Today I want to address five at-the-show and post-show strategies for ensuring the best return on investment from your trade show expenditures. You have already set your objectives and determined the strategies necessary to achieve them. You have arranged for the best booth personnel possible and trained them how to qualify prospects and turn them into long-time customers. Now you’re at the show; here are five things you need to do next. First, make sure that you promote your products well. It was one of your pre-show objectives to make sure that the promotional products that you actually distribute in the booth enhance your brand. This means that you have selected giveaways and test items and promotional products that represent your brand with style and effectiveness. These products represent something that your audience will welcome, something that they relate to easily. They may be objects that are actually useful and that your prospects will hold on to and use on a regular basis. They should have a high perceived value and align with your branding and the message you wish to get across. Secondly, the promotional products and gifts you make to your prospects and customers must reflect the quality for which you are known. They must uphold your reputation in the marketplace. You have gone to great lengths to target your audience at the trade show; you have prequalified your best prospects; and you are qualifying new customers and clients at the show. We all know that trade shows are expensive so while you need to provide promotional products that suit your audience, you need to be judicious about selecting products that have a high perceived value but that still fit your budget. From the booths to the booth personnel to everything else associated with the trade show, you need to make sure that everything is complimentary to your brand and is specifically planned to provide a substantial return on investment. Capture the contact info of the people that you will want to follow up with after the show. There are a variety of ways to do this. First of all, if you created a target list of prospects and leads before the show, you should have fairly current information for them on your computer or laptop. Take the time to verify this information when you sit down with your major prospects and customers. If you are meeting people for the first time, and this should be a good number of the people who pass through your booth, make sure that you scan their badge or that you exchange business cards with them because you will want them to contact you direct as well. Set up a followup date and make an appointment to touch base by phone or get together in person. Your goal is to solidify an ongoing relationship, to make sure that they understand and identify with your brand, and to secure their business with your company. One of the keys to your success at creating solid business relationships is having a good note system.

1. An Opportunity Knocks:
Sourcing and Product Ideas
Dave Burnett / db@aokmg.com
Today I Want to Address Five Trade Show
Strategies to Ensure the Best ROI from
Your Marketing Expenditures:
1. Promote Your Products Well
2. Offer Quality Promotional Items
3. Capture Contact Information
4. Be Sure to Have a Good Note System
5. Follow Up After the Show
Do These Well and You’ll Have a Great Trade Show.

2. Make sure the promotional products you
distribute in the booth enhance your brand.
Promote your products well. You have selected giveaways and test
items and promotional products that represent your brand with style and
effectiveness. These products represent something about your brand that
your audience will welcome, something they relate to easily. They are
objects that you believe your prospects will find useful and hold on to. At
the same time, they have a high perceived value and align with your brand
and convey the message you wish to get across.
Alarm clock Puzzle cube Desktop
calculator Ballpoint pens Magnetic clips pencil holder calendar
These are just some of the many items you can use to represent your brand.
Dave Burnett www.AnOpportunityKnocks.com

3. The promotional products and gifts
you offer must reflect the quality
for which you are known.
Your promotional products must uphold your
reputation. You have gone to great lengths to target
your audience and prequalify your best prospects. And
Mouse pad
you are qualifying new customers and clients at the
show. Trade shows are expensive so you need to be
judicious about selecting products that have a high
perceived value but that still fit your budget. From the
booths to the booth personnel to everything else
Executive duffel bag
associated with the trade show, everything must be From the simplest desk item
complementary to your brand and planned specifically to the most expen-sive gift,
be sure to complement your
to provide a substantial ROI. brand.
Dave Burnett www.AnOpportunityKnocks.com

4. Be sure to capture the contact info
of the people you will want to follow up
with after the show.
You have a target list of major prospects, leads, and
customers that contains fairly current information on them.
Take the time to verify this information when you sit down
with them. If you are meeting people for the first time, and
this may be a good number, make sure you scan their badge
or you exchange business cards because you will want them
to contact you as well. Make a follow-up appointment to
touch base by phone or get together in person. Your goal is
What better way to
share contact info than to solidify ongoing relationships, to make sure they
with a USB drive pen or
a calculator padfolio. understand and identify with your brand, and to secure
their business with your company.
Dave Burnett www.AnOpportunityKnocks.com

5. One of the keys to your success
creating solid business relationships
is having a good note system.
The simplest note system I can think of is writing on the back of the
attendees’ business cards. Or you can create a checklist from your
prequalified target list and then check off names, add pertinent information
to each account, and add new contacts during the show. Still another
simple system reps use is to capture quick ideas and info on Post ‑It notes
that they then collect in a convenient stack. You have to establish a system
beforehand that you find easy to
manage and refer to so you know
who to follow up with, in what
order, and in what degree of
urgency. You might even want to share notes with your contacts and
offer them a Post-It note stack or a nice logo pen.
Dave Burnett www.AnOpportunityKnocks.com

6. Perhaps the most important tip to
guarantee a good return on investment
is the post-show follow up.
You have invested a great deal of time, money, and effort into the trade
show, into creating strategies, having the right personnel, displaying the
right product, publicizing your brand with the right signage and the right
promotional products. Now, you must follow up with your contacts,
prospects, and leads, your long-time clients and customers, and everyone
you met at the show with whom you wish to do business. Your ultimate
goal is to develop ongoing relationships
and make sure that your investment in
the trade show pays dividends. Your
return on investment hangs on the
quality of your follow-up.
Desk items like desk caddies with sticky notes or
Dave Burnett make good follow-up gifts.
docking stations www.AnOpportunityKnocks.com

7. An Opportunity Knocks:
Sourcing and Product Ideas
Dave Burnett / db@aokmg.com
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