Trade shows are expensive.
There’s the stand, travel, accommodation, team members away from their normal jobs, signage, collateral, giveaways and potentially sponsorship on top of it all.
Yet many businesses put significantly more thought into what pen they’re handing out than what happens to a potential customer after they visit the booth.
That was one of the central themes in my conversation with Jen Kelly on Built. Trusted. Chosen.
Jen works with B2B companies, including businesses selling complex and technical products and services, and she has a simple framework for getting more value from trade shows: think about what happens before, during and after the event.
Treat trade shows as a before, during and after campaign, not a standalone event
Jen has a great term for what often happens instead: the “trade show prayer”.
Businesses choose a good show, organise the booth, order their promotional material, turn up and then hope the right people happen to walk down the aisle.
The problem isn’t necessarily the show.
Often, the show is exactly where the target market is.
The missing piece is the strategy surrounding it.
Before one email goes out or anybody gets on a plane, Jen recommends deciding what you actually want from attending.
New customers?
Existing customer relationships?
A product launch?
Potential partners?
Industry intelligence?
Once you know that, everything else becomes much easier to plan.
Promote your presence and book conversations before the floor opens
You don’t need to wait for somebody to accidentally discover your stand.
Tell people you’re going.
Promote your booth number through your existing email database, newsletter and social channels. Tell people what you’ll be demonstrating or discussing.
If there are important prospects or existing customers attending, give them an opportunity to book a specific time.
This becomes particularly powerful if somebody from the business is speaking, presenting a workshop or showcasing a case study.
The aim is to arrive at the show with some conversations already scheduled rather than starting from zero when the doors open.
Train everyone working the booth, not just the salespeople
Trade shows are exhausting.
You’re standing for hours, conversations blur together and sometimes there are long quiet periods followed by a sudden rush.
Jen recommends preparing people for that reality.
That includes the basics: food, water, breaks and giving team members an opportunity to walk the floor themselves.
But preparation also means knowing what to say.
In construction, engineering and manufacturing businesses, the person on the stand may not necessarily be a salesperson.
They could be the engineer, estimator, technical expert or even the person who invented the product.
Those people can be incredibly valuable to customers, but that doesn’t mean they naturally know how to open a conversation.
A little scripting and role-playing beforehand can make a big difference.
And one simple rule matters enormously: look approachable.
If everybody is staring at their phones or having an internal conversation, somebody walking past may decide not to interrupt.
Use the show to strengthen customers and partnerships, not just chase new leads
Trade shows aren’t purely lead-generation events.
Jen made a great point about existing customers.
If somebody only buys from you periodically or your sales cycle is long, an industry event can provide a rare chance to meet face-to-face and strengthen that relationship.
Even a small dinner or lunch with six or eight customers or prospects can create valuable conversations.
There’s another opportunity too: partnerships.
The people in nearby stands and the other attendees may become collaborators, suppliers or referral partners.
You need a strategy, but Jen also recommends leaving some room for serendipity.
Sometimes the most valuable person you meet is somebody you hadn’t planned to meet at all.
Capture every worthwhile contact before the conversation finishes
The event only creates long-term value if you can reconnect afterwards.
Depending on the show, that might mean scanning an attendee badge, collecting a business card, photographing their card or connecting through LinkedIn.
The technology isn’t the important part.
Capturing the relationship is.
This needs to become a deliberate final part of worthwhile booth conversations.
Otherwise, after two exhausting days and hundreds of interactions, it becomes surprisingly easy to forget who was who.
Follow up within 24–48 hours and keep nurturing for your real sales cycle
Jen recommends getting the first follow-up out within roughly 24–48 hours after the event.
At the simplest level, that can be an email thanking people for visiting the stand, reminding them what you showcased and giving them a way to continue the conversation.
High-value opportunities should obviously receive more personalised follow-up.
But the bigger point is that your follow-up shouldn’t finish simply because the trade show is over.
If you sell a complex construction, engineering or technical service with a two-year sales cycle, a four-week email sequence makes little sense.
Your nurturing should reflect the actual buying journey.
A successful trade show strategy starts well before somebody walks into your stand and continues long after the banners are packed away.
Define why you’re going, promote your attendance, prepare your people, capture the relationships you create and follow them up properly.
Otherwise, you may be spending a lot of money on little more than the trade show prayer.
Guest bio
Jen Kelly is the founder of New Initiatives Marketing and a Fractional CMO specialising in B2B marketing. After a 17-year corporate marketing career with organisations including Siemens, Motorola, Future Shop and the Financial Times UK, she launched New Initiatives Marketing in 2009 and now helps B2B companies build more strategic and systematic marketing programs.
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