As a company, fairs and exhibitions play an important role in your professional marketing strategy to position yourself on the market. In Germany, the trade fair landscape is massive: there are about 450 trade fairs per year (source: statista.de). This fairly large number of business expos can make it hard to keep track of the important ones and to make the right decision.
This article is the first of our three-part series which addresses business trade shows, non-digital B2B marketing strategies, and how your appearance on B2B expos can prevent your sales team from the pain of cold-calling potential business partners and support your lead generation process.
So, let’s start with part I: Analyzing a business expo.
In the age of digitization, we all know how important business expos are for a successful b2b marketing strategy. Because humans still value personal contact and the “human behind the brand”.
“The more dependent we become on technology, the more important face-to-face interactions become.” – Marc Pomerleau, Director of Strategy, FreemanXP
Simply think of Steve Jobs and Marc Zuckerberg to realize how the charisma and the presence of a CEO can influence the way a person perceives a brand or a company. Therefore, you should not dread the costs of a trade fair appearance; because every cent spent on a well-selected trade show will be worth it.
To evaluate the reasonableness of a trade fair appearance, you should, again, start at the beginning:
1. The moving cause of a trade fair appearance
The German Vertriebszeitung differentiates between two groups: exhibitors and visitors.
| Exhibitor Goals | Visitor Goals |
|---|---|
| Studying competitors | Keep track of the market |
| Meeting new customers | Talk to exhibitors |
| Improvement of the company image | Examine innovations |
| Advertising existing products | Learn about technical information |
| Launching new products | Identify new suppliers |
| Set themselves apart from non-exhibitors | Gather information about certain suppliers |
| Customer care | Watch performance demonstrations |
| Business transactions | Meet other visitors |
| Compare prices and suppliers | |
| Gather information about prices and conditions | |
| Negotiate with exhibitors | |
| Make final purchase decisions | |
| Make a purchase/order |
We notice: exhibitors and visitors are quite similar! Regardless of the type of trade show, whether it’s B2B or B2C, they want to have informative conversations, catch up on new trends and establish contacts. Making a final purchase decision is unlikely, but the probability of closing a deal increases if both parties have already talked to each other and shook hands. Because at business expos, both sides look for a conversation and information, the most important step you must take is to decide if you’re actually attending the right trade fair.The magic word is “specification”.
2. Know your USP
When you invest your and your team’s precious time in attending a business trade fair, you have to be 100% sure that the time is well spent. At trade fairs, there are two possible starting points:
Water scenario
In every industry, there are trade and customer fairs where attendance is courteous. You, as exhibitor or visitor, will probably meet people you already know or have already made business with. All influencers, big players, decision-makers, and big companies of your industry will be there. Also, you’ll meet your competitors. And that’s the reason why these business expos are an integral part of your marketing strategy.
But they all have one disadvantage: there’s water everywhere. You might drown between numerous exhibitors which offer the same product and service as you – or visitors who want to talk to the same persons.
But: small, specific B2B expos are here to help!
Desert scenario
Let’s say you’re the owner of a small, aspiring marketing agency which is specialized in tech companies. Of course, it would increase the awareness for your company if you appeared i.e. at the dmexco. But a trade show like this is huge, and people might simply overlook you next to the big, shiny players. Different scenario: you’re attending a small trade fair which focuses on informing directors of tech companies about innovations. Both the exhibitors and visitors match your buyer persona – but your competition is much smaller. Therefore, your service becomes much more interesting and it will be easier for your team to start a professional conversation. They’ll be able to maintain a deeper level of conversation and therefore easily acquire new business contacts and potential customers. I guess you can see where I’m heading?
A smart business marketing concept should mix those types of trade fairs to ideally place your business on the market. When looking for business trade fairs, you can simply use the search function of extensive databases such as expodatabase.com.
3. Know the expo and its visitors
That’s probably one of the most obvious things which are generally overlooked. How much do you actually know about the trade show you’ll be a part of? You should definitely brief your team or company with the hard facts:
- How many visitors are expected this (!) year?
- Where do visitors and exhibitors come from? Is it a national or international business fair?
- What can you find out about the booth of your competitors? How can you contrast with them?
- What do you need for your booth – and how expensive will the equipment be? Can it be reused?
- Do I need goodies? How can you promote them prior to the exhibition? (Tip: a digital goodie bag is a smart idea to generate leads and increase brand awareness ?)
- Do the visitors match your buyer persona?
- To which person do you want to talk?
Following these steps, the next part will be much easier:
Define your goals
Before you decide to make a trade fair part of your marketing strategy, you should prepare fixed goals for attendance. They will help you when you analyze the effectiveness of your measures. You should either create binding guidelines or a checklist which you can use to monitor your success following your presence. Possible goals could be:
exchanging information and expediencies with luminaries of your industry
a defined number of new, qualified contacts or gaining a
- qualified, summarized overview of your competitors and their plans.
What matters is that the goals you choose are specific, measurable, realistic, and terminated.
“If you can measure it, you can manage it.”
Summary
Trade shows and fairs are still highly valued in both the B2B and the B2C-environment – but not every trade fair whose theme matches your business idea should be part of your marketing mix. Focus on extensive preparation and analysis of the trade fair, the visitors, the exhibitors and your own goals – because the key to success is the intensive preparation of your booth, briefing your team and most of all to choose the trade fair wisely.
