Top 5 Tips to Crushing It at a Trade Show

Trade shows and expos are a long standing institution for any business that has a product or service to promote...so like all of the businesses. Whether it's B2C or B2B, trade shows can provide a huge opportunity for finding new customers and increasing sales...if you're doing it right. For me at Brilliant Bridal, B2C trade shows have been the backbone of our marketing strategy from day one. When we're looking to open a store in a new city, one of the first things we research is the quality of the bridal show in the area. And yes, while the live show landscape is shifting and changing, these events still provide the biggest ROI for our advertising dollar. If you've been thinking about dipping your toe into the trade show world, I hope these 5 tips are the encouragement you need to dive in head first

1. Know your numbers

The biggest complaint I hear from business owners is that trade shows just “aren’t worth it”. When I ask if they have run their numbers so they know how much “worth it” is, the answer is usually no. Ladies, to quote that great band Boston, you’re going to need “more than a feeling” to know if your trade show was worth it! The metric for success we use at Brilliant Bridal is the number of appointments booked. Based on our average sale number, appointment no show rate (which is higher for trade show appointments!) and our average closure rate we can project how many appointments we need to book at a trade show within a slim margin of error to 1. Break even and 2. Crush it. When you’re looking at your numbers make sure you include every. single. little. expense. you will incur during your show not just your booth registration cost. Parking, staff parking, rental trucks, payroll hours, marketing materials, food, etc. This point really is the foundation for all of the following tips.  How many people can you pay to man your booth? Depends on your numbers. How elaborate can you get with your booth decor? Depends on your numbers. How big of a discount or giveaway can you offer to customers? Depends on your numbers.

2. Don't over complicate things

For years we showed up at bridal shows with a half dozen pretty dresses, a couple of tables, a few people, a bowl of candy and some fliers and we’d have so many people waiting in our booth to book an appointment that we’d get in trouble for blocking the aisles. Over the years we’ve slowly added aesthetic elements to our booth design but when you are first starting out and testing the waters of a trade show, don’t invest your money in elaborate booth designs. If anything invest your money in being able to bring more people to talk to customers, or into a better discount or giveaway, or into a better location within your trade show. Give yourself a few “at bats” before going all in. Use an affordable service like Vistaprint for everything from business cards to pop up banners so customers can easily identify you but you’re not breaking the bank. (Use my link for an additional $20 off!)

3. Bring your best people

It's tempting to rely on family and friends or the “B Team” to man your booth. But you only have one chance to make a first impression! You absolutely want to do everything you can to bring your best people to a trade show. If you are an ecommerce based business this is usually pretty easy. If you are a brick and mortar store, this gets a little tricky. How do you keep a business running for the day while siphoning off the people who work there? If you absolutely can not do both, then by all means close your business for the day. As long as you give customers enough notice so they don’t show up expecting you to be there, it will be worth it in the long run. If you do have a little bit of stretch available in your staffing and some family and friends willing to fill in, you can have one solid staff person be the shift manager for the day with family and friends filling in supporting roles. Get creative with how you can make this happen, but in my experience it is always worth it to make sure your best people are representing your business to prospective customers.

4. Offer your biggest discount or giveaway

Go big or go home. Trade show attendees come looking for deals. Especially on the consumer side. Once you have your numbers figured out, determine what the biggest discount or giveaway is that you can offer people who make a purchase or schedule an appointment at your booth. And once you have your offer figured out, promote the heck out of it. You want to use this both to drive traffic to your booth and to close sales once they're there. In most of our markets we have 2 shows a year and we advertise our discount as “the biggest discount we offer” (true) and that we only offer it twice a year at the Bridal shows. (Also true).

5. Bring all the snacks

This is just real life people. Trade shows and expos are long and traffic patterns can be unpredictable. Just when you're thinking about a lunch break your booth is buzzing. Bring. All. The. Snacks. I know this sounds obvious but I can't tell you how many trade shows I've survived on protein bars. How mad would you be if you knew you missed a potential customer to eat dry convention center chicken strips. So mad. Let's take a small rabbit trail to talk about hydration. It's so important for you to be operating at your peak and hydration is a vital component to being at your best. But again, you don't want to be leaving the booth for frequent bathroom breaks. I like to drink the bulk of my daily water intake in the morning stopping about one hour before show time. I keep a bottle on hand in the booth but ration it throughout the day. This way I’ve given my body what it needs to do what I’m asking of it while not missing any of the action