Small Business Trade Show Marketing Strategies

As we all know, trade shows can be extremely important for small businesses. It’s an effective way of promoting products and or services, generating interest, and gaining relevant leads for the business.

Business owners have no problem remaining focused on the trade show itself; however, it can be very easy for some of the most important details to get lost or be neglected along the way. That said, let’s take a look at what a typical trade show agenda would look like for a small business:

Small Businesses Trade Show Agenda

• Developing a trade show exhibit
• Training employees
• Booth Confirmation #
• Flights & Hotel bookings

This is a great start, however, one of the most crucial pieces of the puzzle is missing. Can you guess what that might be? Knowing the amount of time and effort that goes into managing a trade show, the one thing everyone seems to forget about is adding this information to their website.

As more and more last minute requests have come through to me for trade show call-outs in various industries, it became obvious that it was a common problem that I needed to get in front of as soon as possible. This is when I decided to work a few questions into the Initial Internet Marketing Meeting to give me a better understanding for my client’s level of involvement with trade shows.

Trade Show Marketing Management – Performance & Assessments  

• What’s your annual budget for trade shows?
• How many trade shows do you typically exhibit at in a year?
• What do you expect to get out of being an exhibitor at these trade shows?
• What is the type of customer or lead you would typically find at these events?
• How many leads and or sales were a direct result from trade shows you attended last year?
• Can you provide me with the upcoming trade show schedule that includes the event name, date(s), location and booth number?

Once I have all the details pertaining to upcoming trade shows, I am able to incorporate these details into our standard monthly meetings. This ultimately turns our last minute trade show call-outs scenario into a strategy where the website can be utilized to assist in helping you make connections and gain more potential leads during trade shows and events.

When this information is provided up front, it allows us Internet Marketing Consultants (IMC) to come up with a strategy to support your goals in this area.

Here are a few examples of trade show marketing strategies that can be put in place by having this level of information well in advance:

• Homepage Call-outs
• Graphic Banners  
• Landing Page(s)
• Contact Forms
• Email Marketing Campaigns
• Targeted Mailing Lists
• Email Campaign Design to be sent to attendees by the Trade Show
• And more…

Are You Prepared for Upcoming Trade Shows?

If you haven’t provided your Internet Marketing Consultant with a list of upcoming trade shows and events for your small business, now is the time to do so! All you need to do is follow the user-friendly template provided below to start your successful trade show marketing strategy.

In Conclusion

Developing or having a trade show strategy in place can save you time and valuable resources. Trade shows are a great method to further promote your business and products, but you need to make sure your customers know about it as well. Effective communication with your IMC ensures that your trade show information will be posted to your site where your customers, and also others, can view it and stay alerted to your actions as a company.