It’s no secret that trade shows can provide enormous value for your company if you position yourself correctly with the right exhibit design and marketing. But, there’s another important important factor to getting the most out of your trade show exhibit. And it’s a pretty obvious one. Of course that would be which trade show or expo you are exhibiting at.
Choosing the right trade show is perhaps the most important decision that you will make after you have decided to take the plunge into running your own trade show exhibit. Of course, your marketing and exhibit design are also important factors. But, if you’re not even in the right location you will have a tough time seeing any return on the sizable investment required for trade show exhibits of any size.
In fact, choosing the correct venue and trade show is also a question of proper marketing. Because what you are essentially trying to ensure is that you are exhibiting to the correct audience. In fact, in most situations your trade show exhibits will be targeting two different, but similar audiences. The first being potential sales leads and customers and the second being potential partners.
So, picking the correct trade show to exhibit at can be determined by finding the greatest exposure to one (or both) of these target audiences. For example, if you own a company in the architectural lighting industry and you want to target potential partnerships, you might look into a presence at a lighting show, but if you are trying to target customers you might want to go to a broader show where more architecture firms will be represented.
Of course there will also be other concerns when choosing where to exhibit that fall into the more logistical side of things. Cost and location, media exposure and other concerns are certainly significant, but they are ultimately subordinate to the concern of making sure that you are choosing a show and positioning your trade show exhibits to pursue the correct audience. Once you have this fully worked out, then you can move onto the important logistical concerns and find the show that truly meets your needs best all around.