trade show business strategy

An agile trade show strategy plan approaches each event as an opportunity to test the strength of your value proposition and the effectiveness of your offer to attract qualified prospects. In our post on A/B testing, we talked about the value of rotating between offers in a single day or throughout a show as a means of hypothesis testing. An agile trade show strategy plan allows for these type of quick and easy adjustments based on new knowledge about your buyer persona. We suspect at this point you’re wondering two things: How can I remain agile while ensuring a strong brand presence? Is it more expensive to be agile when it comes to booth displays? We spoke with Joe Bottone, President of CDS Displays on the topic of brand presence and cost of investing in booth displays to help us answer these questions. Remaining agile while ensuring a strong brand presence According to Joe, modularity is an important feature in any booth display. Modular booth displays can be repurposed and redesigned over their lifetime and are less expensive to update and fix because they can easily be broken down. (For more on the 5 types of booth display designs, here’s Joe take) The ability to redesign a booth display based on the scale and scope of each event should in no way impact brand presence. Thanks to the evolution of new materials like fabric and aluminum, it is now easier to effectively brand a portable, modular display. “Aluminum is strong, light-weight and lends itself to modularity. You can reuse and reconfigure it, put fabric around it, light it, even mount a tv and add shelving. It’s a material we highly recommend for exhibits,” says Joe. How often should an exhibitor change his or her display? Irrespective of the small adjustments one makes inside the booth depending on the show’s target audience, we asked Joe from a brand presence perspective, how often he recommends investing in a new display. According to Joe, when it comes to changing your booth display, there are two schools of thought. Recognizable: Maintaining the same booth display year after year keeps your brand easily recognizable. Especially for prospects that expressed interest in the past but never entered your sales funnel, maintaining the look and feel of the booth is a useful way to trigger their memory. Unoriginal: Maintaining the same booth display could send the message to trade show participants, particularly those who attend the same show year after year, that your brand is outdated and unoriginal—i.e. a  “not that booth again” feeling. Joe recommends changing your booth display after the second year if you are participating in the same events year after year. He feels that “anyone who is trying to use the same exhibit for the third year in a row is doing a disservice to themselves.” Is an agile trade show strategy plan more expensive when it comes to booth display? The simple answer is no. In fact, not only are portable or modular displays less expensive, the ability to rapid test your hypotheses in a flexible display can significantly increase your trade show ROI. Joe recalled his own experience using a portable display with two messages printed on either side. “On day one we were fishing for some very specific people and we just weren’t getting the response that we would have liked to get from that message. So we flipped the display on day two with a completely different message and got a great response with qualified prospects.” A MEET, we consistently emphasize the importance of a well-tested offer, particularly for companies entering foreign markets. An agile trade show strategy plan focuses on the power of testing to drive higher transaction rates. How you invest in your brand presence and booth display should support, not undermine, your efforts to remain agile. Feel free to check out our full interview with Joe Bottone, President of CDS Displays on the topic: Making a Kick-Ass Exhibit: Everything You Need to Know About Developing an Effective Booth. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps B2B growth companies and pavilion hosts effectively leverage at trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward. Contact Bill Kenney at MEET today for a free trade show participation assessment bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

With 50+ years of trade show and in-person event experience, we know salespeople play a critical role in your trade show strategy plan. Heck, we are salespeople! That is to say, we have a deep understanding of the skills necessary to move prospects through a sales and marketing funnel and nurture them to the point of conversion. That’s why we get concerned when capable salespeople are incorrectly utilized. In other words, given too many tasks that they can, though should not perform at a trade show or in-person event. MEET helps B2B growth companies effectively leverage trade shows and other events. In supporting clients with their trade show strategy plan, we focus on making booths more productive—a key predictor of ROI. Why? Because with nearly 100% of B2B marketing aimed at getting face-to-face with the target prospect, trade shows deliver the most efficient way to this objective. Today, trade shows are more relevant than ever, making how we execute our presence at them worth every minute of our attention. Setting up your sales team for success means placing them in roles that are best suited to their skill set and core responsibilities. So where do they belong at a trade show? The answer is not in your booth. 5 reasons why salespeople should never be in your booth Reason #1: Salespeople tend to have long conversations When you put someone who knows a lot about a product or service in front of a potential customer, they tend to flex that knowledge—resulting in (on average) a 15 minute-long conversation. At 15 minutes each, that’s a maximum of 32 conversations per day. Your trade show strategy plan should set that goal at several hundred conversations per day per booth staff, i.e. this ain’t going to cut it. (For more information on how a trade show consultation strategy can help to increase your transaction rate, check out this post.) Reason #2: Salespeople are focused on selling Seems like an obvious statement we know, but it’s an important reminder that salespeople sell because that’s how they are trained and how they’re used to being compensated. The booth, however, is not designed to generate sales; it’s designed for prospect identification. Converting prospects into customers is the job for salespeople after the work in the booth has been performed. Placing salespeople in the booth to identify prospects gives them a task that simply does not fit their DNA. Reasons #3, #4, and #5: There are much better roles for your salespeople at an event Meetings: One-on-one meetings are the most valuable way for salespeople to connect with customers, prospects, partners, and centers of influence identified as key stakeholders in your trade show strategy plan. Meetings can help move these relationships to the next level of your sales funnel. This is each salesperson’s highest leverage activity. Walk the show: send your salespeople out on the floor to identify and reconnect with these same individuals. This gives them the time to engage in longer, more meaningful conversations, gain a better sense of the competition, and improve their industry knowledge. Participate in content: You want your salespeople to be in every workshop that their prospects are in. You want them to learn the content and the language that resonates with their prospects. These spaces also provide additional opportunities for connection. (Check out advice from our own Trade Show Ninja Kelly Kenney on how to leverage workshops to connect with prospects.) There are a lot of fundamentals to putting together a highly effective trade show strategy plan. Setting your sales team up for success is not only important to your ROI, but it will also keep your best and brightest on board and ready for action. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps B2B growth companies and pavilion hosts effectively leverage at trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward. Contact Bill Kenney at MEET today for a free trade show participation assessment bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

We’re thrilled to share Part 2 of our discussion with Joe Bottone, President of CDS Displays on the topic: Making a Kick-Ass Exhibit: Everything You Need to Know About Developing an Effective Booth. Our conversation with Joe was live-streamed on November 20th as part of a series we’re offering at MEET: Coffee and Conversation. Join us periodically as we chat live with experts and veterans in trade show, event, and complementary industries to hear their wisdom on common challenges and simple solutions for success. You can check out Part 1 of our recap, or feel free to catch the full interview with a fresh cup of coffee. The Purpose of the Trade Show Display The first step to designing an effective trade show strategy plan is understanding the purpose of the booth. For Joe, the purpose of the booth exhibit is to introduce your brand to new potential customers and to host and welcome existing customers. How you attract those new potential customers is with the right messaging and the right offer. Ideally, those who are not your targets, somewhere around 99-95% of those attending the trade show, will walk right by your booth. Sometimes attracting your target customers requires direct messaging. According to Joe, “if you’re at a show and your target audience is facility managers, you want your messaging to be as direct as saying – Hey! Facility Managers!” When Joe does booth trainings prior to a show, he requires that staff not only know their target audience, but have a question on hand that will immediately qualify them. “You don’t need to try and ask them a bunch of questions and get to know them if they’re not your target audience. It’s like door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen. The first question they’re trained to ask is “do you live here.” Because if you don’t, you’re not the right person to talk to.” Transitioning to how Joe custom designs his trade show displays, we asked him to describe the process he goes through to understand his customers’ needs. Step 1: Understand Pain Points Joe starts by finding out if his potential customer is an experienced buyer, meaning they have a current supplier, or if this the first time they are purchasing display services. For those who are experienced, he wants to know their pain points—why are they talking to someone new. For first-time buyers, he focuses on budget, timing, and what led to their decision to invest in these services. “You don’t want to overwhelm their budget or underwhelm their case. We can work with any budget. The question is what are they looking to achieve.” Step 2: Select the Right Show Joe digs right into show selection as a fundamental starting place for his trade show consultation strategy. “Because we have so many years in this industry, we really like to help customers avoid pitfalls early on. For example, we don’t want to see them investing time and money in a show that isn’t a fit for them.” “We try to get to know their business and customer scope and make sure that they’re selecting shows that reflect the market they’re aiming to serve. From there, we aim to understand their larger expectations. Whether it’s brand exposure, new leads, or product introduction—we want to understand their goals.” See our post on 5 Common Challenges to Identifying Your Best Trade Show Selection Process for more on how to avoid common pitfalls. Step 3: Custom Design the Trade Show Display Now it’s time to decide how to design the booth. We asked Joe what types of questions has asks to determine a booth’s concept. Size and height regulations are obvious places to start. Joe also wants to know how the exhibitor plans to use the space including product displays, meeting rooms, and storage. Finally, how many people will be working in the booth. To some extent, the final trade show display will be a reflection of whether the exhibitor is selling B2C, B2B or B2G – Business to Government, and whether the exhibitor is selling products or services. “It all depends on what the customer wants to bring. Whether it’s airplanes (really!), large machinery or just a few screens displaying their product or service, that will determine the design concept of the booth.” For more on how to design an effective trade show display, check out Part 1 of our interview with Joe Bottone. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps B2B growth companies and pavilion hosts effectively leverage at trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward. Contact Bill Kenney at MEET today for a free trade show participation assessment bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

In late July, our team at MEET launched an exciting series: Coffee and Conversation, periodic live-stream interviews with experts and veterans in the trade show, event, and staffing industries. Our goal with these conversations is to share the wisdom that comes from work on the ground and to identify common challenges and simple solutions. On November 20th we spoke with Joe Bottone, President of CDS Displays on the topic: Making a Kick-Ass Exhibit: Everything You Need to Know About Developing an Effective Booth. Before a single conversation ever takes place, trade show displays are the first form of communication with a potential customer. This makes their effectiveness a critical determinant of ROI. We started our conversation with Joe by asking about his path to leading and growing CDS. Joe started his career with CDS as a graphic designer, then moved around the company and eventually bought it ten years ago. With services that include design and fabrication for new displays and complete event management services, CDS services top brands like Pepsi, P&G, and Subway. As an expert in the field of trade show displays and exhibits, we asked Joe to reflect on the greatest challenges he sees from a display perspective. Challenge #1: Poor Visual Branding The first challenge Joe identified is when exhibitors fail to properly brand their booth. “You know it’s a problem when you stand right in front of the booth and you’re not sure what the company name is.” Exhibitors tend to overcrowd their branding with product lines, sub-brand names, and licensed logos. As Joe says, “you shouldn’t have to ask, you should be able to see it down the aisle.” Challenge #2: Vague Communications Slightly different from challenge #1, Joe identified when exhibitors fail to provide a clear description of their product or service in their trade show displays. “Companies have a tendency to feature esoteric statements like “Delivering the highest quality on time” or “Serving the industry since 1902” and you’re just left thinking: Delivering what? Which industry?” With a small exception to shows that are narrowly focused, exhibitors need to make sure they are defining their industry and their product or service in their display messaging. Challenge #3: Poorly Trained Staff Joe identified poorly trained booth staff as the next key challenge, specifically when booth staff fail to leverage the positive response their booth display is receiving to engage in more conversations. “It’s very common to have more people waiting to speak with someone in the booth than booth staff who are able to serve them. I find it really frustrating when I’m standing in front of a booth that I want to engage with and all the staff members are engaged in other conversations and fail to recognize that I’m standing there.” Pro tip! If Joe is engaged with a prospect and sees someone waiting in the booth, he’ll introduce the person who is waiting to the person he is speaking with and incorporate them into the conversation. Servicing two people at once may help audience members build connections and lead to richer conversation. Challenge #4: Over-crowded Display We asked Joe about his thoughts on overcrowding in trade show displays—i.e. too many messages and too many booth giveaway distractions—and his feelings on the old billboard adage that no more than 7 words are needed to effectively reach your customer. Here’s what he had to say: “A lot is predicated on the size of the booth. If you have a suite of products that are speaking to different personas/audience members, you want to separate your messaging. Color coding is a good technique to separate them out.” In summarizing the greatest challenges to effective trade show displays, Joe says: “The graphics on your display should not do all your selling. You don’t want someone to look at your display, read it and decide that they already know everything about it.  What they should do is pique some interest.” Stay tuned for Part 2 of our interview with Joe Bottone, President at CDS Displays, to learn more about developing an effective trade show display. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps B2B growth companies and pavilion hosts effectively leverage at trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s trade show consultation strategies help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward. Contact Bill Kenney at MEET today for a free trade show participation assessment bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.

When devising a trade show strategy plan, there’s good reason to focus on your booth. After all, it’s your marketing home base, and your best opportunity to attract prospects with an offer that speaks directly to their needs and desires. But sometimes it’s important to venture off the island and explore everything else the trade show event has to offer. A well-designed trade show strategy plan leverages every available opportunity to connect with prospects in and outside the booth. For the best advice on how to take advantage of every ounce of a trade show event—including those trips to the restroom—we consulted with our very own Strategic Partnership and Trade Show Ninja, Kelly Kenney. When devising a trade show strategy plan for meeting prospects outside the booth, Kelly does her pre-event homework by reviewing all the content tracks that are being offered and identifying specific workshops she believes will attract her target prospect. “I look at them as much for the content as who is going to be in the audience. In my mind, it’s who’s going to be in the audience that’s much more important and it’s the content that drives who will attend.” Kelly does an evaluation and determines which workshops she believes her prospects will attend, where her competitors might be, and which of her partners are presenting. All this goes into her trade show strategy plan for the event. “If it’s a really good topic, I keep two or three questions in my pocket. Not because I’m dying to know the answer but because I’m dying to stand up and ask a great question that will a) get me seen b) get me the content I’m looking for, and c) be useful for a conversation later on.” Wherever she is at a workshop or content event, Kelly’s eyes are always on the crowd. She scans the room and makes special note of who is in attendance. In her experience, there’s huge value in being able to connect with someone later on by saying: “Hey, what did you think of that session?” The ability to connect over a shared experience has the power to immediately move a conversation away from icebreaker topics and right into building a meaningful connection. Kelly doesn’t limit herself to the audience; she looks at speakers, panelists, and moderators as well. For those of particular interest, she sends them a LinkedIn message before the show letting them know she’s interested in their topic, plans on attending their event, and requests a meeting to follow. Kelly also doesn’t limit her prospect search to workshops and she’s not afraid to admit that the restroom is sometimes the best place to have a really good conversation. “Because most events are male-dominated, it’s a chance for women to relax. You’d be amazed by the great conversations you can have in the restroom.” Outside of the restroom, Kelly looks to connect with anyone, anywhere whose wearing a badge. She calls it the lottery system of networking because these are not necessarily people she’s targeted as potential prospects. Rather, these conversations may ultimately be helpful in the future. “You don’t know who they know or what you’ll glean from these conversations but it’s always interesting to learn about their industry experience. It’s the random gifts that you receive from being alert and engaged at a show.” Click here for more advice from Kelly on the value of keeping open and staying focused on the trade show floor. We interviewed Kelly on October 23rd as part of a series we’re offering at MEET: Coffee and Conversation. Inform your trade show strategy plan with more expert advice from Kelly Kenney, Strategy Partnership and Trade Show Ninja by tuning into our full interview here. About MEET (meetroi.com) helps B2B growth companies and pavilion hosts effectively leverage at trade shows and in-person events. MEET’s processes help its clients ramp-up sales quickly and maintain a steady stream of high-quality prospects going forward. Contact Bill Kenney at MEET today for a free trade show participation assessment bill@meetroi.com or +1 (860) 573-4821.