You won’t succeed at trade shows if you just show up with a cool trade show booth.  Many  exhibitors think that just because they paid a lot of money for some space and a booth for a couple of days that they will automatically will see a TON of leads and sales from the trade show attendees.  NOT TRUE!  The reality is that you have only paid for the ability to get access to this target audience of buyers in a enclosed setting.  Now you have to do your part and attract the qualified prospects to your booth space and collect the information about them.

Here are a few key questions to ask your marketing team BEFORE you attend this event:

1. What are your show objectives? Why are you going?

2.  Who is the primary target market and how do we reach them at this show?

3.  Which products/services will we feature?  Why?

4.  What do clients know about our products/services and what do we need to tell them?

5.  Is there anything NEW that we want to promote?

6.  How do we determine where our prospects stand in the sales cycle?

7.  Where do our prospects go in general for information about our products/services?

8.  How do they currently perceive our company?  Our competition?

9.  How do we incent our target market to stop by our booth?

By answering these questions you can effectively design a trade show marketing plan that will gather critical information about your prospect and allow for prioritization for future follow-up.