For the most part, trade shows are becoming less and less effective every year.  Look around at many trade shows and you’ll see the shortage of customers walking the show floor.  At some shows it seems as if there are more exhibitors checking out the competition than attendees.

Of course the economy and increased travel costs have affected this.  More companies are sending fewer people, or are simply skipping the shows entirely.  Another big factor is that in many industries, the thousands of individual business customers have now been replaced by a few large multi-location companies who now represent the lion share of all sales in many categories.

The first way to stop wasting money is to simply not exhibit at the show.  Many companies make large annual investments in trade shows for three simple reasons:

1.     “We’ve always been there.”

2.     “The competition will be there.”

3.     “What will it look like if we don’t attend?”

These are all pretty lame reasons to spend such a large amount of your marketing budget.  Companies should always practice zero based budgeting as part of their annual budgeting practice.  Put everything on the table and see if it still is the best use of your money.  As exciting new ways of communicating, such as social media or pop up stores emerge, many companies make the mistake of assuming they can only venture into these areas if they have additional funds.

Most of the time, the funds are right under your nose, if you just look at what you no longer need to do, such as trade shows.  Apple stopped attending the largest trade show devoted solely to Apple and used the money to open more retail stores.  The result is that they now have trade shows for consumers 365 days a year.

Two other considerations are big customers and the regionalization of show attendees.  In most industries, 20 percent of the customers are responsible for 80 percent of the business. It may be more efficient to make more and better sales calls than to think you’ll reach the big guys at a trade show.  Maybe taking some of that trade show money and hiring a stronger national account sales person or team will get you more sales than a trade show.   The largest customers come to the show to see what’s new.  They don’t waste time looking at something they are already familiar with.  Unless you are new or have a really compelling new product, you are, once again, probably wasting your time and money.

Whenever a show stays in one location like Chicago or Las Vegas, they are in many regards more of a regional show.  Smaller businesses within 200 to 300 miles of the show are more likely to attend as they can drive to the show and only be gone for a day.  Business owners who live further away have the added expense of air, hotel and meals, as well as being out of the office for several days.  For these reasons, many of them don’t attend, so you don’t reach them.

If you measure the traffic in your booth and count the number of existing customers versus the number of new or prospective customers, you’ll usually find that you are actually talking to very few prospects.  The vast majority of your traffic will be existing customers stopping by to say hello and to be made to feel important.  In most cases, companies should have good ongoing contact with their existing customers, which makes the trade show investment redundant.  If you think you have to take them to an expensive dinner or show, you can do that in their hometown.

Count the number of prospects who stop by your booth and divide it by the amount you spend to exhibit at the show.   You may realize that you could have taken each of them to Paris and had some real quality time for what it cost to reach them at the trade show.

An alternative to a trade show is to use the funds more effectively by doing many mini shows at your distributors, retailers, or local home and garden shows.  These can be part of a bigger event or done on your own with an event such as a contractor night at a distributor.  Don’t wait for the distributor to ask you to be part of his event, be proactive and take him the idea.  There are three benefits to local shows.  You show the local customer such as a distributor that you care about their success.  You get to educate his sales force about your product and how to sell it.  They have so many other products to worry about that many of them are just order takers.  If they feel more confident about their ability to talk about your product, they’re more likely to try to sell more.  The third benefit is that you actually get to meet the customers who buy and use your products.  You can learn a lot about what they think, which will lead to even more sales.  And these sales are a lot more measurable than a trade show booth.

If you’re still determined to exhibit at a trade show then you should take steps to reduce your expenses.  A big area to start is the size of your booth space.  Many times a smaller booth can achieve the results you need, and reduce your show expenses considerably.  Another big area is the booth itself.  Ask yourself if you really need that expensive custom-made booth that requires crates, shipping and set –up, as well as  refurbishing between shows.

If you feel you need a large custom exhibit, many exhibit companies will now rent you many of the booth components, which is usually less expensive than having them built just for you.  Another way to make a large presence at a lower cost is to use fabric structures, which can be quite creative and because they are so light, reduce your crating and shipping costs.

If you are able to right-size your booth down to a 10’ x 10’ or a 10’ x 20’ then you can really achieve some significant savings by using a portable display from a company like Skyline www.skyline.com.   You can fly with the display or ship it UPS.  Anyone can set it up in a few minutes and it’s easy to customize if your messaging changes.  If you creatively and tastefully design the backdrop graphics, no one will notice that you’re using a portable display.  Creatively and tastefully means use a professional designer. Graphic design is not a place to save money.

The messaging, or what your booth says, is also a very important part of how to maximize the return on investment for your trade show expense.  I’m amazed at how many booths simply have the company’s logo as the most prominent graphic of the booth.  They then will list the type of products and the features. For example a typical booth will say:

Jones Water Heaters

Large Capacity

Quick Heating

No Rust Through

Who cares?

A better way is to grab the attention of the buyer (trade show attendee) with benefits that are meaningful to him.  To a home builder you might say:

Show Homebuyers Why Your Home is Better

The Jones Brand Name Means Quality to Consumers

New Quick Recovery System is Easy to Demonstrate and Creates Word of Mouth

“You should see the water heater in the home I toured today!”

Before you decide to exhibit at that next trade show, stop and ask yourself, “What if we didn’t exhibit?  Is there a better, more effective, more measurable use for that money?”