpicked contacts

6) Focus on participation, not selling: people can smell sales sharks from miles off. If they feel you are ready to ‘pounce’ they will try the best to avoid you and move on to the next stand. Instead of focusing on the sales, try to focus on the people. Take a real interest in what they do, why they are there, and encourage them to take part in your stand’s activities. This way you are a lot more likely to get some great leads of people genuinely interested in what you do, and you will have laid the groundwork for after the event if they are interested in your products.

7) Collect contact information: make sure everyone you speak with leaves with your details and you have theirs. If you make it easy to enter a competition by simply submitting business cards this will guarantee to increase your chances of making good collaborations or sales after the event. Don’t just chuck the card in the bowl – take an active interest in what’s been handed to you and make sure each person feels valued. After all, they took the time to see you!

8) Make friends: instead of seeing all other exhibitors as competition, see them as potential Joint Venture partners, collaborators and new friends! Be helpful, be friendly and most of all make sure your stand is not intrusive or disruptive to your neighbours.

AFTER THE EVENT: Take the time to collect the information you have taken and connect with everyone you have had a conversation with. Thank them for coming to see you and don’t let those important conversations be forgotten.

We hope that this has been useful, please tweet to us at @UKbeSocial and connect with us on Facebook

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