Planning for a trade show costs the time and the brain power of the executives who are involved. Then there is the cost of engaging a designer for the exhibit. When planners arrive at an acceptable design, it must be constructed, and this cannot be done in the maintenance department. The exhibit must be packed and shipped, along with any products that fit into the exhibit. And last, but certainly not least, sales people and technicians must travel to the exhibit city and stay there for the length of the trade show. Then the whole affair must be packed up, usually by union labor, and returned to the home office.
When one reflects on all the steps involved in planning, designing, constructing, shipping, putting people in place at the show--and then reversing the whole process to bring the exhibit home, it is obvious that a lot of often unrecognized costs are involved in trade show activity.
What about the effectiveness of all this activity? A really good balance between the number and types of exhibitors at a trade show and the people who attend the show is sometimes surprisingly hard to manage.
At some trade shows, the exhibitors may come close to outnumbering the attendees. The usual causes of such an imbalance are too little promotion directed to target attendees.
At some other shows, the number of attendees may swamp the few exhibitors. This could be caused by inadequate or misdirected promotion to potential exhibitors.
In either of these extreme cases, a lot of money spent on the trade show is simply wasted. And too few exhibitors reflect on the costs of all the components that go into trade show activity.
More and more companies are choosing to skip the trade shows and put the mental effort and the dollars into advertising campaigns that accomplish more than exhibits. Most of the people who attend trade shows are not prospects who are interested in a particular company's product and services. But carefully planned and directed advertising can reach, inform, educate and motivate those people beyond trade shows who are good prospects.
Advertising on the Internet is particularly effective because of the high degree of interest exhibited by prospects who choose to attune to information and advertising they can find only on the Internet. In other words, they are self-selecting prospects who are choosing to attend to certain messages because they want and need more information. Paperitalo Publications can show you how to put your message in front of self-selecting audiences on the Internet--not just disinterested masses.
Think about it. And then call us.
Chuck Swann is Senior Editor of Paperitalo Publications.For more information on Paperitalo Publications, feel free to contact:
Curt Gifford
Helen Roush
