The secret for a successful trade show ( setting goals! )

If you leave home in order to reach a place, in abstract, knowing neither which not what place it is, no matter how much you walk, roam or wander, you'll hardly get there (unless, of course, you're Peter Pan and you're looking for Neverland)...

So apply it to your next event, please!

If you exhibit at a trade show without knowing what your goals are, you are more likely to lose yourself along the way than to achieve them.

So, in this first post about the 10 mistakes that can backslide all your investment in trade shows, let's start with the most common:

Not defining your goals is the beginning of a journey that leads nowhere.

But let's not leave it there: we'll now take a step further, pondering, above it all, what we'll gain by setting objectives for the fair:

Why is it so important to set goals for the fair?

So that we can measure them

That's simple: if we don't know what the goals are, what are we going to measure? Intuition works just fine, but real data are magical and certain, while the rest are mere opinions. Measure, measure, measure.

So that we calculate the ROI of the trade show 

If we cannot measure, we won't be able to analyze the ROI of the fair and... is it reasonable to make investments without knowing whether they'll be profitable? - and it is quite clear that the personal and economical cost of a fair is a great investment...

So that we reach them!

Can you imagine a flock without a shepherd or a dog? I can, but that's called a herd of bison on stampede...

If you can't explain your goal to your team, it will be quite hard for them to achieve it... It is your responsability! And it is easy as pie, really, right away we'll give you 5 tricks that will help you doing so: you'll see that it's easy, fun and, above all, profitable.

Types of goals for a trade show

The goals depend on many factors and they can't be the same whether it is the first time we're going to attend a trade fair or it is the most important event for the sector, or we've been participating in it for over 10 years...

In the first case, almost every measurement will be based on new clients, as it is the first time we'll be attending the event. In the second case, however, we'll introduce many metrics and objectives that have to do with loyalty and recurrence.

On the other hand, if it is an international fair in which we are going to participate for the first time, the objectives should be measured on the long term... the particularities of an international trade show deserve, undoubtedly, to be extended in a post about The Objectives in International Fairs.

As first approach to define the objectives, we suggest organizing it in 2 main groups that can be very useful:

• Brand Goals
• Business Goals

Usually, the main Brand Goals are: 

• Visibility
• Positioning in the client's mind
• Differentiation of the company
• Opening to new markets

Brand Goals are more ethereal, but not less relevant. A good way to identify and "translate" them into money is to calculate the investment needed to achieve the same impact.

On Business Goals: 

• Stand support
• Attracting new customers
• Customer loyalty
• Sales

When defining business objectives, it can be very useful to have the commercial department participating, as they have a great knowledge of the particularities of the customers.

Involving your sales department when planning the goals for the fair is the surest way to achieve them.To the extent that if you make them participate, you also make them responsible for accomplishment. 

Measuring your goals, measure, measure, measure... The key to success

In this post we will focus on the measurement of business goals, and we will leave the measurement of brand goals for an upcoming article. Extending the aforementioned business goals, we propose to measure them in 3 vectors:

• numeral
• amount
• percentages

Regarding visitors, a good way to evaluate your success would be to segment them by categories and then analyze their conversion to sales.

• curious people
• dealers/distributors
• final client
• international
• national


* a visitor can have more than one profile so, when in doubt about where to include a visitor, don't make a big deal out of it: create a new category and, when you get home, analyze whether you can fit this visitor in an existing category or if that additional category was really needed (although, in this case, you surely added more than a person to that category during the event).

Regarding new customers, it may be interesting to measure:

• How many new customers have we made?
• How much have we invoiced?
• Are we growing or decresing in these metrics?

With regard to existing clients, a proposal would be:

• How many have attended to the show?
• How much have they bought?
• Have they bought more or less than in the past editions?
• What percentage of income do these clients represent?

Write your goals in some piece of paper and surprise yourself!

Share the goals with The Goal

A simple reflection:

If at the beginning of the post we said that it would be difficult to get somewhere if we left the house without a clear destination, imagine how unlikely it would be that:

Each member of you company left their private homes, without agreeing on where to go, on how to get there or even on what day or time to leave... how likely would it be that you all meet in the same space-time?

Well, you should do it if you want to receive postcards from Zamora, Kuala Lumpur and St. Petersburg...!

What if we give a prize?

Bonus track: What if you make a contest with your sales team based on those goals?

Have you ever wondered how to get the most of your sales force at the trade show? 

Studies show that motivation directly affects productivity and that a motivated worker is 37% more productive!

About how to motivate your sales team in order to have a successful exhibition, we will speak in the next post of this collection on the 10 Steps For a Successful Trade Show!