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Today we released CashMAX Forecaster, our business forecasting software tool, into the wider market place. It was exciting to see the software out there. It was also a valuable experience for learning the ropes about running a successful tradeshow campaign.
Why attend tradeshows and expos?
The secret to success with tradeshows is having a clear goal and selecting the right expos.
- Is your goal Brand or Product Awareness? Lead Generation? Sales? Market or Product Research? A combination of several things? Focusing on one particular area and preparing with this in mind will achieve your best outcome.
- Decide if this particular event has the focus and attracts the kind of attendees to be the right forum for you to achieve the outcomes you seek. Think laterally. When they had a major exhibition of Indian religious and mythological art coming up, the Art Gallery of New South Wales chose to attend a Mind Body Spirit Expo in Sydney that promoted alternative healing therapies and philosophies. Sounds crazy? Amongst the astrologers and sellers of crystals, their stand was heavily patronised by attendees who were interested in world religious traditions, gods and goddesses. They generated significant awareness and many potential visitors for their exhibition.
In our case, our experience is that entrepreneurs are not paying enough attention to monitoring and planning business strategies that will help build their businesses. We identified a problem – business owners don’t know where to find the right information and they lack the tools to monitor it easily and effectively.
So we chose to use this business expo to build awareness of CashMAX, a software tool that we have developed to help businesses simply and easily get the right information to monitor their businesses, manage cashflow more successfully and implement smart strategies at the right time to build their business.
(See my blog post What made you decide to create a business forecasting tool like CashMAX? for the full story about our new tool.)
We had a second purpose. We are interested in potential future sales of course, but we were not planning on sales today – this product is in final stages of preparation. The expo was an important part of our market research that to enable us to decide on future directions for pricing and marketing. We wanted to test the response to our product, to gather data such as what information triggered interest? What pricing might be readily acceptable, or encountered resistance?
Preparing for the tradeshow
In the lead up to the expo we had to:
- Brand the product (decide on logos and other aspects of the brand and style that would support its positioning in the market);
- Create a welcoming environment for our stand;
- Create the brochureware, demos and so on that provided an overview of the product;
- Design and create all the promotional collateral (signage etc) that would draw attention to our stand in the midst of all the competition.
My team did a brilliant job. In literally a week the team created banners and posters (collected on the morning of the event). The brochures were written and designed by my brother John, and myself through till 1am, and then again from early the next day so they could be at the printers the night before the expo. Promotional water bottles were organised and collected the day before by Dan on his day off. Cup cakes were collected in the morning and deliciously displayed. In the midst of this I had a personal crisis, managed to help with finishing student assessments for a family member, and survived on 3 hours sleep – amongst other things.
So was it easy? Hell no, however… Was it worthwhile?
From a business point of view, absolutely. From a personal point of view and the stress of the week leading up, only time will tell; I hope so.
Will we do another one? Yes. We now have the formula, the equipment and supplier contacts in place to enable everything to be pulled together more efficiently and readily next time around.
Here is my checklist for preparing for a tradeshow.
Expo/ Tradeshow Checklist
- Find out what space and facilities you have available – electrical outlets, desk space, floor space, and so on.
- Don’t anticipate attendees or numbers; be prepared to roll with the flow. Depending on the outlays required to attend the expo for your type of business (fees, travel costs, freight, accommodation etc) work out how many contacts you need to make to recover your outlay. In our case we reckoned that three good contacts would achieve return on investment for this expo.
- Have a clear focus on the desired outcomes for the business – branding, marketing, product awareness, referrals, sales etc. Make sure that everyone who will be working on the stand understands this.
- Be organised. Assign an event manager. Prepare your running sheet (list) early on of what needs to be done and start months rather than weeks out. Give yourself time to implement alternatives if unexpected blocks crop up.
- Test all technical equipment you plan to use before you go and as you set up for the event. Take your emergency kit – pens, gaffa tape, batteries, jotting paper, paper towel, meds etc.
- Try not to stress and don’t allow others to stress. It won’t help any of you to deal with your tradeshow visitors, or solve problems. Realise that under tension people react differently. Your best approach is to deal with issues openly and cleanly.
- Communicate with the team: timetable, rosters, responsibilities, what to say, how to capture and record key information and so on. Hold a briefing the day before and on the morning before the event commences.
- Have a plan for how you are going to collect visitor information quickly and efficiently. You will only have a few minutes to introduce yourself and your product/service and gather enough contact details to follow up later. Three approaches might be collect business cards, make appointments in phone/diary while they are with you, and email whilst in conversation with them.
- Monitor and measure the success of your tradeshow so that you can assess and improve your performance next time around. This includes gathering feedback and debrief the team. Look at what worked in achieving your outcomes, what could be done better, what should be dropped out next time.
(Heartfelt thanks to Daniel Emsermann, Erini Diakoumis, Carmel Edgecombe, my brother John and everyone else in the office. They excelled themselves and I could not have asked for more.)