Wow, it’s the weekend again. Time passes by so much more quicker when you are busy.
This week has been slower, I think mainly because JP, my director, was sick for a day and then had to attend 2-3 hours meeting every day since then which leaves him no time to reply to emails. I foresee more last minute stuff to come in next week.
Instead of having a “what I’ve learned” this week lets focus on trade shows. Most of my experience in this area is from my last position. RS had taught me a lot and I also had the opportunity to attend a trade show training by The Portables. At the training, I found out that you should:
- Qualify each attendee in the first 30 seconds to 1 minute - At a busy convention there’ll be lots of people dropping by your booth, but that doesn’t mean all of them are interested at your product/service. To qualify whether or not the visitor is worth spending time on [ie. promote to], find out what their needs are. If they are not really interested, you know it’s time to move on to the next. There is no point in talking to everyone about your product/service if it doesn’t not offer them a solution to their problem. Exhibiting at a trade show cost a lot of resources so make sure you utilize every minute of the time spend during the exhibition hours.
- Beware of the freebie collectors - Some people never get any of the free samples, brochures or promotional materials at trade shows because it might be a hassle to carry around, while others will take what they need so when they leave, it’ll remind them to check up on items that interested them. Then finally, there are those “collectors” who take everything for the sake of having them. They are almost like the trophies of attending the exhibition. Promotional materials aren’t cheap. Some companies like to give out free pens or memo pads, while my current company has this big portfolio promotional package which isn’t very cost effective to handout at trade shows. Here’s why: each portfolio folder cost $1.00, the printed materials is roughly $4-5 [4-colour printed double-sided on glossy stock] and the CD lets say $1.00. This means the total value of the package is roughly $7. If you give out $7 per visitor at your booth and there’s no guarantee that the visitor will purchase your produce/service then you are basically throwing out $7/person. I think the best way is to not give out promotional materials like these [although I'm sure those pens with the corporate name and contact information are like $0.10 each so by all means hand them out] and save them for prospects whom you feel are the ones who will most likely contact you back after the trade show. Think ROI [return of investment] before handing out the promotional items.
- Collect leads and follow up promptly - I find it a shocking surprise that my current company does not have any form of collecting or plan on collecting leads at trade shows. Why do we want leads? Well, attending the conference and having an awareness out in the field is important but what we ultimately want to do is sell stuff. With so many people popping by your booth, you can’t possibly remember them all and of course it’d be the same for them. A good way to follow up on the prospective client as well as to continue the sales process is to have lead forms or use lead capture service [like PDAs or business card scanners] so you can have a list of contact information of your potential customers. Leads should be followed up by the sales team 48 hours after the trade shows ended so that your company is still fresh in the clients’ minds. They might not make a purchase immediately but it is good to facilitate communications with the prospects. You might never know, a few months down the road they might need your produce/services.
Alright, I think I should stop there. The reason I posted this is because I was talking to our sales rep today and she said she wanted 400 of our promotional package for a trade show. My jaw dropped when I heard that because the first thing that came to mind was “what a waste!” Anyways, I believe that trade shows promotion is very different than normal day-to-day sales activities and not many people know that. Sure, if you’re going to meet with a client, you will want to give them some reading materials to take away. But that client should already be qualified. At a trade show, as I’ve mentioned, not everyone is a potential prospect so you don’t want to be throwing your money out into the sea [of people in this case].
