IFT’s Annual Event and Food Expo is fast approaching. As one of the largest events in the industry, IFT brings together experts from around the world to share the latest insights and innovations. Whether you’re looking for new customers, new suppliers or new ideas, exhibiting at a large industry trade show like IFT can help your team make connections and expand its reach. However, exhibiting often requires substantial time, money and resources.
To help you leverage the impact of your investments, here are six succinct strategies to consider before, during and after exhibiting at an industry trade show.
Set Specific Trade Show Goals
Odds are you’ve already been preparing for IFT19 for several months, so you should have a pretty clear plan of attack. By setting clear, quantifiable goals prior to the show and sharing them with your team, you’ll be more likely to succeed.
Make Your Booth and Messaging Stand Out
If you don’t have the ability to design your trade show materials in-house, consider partnering with a team that specializes in trade show marketing and booth design. The right messaging and designs can help draw more people to your booth.
Leverage the Power of Integrated Media
Integrating email and social media marketing can help drive traffic to your website or a trade show landing page with information about your company’s offerings. To increase your reach and maintain communication, use trade show hashtags and retweet relevant posts before, during or after the show.
Engage Your Entire Team
Your staff should be well versed on your brand, goals and key differentiators to confidently communicate with trade show attendees. If you have extra team members on hand, encourage them to attend presentations to network or learn more about the industry. Interactive booth components can also help your team engage with customers and prospects in real-time.
Follow Up Promptly
Your work isn’t over when the IFT trade show floor closes on the final day. Reaching out to customers, prospects and media contacts in a timely manner can help enforce top-of-mind awareness for your brand. Post-show emails can also help you stay visible.
Monitor Trade Show Results
As soon as you wrap things up, start thinking about your next event and how you can apply what you learned at IFT. By looking back at the goals that you set and determining how you performed, you’ll be better prepared for the next go-round.
Remember, choosing to exhibit at an industry trade show like IFT requires significant investment, so it’s important to allocate your time and resources accordingly. Don’t have the means to commit to a trade show booth? Many of the tips mentioned above are also relevant for those simply looking to get in front of customers and build brand awareness at the show.
For more information about developing an integrated strategy for trade show marketing, contact us.