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Trade Shows Pay Off
Flexible Portable Graphics
Measuring Your Trade Show Success
Employee Spotlight: Sarah Pherson
Rules of the Road: Portable Luggage Scale
Susan Friedmann: Tracking Your Leads
Keeping an accurate track of your leads allows you to measure sales directly attributable to your trade show participation. Enter all lead information gathered at shows into a contact management database. In addition to prospect’s basic information, track all the additional detailed information collected on the lead card and record the sales representative assigned the lead. Encourage salespeople to take proper notes at the show so that visitors’ interest is properly conveyed to the representative following up the lead. You want to avoid salespeople going through the same information given at the show when they meet with the prospect after the show.
When she isn't busy designing and producing exhibit graphics at D&M, Sarah Pherson exercises her creative spirit painting. Her canvases are old windows, rescued from country barns with rustic appeal still intact.
Sarah says painting allows her to "zone out from everything" and take a little time to relax. Inspired by nature, her subjects include beach scenes, sunsets and garden scenes. She gives most her pieces away as gifts, but she donated her most recent creation to her church's picnic auction.
A portable luggage scale could become one of the new travel essentials. With the cost of travel soaring, airlines are tightening their restrictions on both checked and carry-on luggage, and assessing hefty fines for overweight bags. This means all that literature and swag you cart back after each show could end up costing you.
These handy little devices are easy to use, just hook it onto your bag and lift by the handle, and are small enough to stow in a side compartment on your luggage. It could help you avoid extra fees and the embarrassing experience of having to open your bags at the counter to try to redistribute when you discover an item is over the limit.
From their beginnings with a single client, IMC Licensing has grown to be the nation’s leading licensing agency specializing in consumer product brands. Since their very first show in 1997 with a rental pop-up display and minimal detachable graphics, trade show marketing has played a vital role in their growth. The Licensing show is the annual opportunity for IMC to showcase its growing portfolio of well-established national brands to prospective manufacturer partners.
The 20’ x 40’ island exhibit is mostly enclosed, funneling all traffic past the front reception counter where visitors are greeted and qualified. Semi-private spaces with bistro tables, where meetings with current and prospective clients take place, are surrounded by images of featured licensed products like LifeSaver branded Popsicles, and Milk Bone branded dog leashes, bowls and beds.
The all-new design employs a minimalistic design approach with a clean, contemporary look and simple palette of white and navy. This blends nicely with the varied graphics of the client logo panels which are displayed in a grid pattern. Each logo is detachable, making it flexible and re-usable year after year. Utilizing a simple exhibit structure, and substituting lightweight fabric for heavy, rigid infill panels reduced the exhibit weight by 15% thereby defraying rising transportation and drayage costs.
Graphic flexibility was a priority in the design update for Logan Teleflex's 10' inline exhibit. Logan, a leading designer and producer of airport baggage handling systems and services, has clients worldwide. To keep their exhibit current, Logan needed the ability to easily showcase their latest projects.
Detachable graphics and the addition of a flat-screen monitor add dynamism to a standard photomural graphics approach. The photomural panels have general branding and a design that compliments Logan's collateral materials. The detachables feature a map of installation sites, a listing of product offerings and photos of their finest work. The unusual shape of these panels mimics the shape of Logan's logo, integrating them with the overall design.
Utilizing the new Instand monitor mounts from Nomadic Display, the flat-screen monitor adds another level of interest and eye-catching movement. It can be used to display a slideshow of their most recent projects, or a fully interactive presentation.
The first step to measuring the success of a particular trade show, or your entire trade show marketing program is to set clear, quantifiable goals that will have measurable results within a pre-determined timeframe prior to each show.
“Gather leads” or “Make Sales” are not ideal goal statements. Be as specific as possible such as “Gather 20 A leads ($100,000+ sales potential per year) and 100 B leads (<$100,000 sales potential per year).”
Some goals are to be accomplished before the end of the show like gathering X number of leads, or completing X number of product demonstrations, but some require a longer timeframe. Measuring sales that resulted from show participation may take up to a year depending on the sales cycle of your product.
Tracking these results will require diligence and consistency, but the data can be invaluable when it comes time for you to justify your trade show marketing expenditures, or ask for that budget bump you’ve been wanting.
- George Carlin (1937 - 2008) American comedian, actor, author