I’m used to working with medium to large sized companies who exhibit at B2B trade shows. Recently I’m producing a regional consumer health fair and our exhibitors are small business owners. Many have never exhibited before or have done tiny little table top shows. Most understand their business but do not understand marketing. They tend to make last minute decisions based on the amount of ‘extra’ money they have in their checking account. There’s no plan or understanding of target market reach and often time they make bad decisions.
Cheap is not the same as affordable. Cheap can be expensive. Let’s say you get a call from an ad sales person and they are offering you an ad in the local paper for $75. It’s an 1/8 page black and wide ad. On the surface it may sound great. Only $75 to run and ad…they’ll even design it for you. The paper has a distribution of 10,000 people. On the same day you get a phone call from a booth sales person and they are offering you an exhibit booth at a community event for $450. They are expecting 1000 attendees. On the surface they feel like one is a bargain and the other is a lot of money.
The ad costs $0.0075 per person. The exhibit booth costs $0.45 per person. What you have to ask yourself is who are those people? Let’s say I’m selling flower arrangements. How many of those 10,000 readers are in the market for a flower arrangement when they read the paper? Maybe 2000? How many of those will notice your ad when reading the paper? Maybe 200? Now your ad costs $0.37 per person.
Now let’s look at the exhibit. Now your exhibiting at a bridal show. How many of the 1000 brides coming to the show are in the market for flowers? Probably all of them. How many will see your booth. Let’s be conservative and say 750. Now that space costs $0.60 per person. The ad is still cheaper but is it cost effective?
An ad is passive. You are hoping people see it when they are in the market for your service or product. You have limited space to convey your message. What if you are advertising bridal bouquets and I’m looking for a potted plant to give as a hostess gift. Your ad may not speak to me and I may not notice it…or it will not register.
At the show you can actually have a conversation about your product or service targeting your pitch because you know what they are looking for. You have ‘room’ to talk about your service, wide selection, rush delivery, and whatever else you want people to know. Conversations you cannot have in an ad. You have time at a trade show or event to seal the deal and make yourself memorable. A trade show is also measurable. You can track the people you’ve talked to and follow up with a phone call. For those who may not be ready to buy now you can add them to your mailing list and ‘touch’ them on mother’s day, Easter, birthdays and other holidays.
Now, let’s take a closer look at those shows and events. They are not all created equal. What’s appropriate for one business may not be right for you. You want to ask a lot of questions of the event producer and be wary if they cannot answer them. Find out what the attendee demographic is and make sure it matches with that of your business. What are the exhibit hours? How are they marketing their event? Find out who has exhibited in the past and call them for references on their experience at the show. Fifty thousand attendees might sound good until you find out they were only there to pick up your free giveaways not to get information about your service or product. When you are talking to past exhibitors find out how easy it was to work with the show organizer. Some show organizers will bring you a crowd but make it difficult for you to showcase your product or service with too many restrictions.
If possible, it’s always best to attend an event before you exhibit. The show organizer is trying to sell booths. Nothing replaces first hand experience to know what really goes on at a show or event.
That said, once you are there and exhibiting the responsibility lies with you to do a good job. Sitting behind your table smiling at people as they walk by will not make for a successful show. That’s not the organizer’s fault if you don’t have a successful experience. You have to prepare for the show by having qualifying questions planned out and ways to get people’s attention. You want to ask open ended questions. Asking someone as they walk by if they are enjoying the day or even, “do you ever need a florist?” opens you up to a “no” answer as they keep moving past you. Try asking them, “How do you feel when you receive flowers unexpectedly?” Now you’ve started a conversation.
At our event we know small businesses struggle with this. Some small business owners are not sales people. They are not comfortable standing in a booth and greeting people as they pass by. We’ve created a questionaire scavenger hunt for all our attendees. Each exhibitor submits three questions they want attendees to ask them and we print three different versions of our question sheet to hand out with the exhibitor’s questions. Once the sheet is filled out attendees get to enter for a prize drawing…and take their answer sheet home. Next to the exhibitor’s question is their company name and contact info.
No worries for shy exhibitors now. They will have attendees running to their booth and asking them a question. For example, one of our exhibitors is a personal trainer. One of their questions is, “What are two benefits of in-home personal training?” The attendee asks that question and the trainer starts a conversation with “Convenience & accountability (you can’t change your mind last minute about going to the gym).”
You don’t have to have a show organizer who is doing this to have a successful show. Simple write out the three questions you want people to ask you and instead, at the show ask them as they walk past.
If you like what you read here be sure to sign up for our RSS feed at the top right of this page. If you’d like to me about how you can make exhibiting at a trade show or event cost effective, give us a call or drop us an e-mail or if Twitter’s your thing you can reach us at @tracibrowne.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I love the questionnaire scavenger hunt!
Agreed the cost of tradeshows is, on the surface, more expensive that ads. But I think we need to compare the cost of tradeshows with the cost of making personal sales calls. A single sales call can run into the hundreds of dollars (I’ve seen estimates of $300 or more per call) when you consider labor, vehicle costs, insurance, office, etc. In that case, a tradeshow booth, even for small exhibitors, is a bargain.
Successful sales and marketing is a collection of “touches” which would include ads, tradeshows, networking, print ads, social media, and more. Even small businesses need to consider a mix because it will make them more successful in the long run.
Another great article, Traci!
Thanks for the compliment Heidi…thanks also for pointing out how important it is to have a marketing/pr collection. That is why planning is so important…so when you have the money you know exactly where you need to put it.
Great, great post Traci! I appreciate the thought and effort that went in to accurately analyzing the value of a tradeshow lead. Especially when you consider how rich your target is at an event, it truly is an apples to oranges comparison to most traditional advertising.
Considering the ever changing industry of events, evolving habits of a consumer and continued variances in response to messaging, small biz with little to no brand recognition, has a hell of a task. It’s great to see that you, as an organizer, have understood the value that small companies have in the tradeshow world and are providing solutions for them. Kudos.
Thanks Eric…very kind of you…especially after by comments on Caribou and Starbucks!
I think those of us who’ve been in the trade show biz for so long tend to forget that it’s not second nature to small businesses. It’s the norm for them to have no one in the marketing role. They probably have sales people but alas sales is very different from marketing (but they should be done together).
There is very little quality information out there for these super small businesses…sounds like an e-book to me. I wrote a book a while back for companies who were new to exhibiting but still, it was more geared toward companies that had a marketing budget.
Traci,
I really appreciate these very useful tips. My experience with tradeshows has mostly been limited to the role of supplier. However I’ve recently been weighing the benefits of exhibiting. We are one of those small b2b companies with NO marketing budget. Looking around at my options, “passive” advertising just seems like a waste of money. We have tried it in the past with very poor results. Despite the high initial costs, exhibiting sounds like a better value, especially if one follows a clear strategy such as you refer to. I’m going download your book and I look forward to reading more on the subject on your wonderful blog!
I would have sent you the book…let me know if you did not download it yet!
Exhibiting is definitely a higher upfront expense (sometimes) but it really is worth it. The secret is in the staff. Also having a well thought out plan of attack. Don’t get sucked into all the glitter of a show. Most of the time you’ll do just fine in a 10 x 10 space if you have prepared your staff well and they come ready to sell.
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