Get noticed in your next trade show

I watched Big Idea with Donny Deutch a while back and he had two mompreneurs asking how they could get noticed and present their product in the upcoming trade show, without being too pushy, and how they would get people to stop at their trade show booths. Here are some of my ideas, which many of them are the same as in the show. Keep reading and you will also find an excellent real life example how one company made me really want to see them in a trade show.

1. Connect before you go. Contact prospective retailers, introduce your product, and let them know where and when they can see your line. Ask if they’d like to make an appointment at the trade show. I can not say this too many times - the personal connections make all the difference in business, start building them before the trade show.

2. If they don’t get back to you, it is OK to contact again before the trade show, and ask if they are interested in making an appointment, while announcing a new product release, other company news, or maybe a celebrity sighting (with your product) or recent media attention - something saying “others love our products, you might too” - without actually saying it.

3. Your trade show booth needs to grab attention, be inviting and be very easy for the buyers to get to know your product. Biggest fail: not enough lighting.

4. Make ordering super easy, with easy to read order sheets available. It’s always good to have these tucked inside your brochure, even for those who just get the brochure without stopping and really talking to you at the show.

5. Gimmicks are always good, but be careful not to go overboard, and that your prospective
customers will see your product, and are not just overpowered with your gimmick. An example of an excellent gimmick follows below.

6. Follow-up! There are no guarantees the buyers will make the order, until, well, they make the order. Great communication and follow up will triple your chances of getting those orders in.

Treating your retailers right is the key to successful relationship with them. Your retailers are always part of your team, like learnt from the case study.

I recently got two emails from Scandinavia Child inviting me to visit them at the trade show booth in a trade show I unfortunately didn’t have chance to go. But Scandinavian Child made me feel welcome to visit their booth, interested in their product and appreciate them as a company.

First email I got from them was about two weeks before the trade show, saying something like “people who visit our trade show booth often say how great our products are, how they like the design, but the thing we hear most is “my feet hurt from walking” and we wanted to do something about it” and the email continued explaining that they will be gicing away Dr Scholls massaging gel shoe inserts to easy everyone’s pain. Brilliant! Gimmick, yes, but did it make me want to visit their booth? Yes!

A week later, another email arrived, saying something like “Come by Booth 6845 to see our finalists in the JPMA Innovation Awards competition” and introducing their two new products, which also were finalists in the JPMA Innovation Awards competition. This time it was offering a validation why their products were great by giving an example that other people think they are great too, without actually saying “our products are the best”, which of course everyone wants to say.

Like Scandinavian Child - think what you can do for your buyers, and then think after that what they can do for you.

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