More and more companies - as part of their integrated marketing approach - are shifting their marketing budgets into Trade Shows without the necessary planning and financial consideration of what my return on investment would be.

We often forget that trade shows are a direct response medium. The primary purpose of participating in a trade show is to obtain qualified leads that result in sales and ultimately in profit.

As a regular attendee of trade shows, it never ceases to amaze me that companies spend "thousands and thousands" on trade shows. But most of the money appears to be spent on promoting, exhibiting and travelling, with very little spent on the quality of show staff manning your stand and most importantly the follow-up on those prospects visiting your stand.

Tim Young, CEO, Techmar Communications, gives us input on trade show dynamics and the importance of lead follow-up to justify the considerable investment we all make in trade shows.

Try these 7 steps to leverage your trade show investments to get more sales and profits:

1. Use your stand to qualify prospects
Visitors have little time to assess who you are and if they should visit your stand, particularly if you are not a household brand. Most visitors are non-qualified premium collectors. There's nothing wrong if your stand's message says exactly what you're looking for. An example! "If you're a hi-tech company looking for a direct marketing resource in South Africa, stop." Sure, that stand had fewer visitors than the one with the pretty girl handing out gifts, but the visitors were much more qualified.

2. Qualify the visitors
Determine your initial qualification criteria. Determine your ideal prospect profile. This would go beyond the initial criteria to include companies who outsource services in your category and who have a current need. You need to decide up front what you're looking for and train your show team to go after only those prospects.

3. Capture lead qualification information
There are a number of ways to do this, all with their advantages and disadvantages. Some companies use badges to scan, using tools provided by the trade show sponsor. Others have their own qualification forms or kiosks that they use. Some collect simple business cards and write on the back. All of these work if you have the right follow-up process. For example, the advantage of business cards is you have contact information - e-mail, direct line and fax number - that is virtually guaranteed to be accurate.

4. Be aggressive
If your sales cycle is complicated and lengthy, you can't sell them at the show. But you can capture the information needed to follow up and produce a valuable sales opportunity. Therefore; this isn't the time for small talk. Talk to as many people as possible and attempt to initially qualify them. If they qualify, probe further to determine if your ideal prospect profile is achieved. Your show team must know your products and services and be engaging and greet every possible visitor.

5. Don't have too much collateral on hand
Some companies bring all their sales collateral to their stands. Then, when a prospect expresses interest, it's given to him. This not only means the prospect carries around your materials (as well as your competitors') for a couple of days, but he also takes away a valuable follow-up opportunity. For qualified prospects, make sure you get their contact information, whether it's scanned in, on a qualification form or on a business card.

6. Follow up quickly
If you process the leads from your trade show each day, you can send each prospect a fulfilment kit that will be on his desk when he returns from the show. Several days later, follow up with a telephone call to make sure he received it and begin to nurture him through the sales cycle. What is his role in the decision process? Is there a current need? Who else is involved? What solution does he currently have and what else is he looking at? All this information needs to be centralised in the response management system to enable follow-up and measure results.

7. Build an integrated response management program
At the end of the day, there is two sides of the house that need to be satisfied. Sales departments need more sales. Marketing departments like this too, but need information to measure results (to see what's working and what's not) and need the ability to drive future sales through upgrades, cross-sells, etc. That means you need an integrated system to capture leads from trade shows (as well as ads, direct mail, the Web).

This can be done in-house or out-sourced. Either way, someone has to own the process and you'll need to invest in systems and processes to make it work. The result will be one central response marketing database that helps you nurture prospects through the buying cycle, gets more sales and close the loop. That way, everyone wins.

Trade shows work, but only if you follow up your leads
Your objective should be to get sales, not to get visitors. Often, trade shows aren't the end of the sales process, they are a key part. To get sales, you need a follow-up system designed to build relationships and nurture them through the buying cycle.

Winnifred Knight, email win@cubesquare.co.za or phone 082 575 9922

Back to www.bizland.co.za