trade shows

Many small businesses are missing out on the benefits of trade shows, with only about 3% utilizing them to grow their business.

No matter what stage of business you’re in, it can be hard to grow and expand. But it gets much harder when you don’t take advantage of all of the resources available to you.

One of the best and most versatile resources available for growing a business is trade shows. While attending a trade show may seem like an unnecessary expense, it is well worth it for the benefits it offers.

If you’re not sold yet, that’s alright! In this post, we’ll go over some of the biggest benefits that trade shows have to offer.

Keep reading to learn more.

Build Relationships

A big part of growing a business is making connections and building relationships. Relationships help you to expand your business and open doors you might not have had access to otherwise.

It is much easier to connect with others and build lasting business relationships in person. This makes one of the best things about trade shows their face-to-face nature.

Trade shows allow you to get that face time with potential customers or partners in an environment that is designed for promoting your business and making sales. Polish your pitch, and you could leave with more sales, business partners, or even a new mentor.

Be sure to take advantage of all parts of a trade show, including any social events associated with it. Stay professional but personable, and build those relationships!

Keep an Eye on the Competition

While you’re at trade fairs working to build relationships and grow your business, so is your competition.

Every exhibitor at a trade fair is going to do their best to highlight their top products or services. This can provide you with a great opportunity to see what the competition is doing differently and maybe even better. Don’t cross any lines, but use this time to gather information that can be used to improve your business.

Additionally, if other booths are doing better than yours, be sure to pay attention to what they’re doing differently. Take notes and plan to integrate that into your setup so you can dominate your next show. You can also learn what not to do by observing the least popular booths.

Highly-Targeted Leads

The reason customers attend trade shows is usually that they already have a need for a product or service that is being exhibited. This means that trade shows bring targeted customers to you that are already partway through the sales funnel.

This makes trade shows the ideal place for developing solid, highly-targeted leads. With a well-designed and well-presented display, you should be able to make some sales right there and be able to gain many more leads that have a high chance of converting later.

Be sure to collect contact information from any customers that you can. Then don’t forget to follow up with them with an email or phone call to keep your company fresh in their minds.

Collect Feedback

One of the most valuable things to a business is the data and feedback that it collects. Trade shows can provide you with an excellent opportunity to collect feedback from your ideal customers.

Ask questions to those who stop at your booth and record their answers. This is a great way to get ideas for new products or services, have potential problems pointed out to you, and see how to public is generally feeling about your company and products/services.

Increase Brand Awareness

Especially for smaller, younger companies, getting your brand out there and building your reputation is a very important part of growing your business. It’s harder to get your foot in the door in some industries than others, but trade shows can help you get access to customers and potential business partners that you wouldn’t have had access to otherwise.

Be sure to include your branding on your trade show display. There should be consistent logo design, colors, messaging, and brand personality across all business marketing materials, including your display.

Including your social media information on the display is another good way to get your name out there and help build your following.

If you can, do your best to position your booth next to the higher-profile established companies. This will help to get more foot traffic to your own booth and can even help people associate your company with the industry leaders.

Strengthen Existing Relationships

With so many events having to be virtual in the past few years, you may have clients or business partners that you’ve never actually met in person. Trade shows offer an excellent opportunity to finally meet face-to-face, which can help to further solidify and strengthen those relationships.

Stronger relationships can turn into more business from customers and more collaboration from partners. And putting a face to a name can make it harder for people to back out of deals.

Expand

Trade shows can be a great way for companies that mainly operate in one area of the country or world to expand into other places.

Local businesses can reach customers outside of their home area that otherwise might not have known they existed. This is also a good way to test the waters if you’re considering franchise marketing. It can allow you to see if there is strong demand for a product/service in a particular area.

Start Planning for Trade Shows Today

If you’re not already using trade shows to help grow your business, it’s time to begin. Trade shows offer many benefits, from building and strengthening relationships to learning ways you can improve your products or services. Don’t miss out on the benefits trade shows have to offer!

If you’re looking for a team of professionals to help you prepare to dominate your next trade show, we can help! Reach out today.