It’s normal to be nervous about visiting your first trade show. However, being nervous doesn’t mean you’re excused when it comes to making mistakes! There are numerous mistakes you can potentially make at a trade show, and while these mistakes can serve to be a great learning curve, it’ll be more beneficial to your company and your cause if you avoid them altogether. Below, we’ll outline some of the biggest mistakes you can make at your first trade show, and how you can avoid them. Read on to find out more and prepare yourself!
Picking The Wrong Show
The biggest mistake you can potentially make is picking the wrong show. You need to make sure you’re putting yourself in front of the right audience, and that means attending the right show in the first place. Make sure you know where you’ll find your audience and that you choose the show with this in mind. Going to the wrong show is a complete waste of money and time.
Not Preparing For The Show In Advance
Preparing for the show in advance is key to making sure you make an impact. As well as inviting potential customers to the show, you can spend some time letting people know you’re going to be there. You might also consider asking for their opinion on what you can give away at the show! This will give you a better idea of what your audience wants, and perhaps even give them more of an incentive to attend.
Failure To Train Booth Staff
Your booth staff is extremely important. Even if they work for you, don’t expect them to automatically know how to handle a show. Make sure you brief them on key talking points. You might also want to provide them with scripts to keep the conversation going, as this can really help in any lulls during the conversation and give them more confidence.
They are on the front line, so they must understand what your goals are and how they can help you to move closer to them. Make sure you spend some time with them beforehand so everybody is up to speed and on the same page.
Failure To Set Clear Marketing Goals
Having clear goals is the only way you can truly know if your trade show has been a success.
Make your goals specific and measurable, for example, getting X amount of new email subscribers. If you don’t set clear marketing goals, then you won’t have anything to aim for, and you won’t have anything to measure afterward.
Failure To Keep Your Content and Offerings
Many people visit the same trade shows, again and again, so using the same graphics every year might be cost effective but it also might be a big mistake. Working with a company like Team One Exhibits can help you to ensure that you look the part and you’re not simply regurgitating the same things over and over.
Not Having A Plan To Collect Leads
Having a plan will help you to reach your goals, whether your goal is to gain more customers, more qualified leads, or more of a social following. You want measurable targets so that you can be as effective as possible. Make sure you have a plan in place to collect them beforehand and you’ll avoid looking like you don’t know what you’re doing on the day.
Waiting For People To Come To You
Why sit quietly in your booth when you could be out there garnering attention? Never wait for people to come to you! Make sure you’re stood up, smiling, and prepared to speak to those who show an interest. Don’t accost them though – we’ll talk about this later.
Failure To Follow Up the Leads You’ve Actually Generated
You want to turn people that you’ve met into customers or clients. If you don’t follow up the leads that you have generated, they may go to waste and you won’t get a good ROI on your investment. Have a plan for the follow-up. Life shouldn’t just go back to normal after your show.
Not Creating A Buzz On Social Media
You can bet your competition is on social media, spreading the word that they are going to be there and inviting people to come and see them. If you don’t create your own buzz on social media, you could be missing a big opportunity! Using social media is obviously beneficial for other things too, such as building relationships and trust.
Ambushing Attendees
Ambushing attendees in a desperate bid to speak to somebody is a no-no. You shouldn’t be pushy and go in for the hard sell. Although you don’t want to sit quietly, you also don’t want to force people into a conversation if they clearly don’t want to talk. 59% of visitors actually want interactive demos, so if you can create one of those to talk about your business and/or a product that you offer, that’s even better! Create a reason for them to come to you, rather than having to jump on them.
Measuring The Wrong Thing
Many people that attend trade shows measure their lead counts from the show, which can be a good metric for that same show year to year. However, lead counts and many other metrics such as meetings and sales don’t capture the metric that is most important; your ROI. ROI is the ratio of the show’s sales divided by the show’s costs, so pay attention to this metric most of all and you will have a good idea of whether the show has been a success or not. A show that gave you a ton of leads may not have given you a great ROI. With your ROI metric, you can compare your trade show program to other company marketing investments more accurately and know whether it is worth continuing.
Be sure to avoid these mistakes at your first trade show and your experience will be 100x better!
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