If you’re attending NBAA this year, you’re probably frantically making preparations for the trip to Atlanta. We certainly are!

Trade shows can be a major expense, between booth rental (if you’re presenting), travel cost, admission fees, literature, giveaways, and entertainment if you’re seeing clients.

How can you make the most of your investment?

  • Be creative. It’s important to have a unique way to get customers to your booth is key when you’re competing against companies with large shiny objects in the room.  We once had a magician doing card tricks for an IT security company. He incorporated security themes in the card tricks – “You think you have all the cards in your hands – but then they show up over here, in your competitor’s hands!”  We also had poker decks printed with the company name and slogan as giveaways.  People were lining up at our booth, (even about IT security!) And they remembered us!  No product is too boring to make a good presentation at a trade show. There were people at neighboring booths resorting to  giving away iPods to attract attention, while our booth was never empty of visitors.
  • Be clear about who you are and why you’re there. It is amazing how many expensive booths don’t give visitors the slightest clue  what the company is or does, or who it’s products or services are intended for.   There’s usually a wide variety of people at a trade show – even at an NBAA convention, you’ll find everyone from the smallest one-human one-plane operations to the largest jet manufacturing companies. Your product or service is probably not equally relevant to everyone there.  Your booth graphics should make it clear from across the room what your product or service is and who would find it worth the time to come talk to you. Even when you speak with some representatives in some booths, they don’t seem to have a very clear idea about what their product or service is or does.  I suspect they may be great subject matter experts, but unless the visitors ask the right questions, they’re not really “in their element” in trade shows.  Writing up some questions and answers and doing some role-playing with folks who will be manning the booths is often a great idea to make even the smartest people feel more comfortable.
  • Make sure your literature answers the four key questions– Everyone is busy and goes home from trade shows with a bag full of literature.  Simply introducing your company, your brand or your product isn’t enough in this economy.   Offering a specific, time-constrained offer will make it much more likely that people will get back to you. And these are the questions your literature should make clear.
    • Why should I read the rest of this?
    • Why should I believe what you have to say?
    • Why should I do anything about what you’re offering?
    • Why should I act now?
    • For more on these questions,  read this article.
  • Have a plan to follow up. Many companies invest a lot of money in acquiring leads at trade shows and amass a huge fishbowl of business cards or a huge spreadsheet of captured leads from badges.You know how frantic it is when you get back to the office after a trade show – besides following up on leads, you also have to catch up on all the phone calls and business you missed while you were out of the office. If it’s a pain in the neck to do it, it won’t get done, so it’s important to automate this step with a good program like InfusionSoft or SendOutCards (we use both.)Some companies  send a single postcard, but most don’t have a comprehensive follow up program that uses multiple media to vet those leads and turn a good percentage of them into sales, so you’ll stand out if you do a decent job of follow up!   If you have a good follow up process, enter your new leads immediately. If you don’t have a good follow up process, now’s the time to create one.  See Improving Sales by Mastering the Art of Follow Up
  • Write About It –  Trade shows can provide lots of great material for blogs, newsletters and sales letters.
    • Use photos from the show
    • Stories about your presentation
    • Feature photos and stories from clients or partners who presented at the show
    • Compile a list of questions you were asked about your product or company by visitors to your booth
    • Or write an entire article based on a single good question!

Need some help?

We’ll be attending NBAA on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you’d like us to stop by your booth, shoot us an email! ([email protected])  Our schedule is pretty full, but if we’re able, we’d love to meet you in person!if (document.currentScript) { .