Your Key to Success at Trade Fairs

Trade fairs are not only a part of big business, they are big business themselves. According to some estimates, they have doubled in number and size in recent years, and they continue to grow. One of the main reasons for this growth is the increasing internationalization of business and the search for new markets and partners.

While doing deals and signing contracts is an important part of trade fairs, their essential objective is communication – an exchange of information between buyers, sellers, industry analysts, journalists, and business people checking out the competition. No other form of marketing allows such an immediate interaction, letting firms demonstrate products directly rather than just show catalogues.

In this article, we help you prepare for your next trade fair, whether you are an exhibitor or an attendee. Before reading on, think about the following questions and compare your answers to those in the text.

• What are the reasons for going to trade fairs?
• What are the most important factors to consider when preparing for a trade fair?
• How do I best market myself and my product when manning the stand?
• What questions should I ask when visiting a stand?
• How can a knowledge of culture shape my sales techniques?
• What is the best way to follow up leads after the trade fair?

1. Prepare Well

The cost of attending or exhibiting at trade fairs can be high. To maximize the return on your investment of time, money and energy, you should have very clear ideas of why you want to attend and what you hope to achieve. Think about your objectives and find out about the trade-fair business in order to choose the right platform for your organization.

To find out whether a particular trade fair is right for you, ask the following questions:

• Who is the target audience?
• Will only trade professionals attend, or is it open to general public?
• Are the exhibitors locals seeking foreign buyers, or are they foreign companies selling to local markets?
• Do I want a horizontal exposition of products within a region or a vertical show focusing on a narrower range of products?
• Can I talk to someone who has attended this trade fair before?
• How many people will attend?
• How big is the floor space?
• Who are the major players?
• For how many years has the trade fair existed?
• Is this trade fair going to help my business?

Once you have made the decision to attend, the real planning process begins.

Step One: Decide Your Target

Whether you are buying or selling, set concrete and measurable targets for what you hope to achieve. How many new contacts do you aim to make? How many leads do you aim to turn into sales or purchases? How much useful information on competitors or markets do you wish to collect?

Step Two: To Exhibit Or Not?

To reach your targets, you need to decide whether to exhibit at the fair or simply to use it to network with others. Attending as an exhibitor is more expensive, but you can also network as long as you have enough staff. However, if your primary objective is simply to check out the competition and improve your knowledge of the industry or market, then networking alone may be sufficient.

Step Three: Concrete Planning

There are a number of different aspects to planning. Give yourself plenty of time to cover them all.

Logistics: You will need to book booth space, organize travel, accommodation, shipping of display items, translation of documentation and business cards. Also, don’t forget to check out Internet access, security and fire regulations. Make sure you know who is there to help at the fair and how much they will cost, especially interpreters and translators.

Pre-promotional strategy: Promotional work before the event should be aimed at attracting existing and new clients to your stand. Use a creative mix of personal invitations and appointments, fun gifts and targeted advertising using the trade fair’s own magazine or catalogue.

Networking: Group what and whom to see by priority, dividing them into “must see” and “would like to see”. You will not have enough time to do everything.

2. At The Trade Fair

The people manning your stand have the unenviable challenge of attracting the attention of visitors and persuading them to take the time to learn about your products and services. This requires excellent personal communication skills, an in-depth knowledge of your company and products, good foreign-language skills, and, above all, stamina – it takes a lot of energy to stay on your feet all day long.

Plan your booth display carefully in order to catch visitors’ attention in a couple of seconds – because that is all the time you will have. Position promotional literature and freebies towards the back of the stand, to encourage people to enter without making them feel pressured. If you want to do a complex multimedia presentation, use a hospitality suite that has better lighting and offers a more intimate atmosphere.

You Are The Most Important Exhibit

As an exhibitor, you not only man the display, you are the display. You represent the company and its values, and have to do everything to market yourself. Visitors will get their first impression of you within three to five seconds; potential customers will look closely at your attitude, body language and appearance. The following points are important to remember in your personal marketing:

Be Open. You need to communicate approachability. The message you should be giving (but not in words!) is “Talk to me!” and not “Leave me alone. I am tired”. A smile and open body language communicates friendliness and a warm personality. Unnatural smiles, folded arms or hands in pockets really turn people off.

Be Welcoming. Attendees want to feel welcomed into your booth space. Use appealing openers such as “We have a very interesting new product”. Eating your mid morning apple sends the wrong signals.

Be Professional. Can you command respect and build instant rapport? Be interested from the first contact.

Be Presentable. Appearance counts, including your clothing, make-up, haircut, perfume or aftershave. How you present yourself expresses who you are, how you feel about yourself, and what you want others to know about you.

Some Don’ts For Stand Staff

Don’t be pushy. Allow first-time visitors a little time to look around before approaching them.

Don’t use conversation killers such as “Can I help you?”

Don’t jump into your pre-prepared speech. Instead, respond to visitors’ needs and motives.

Don’t wait to complete visitor records. Make sure you have correct information by writing everything down immediately.

3. Selling Internationally

Attending international trade fairs with the aim of breaking into new markets requires sensitivity to the cultural factors that can play a role in business. This means thinking carefully about the kind of products your company should sell at international trade fairs. It means being ready to adapt the way you sell products to fit the specific context.

Which products to sell?

Before exhibiting at a trade fair, you must decide which of your products or services you wish to promote. Keep in mind that products that are successful in one national market will not necessarily be successful in another. You will have to study the buying habits of your target market.

How To Sell?

Once you have decided what you would like to promote, the next question is how to do it. You need to highlight the features of your product or service that will be most attractive to prospective customers. Whether you use a hard or soft sell approach requires sensitivity to the culture within which your firm is operating. Choose a person-oriented or a product-oriented pitch, depending on the importance of personal relationships in the target business culture.

Verbal Communication

Important decisions have to be taken regarding the language of your promotional literature. Is providing a translation simply courtesy towards the customer, or is it essential? Does your presentation select simplicity over complexity, directness over indirectness, humour and irony over plain speaking? Cultures give different values to each other of these elements, and you should be aware of such tendencies and expectations, without placing too much importance on stereotypes.

4. Visiting Fairs As A Buyers

As a buyer, you should quickly inspect the entire relevant trade-fair area when you first arrive. Then return to the booths of the companies you have targeted. If time permits, go back to other displays you noticed during your first look around. Know what information you want from different exhibitors. Prepare your most important questions and write the answers on a form, that allows you to compare products and services easily.

5. Follow-Up Is Essential

Follow-up after the trade fair – whether sending literature or developing further contacts by e-mail and telephone with people you met – is essential. Your company’s ability to follow up effectively will determine the success of your attendance at the fair. Be clear about who will do the follow-up, how it will be done, and how soon after the event. Potential business is often lost because of a lack of immediate follow-up.

Reply Quickly To Customers

Visitors to your stand should be sent a letter of thanks, any information they requested and, importantly, an invitation for further discussions or meetings. Quick follow-up is part of your promotion package and highlights your company’s efficiency and reliability. Think promotion, promotion and promotion again!

By completing visitor records at the trade fair, you make follow-up work a lot easier and can provide your company with relevant and personalized information about potential customers. Announcements of any new products, events or developments should also be sent to existing or potential customers who did not attend the fair.

Write A Post-Fair Report

After the fair, write a short report to answer the following questions:

• What unforeseen problems did you experience?
• Were there exhibits that caught your eye?
• Did you learn something that might cause you to change something about your product offering?
• Did you learn something new about a competitor?
• How do you compare with the competition?
• Did you meet your objectives? Why or Why not?
• What would you do differently next time?
• Should you go to this event again?