|
|
|
Best in Show
Properly conceived and executed, trade shows can be a powerful weapon in your company's sales arsenal
|
Business New Haven
2/18/2002
By: BNH
Mimi Houston
|
Say you own your own company and specialize in making fluorescent feather boas. You have a new product line coming out. You're excited about the new hot colors and want the world to see them. At least, the world you're interested in - or rather, the one interested in you.
What's the best way to market yourself? Certainly you'll need to update your Web site, ticklemepink.com, but is there a better way? Some folks who really know marketing say there is.
“A trade show is still the most cost-effective way to market,” asserts Susan Reuter, owner of Reuter Expositions Services in Branford, a firm that organizes and manages trade shows of every size worldwide.
“Every day there is a trade show,” she explains. “There are trade shows for every kind of industry - computers, pharmaceuticals, apparel - everything. Trade shows are not going away. While attendee management might be going down these last few years, the right buyers are still showing up.”
And, Reuter says, they're buying. These are lean times once again, and most companies are cutting back in all areas. Sending employees out to trade shows is most definitely one of those areas. But as Reuter explains, fewer representatives from a company doesn't necessarily mean less money being spent.
“Where a company might have once sent ten employees to a trade show, now they're only sending three,” she explains. “But these three are the ones who do the buying. And maybe the sale will be made even faster with only the key people going.
“I believe trade shows are still the No. 1 way to both maintain your client base and meet new customers. It's the best investment for any company to keep their corporate image, sell their products, and most importantly, introduce any new products,” Reuter continues.
Reuter says trade shows are also one of the most cost-effective ways for businesses to increase sales without increasing the size of a sales force.
“Nothing beats face-to-face,” Reuter emphasizes, when you are trying to launch a new product or just introduce your business. “Salespeople on the phone are usually just playing tag on people's voice mails. And nobody wants to be out there making cold calls. At a trade show you're seeing people all day long who are interested in your product.
“Many trade show successfully address vertical markets,” she continues, “a buyer who attends these events knows that all the products there are for his or her industry.”
Reuter points out that trade shows allow an opportunity to discuss important issues face-to-face. Information about product lines, pricing, delivery schedule - everything they need to know they can talk about directly with the source. No waiting for a salesperson to call. Trade shows offer immediate answers to buyers' specific needs.
Reuter says it's also a fine time to get your boa business some much-needed publicity, as there is often press coverage, both from local newspapers and from trade journals, which likely may also be exhibiting - perhaps right alongside you.
Pointing out a win-win industry, Reuter says trade shows are, for the moment, here to stay. And her business is booming as if in proof.
“Most of our trade shows are held every year,” she explains. “Some are held twice a year: once on the East Coast and once on the West Coast. At our annual shows, we have 60 to 70 percent of our exhibitors sign up again for booth space. After each show we set higher goals for the next event - not just for exhibits, but for attendance as well. We always try to increase our goals, so that in turn we can increase our revenue. The costs to produce an event go up every year. Even if you were to just maintain the status quo, you have to increase your financial goals.”
Reuter Expositions Services recognizes the importance of advertising, sales brochures, Internet presence and Web site management to promote events.
“You have to market and promote to get the right attendees,” Reuter advises. “You do your homework and research to provide the best sources of advertising for each particular show and the publications to target each market. And the whole program has to be done within a budget. You do a good job, but economically.”
Trade shows are ever-evolving, Reuter says. They are becoming increasingly sophisticated and computerized. Attendees wear badges with a magnetic strip or bar code on the back. When someone visits your booth, you swipe their card and have instant access to such information as the visitor's name, company, address, phone number, nature of business and more. Each card swipe is catalogued into a database for future contact - a highly efficient lead-retrieval system.
“Registration systems have become more and more sophisticated,” Reuter explains. “We work with several companies that offer these systems and we can make arrangements for whatever information we want to be included. We also color-code the badges, [e.g.] red badges for the buyers and green badges for the attendees, to make it easy for exhibitors to recognize buyers. Booth staff will immediately know if someone is wearing a red badge - they'll want to stop them and ask if they are familiar with their products.”
Display booths are becoming more elaborate as well. Reuter says many exhibitors request a two-story booth complete with staircase - definitely not the bargain-basement display.
“All trade shows have their own personality,” she describes. “Most booths have great eye appeal. They have to. Each company wants to make a statement with their own individual product personality.”
Steve Wesler, owner of RDP Group in Avon, agrees. He held a pet trade show at Madison Square Garden last October and had a hard time attracting anyone.
“It was not that people were scared, because they weren't,” says Wesler. “It was not because they don't like their pets, because they do. It was the general atmosphere in the New York area, which includes Connecticut, New Jersey and parts of Pennsylvania. People were just not going into New York. And even the people that were in New York weren't going anywhere.”
But Wesler believes all that is changing. Attendance at Broadway plays, restaurants, tourist attractions and trade shows in New York is up. And Wesler sees the future of trade shows on an upward curve.
“People will always want that one-on-one you get at a trade show,” assures Wesler. “You can come in and see a new product, touch it, smell it, taste it. That can only be done in person.
“Our trade shows are based on a very simple concept of the street vendors of the 1800s and 1900s,” describes Wesler. “There were just a lot of little vendors selling things on the streets. Only we've done it in a very sophisticated and dignified way. There is a comfortable, very nice ambiance.”
Wesler says that even if there has been a slowdown in the trade-show industry it is not because of lack of interest, but rather a reflection of the general business economy.
“This business is really a barometer of the economy,” states Wesler. “There have been fewer trade shows lately, but the number is based on the economy, and not on the need for shows.”
Indeed, Wesler notes that many major U.S. cities are currently building new convention centers and hotels to support them, and sees the future of these shows as changing, perhaps a little, but not slowing down.
“There is a trend now toward more regional, smaller shows that are shorter in [duration],” says Wesler. “People can get there in their cars, and bosses don't feel so bad about letting people go to these conventions because they're not incurring a huge cost.
“There are more convention centers and hotels being built because there is a need for them. And cities love this kind of money. The cleanest money that can come into a city is travel money. People come in, stay a few nights at a hotel, eat at area restaurants - and it all involves no pollution. No one is building a factory to earn this money. In fact, the money is supporting a lot of industry and supplying an upper and lower echelon of workers - people who clean the hotel rooms, rent cars, people at the front desk, people who set up the shows. Cities really like the convention business because it employs a ton of people.”
That said, Wesler points to a vastly growing national and international trade show market.
“I think regionalism has always been important,” he states, “but the really big, big shows are attracting more people, too. There are still so many people who say 'Hey, if I'm not there I'm out of luck.'”
Wesler produces four major shows a year, mainly at New York's Jacob Javits Center. He produces only four because he chooses to.
“I used to work eight days a week,” he laughs. “I was the decorator for the Hartford Civic Center from when it opened in 1975 until 1982. Then one of my customers and I formed our own company to produce shows. So I've done it all, from decorating to promoting to management.”
Along with his business partner Robert DeNell, Wesler built and ran the Meadowlands Convention Center in Secaucus, N.J.
“Then I just sold everything and now I do only the shows I want to do,” he explains. “I've chosen to do very good shows that make very good money. This is a fun business. I meet a lot of people and do a lot of different things.
“Every show has always been my own thought process,” he explains. “I look around and see what types of shows are being held and try to find where there is a population base that is not being served. I'm not paid by anyone.”
Two of his largest shows, both in New York, are the Bar Show, for those in the bar, nightclub and related industries, and the Gay Show, for the general gay public. His shows include seminars that are held concurrently and cover a wide range of subject matter within each industry. He offers complete services to vendors including total management and set up of their booths, and says he is able to pass on significant savings that way.
“Everything costs in this business,” he says. “I can offer a completed booth to my customers for $100. They'd pay $300 to set it up otherwise.”
Wesler says another trend is more sophisticated and impressive booths.
“Some companies will come in and buy a space of ten booths,” he says. “They'll have a double-decker and use the top floor for seminars. Or a video room and show movies.”
Whatever their needs, Wesler can meet them - for a price.
|
Go FirstGo PreviousGo
NextGo LastGo
to Index
|
|
