Pickens

Many business owners believe that trade shows and expos are the best way to promote and grow their business. But are they?

Trade show exhibits are expensive with costs for hiring the trade show booth, trade show display stands, staff costs, marketing materials, transport costs, accommodation and meals if you're away from home and there's always other costs that you just didn't see coming.

So you need to set out what the end results you want from the trade show to be - how much money do you want to make, how many new spending customers do you want, how many warm leads do you want from the show and what size customer list do you want? What can your business afford and what are the smartest ways to achieve your goals?

I learned my lessons very early on with an expensive show that everything went wrong. Customers didn't turn up, the show was a fizzer and I was out of pocket many thousands of dollars and none of my expo goals were achieved.

I could still see the upside of a good expo but I wanted to reduce my risks and to do this I needed to research and explore more.

I started researching the local wholesale trade show and went along to see what's involved, got talking to exhibitors about what they like and dislike about the show, saw who was the competition - what they sold, how they managed customers, what business systems they had and what was their approach to customer service.

I came out of it thinking it was an expensive project and determined to figure out how to get the benefits of their customers without the cost. So I started looking at the who, what and how of the trade show - who ran the show, how did people get to exhibit there, how was it setup?

The trade show is run by an industry association with exhibitors being wholesale members and visitors being retail owners members.

As a wholesale member you have access to the retail members' database and they have access to the wholesale members' database - all part of the benefits of being part of your industry association.

The wholesale membership costs less than 10% of the expense of hiring a small space at the trade show - so a saving of 90% with access to the retailer membership contact details. This database lets you directly market to the expo visitors so you can build a relationship with them. Without even spending money on an expo you can make sales from the visitors. You can also send them invitations to special event viewings and when you're ready to do expos you can invite them to your stand.

Having customers come to the expo knowing who you are, that you're going to be there and expecting to place orders with you is much better than starting from a cold start where no-one knows you and no-one has plans to spend money with you.

Seeing all this was like a light bulb turning on - I could get the advantages of an expo without the expense of doing an expo! Simply by being creative and smart with my marketing. Given that most of the other exhibitors weren't taking advantage of internet marketing or even having regular contact with customers it was going to be much easier to stand out from the crowd and be successful.

So you can avoid the costs of the trade show display rentals, the trade show display booth costs, trade show giveaways, promotions and display products costs and trade show booth design fees simply by exploring and asking questions about how things work and how to get them working best for you.

Expos can be really expensive for small and growing businesses so you need to make the most of the opportunity and expect there'll be extra costs you just didn't see coming. Finding a way to benefit from an expo without big costs comes down to a bit of lateral thinking and being prepared to make it happen.

Belinda Stinson is the designer and owner of http://CreativelyBelle.com - a popular and successful jewelry and jewelry display stand gift idea resource. Belinda also offers a range of business articles online published in the monthly email newsletter to help other businesses success.

Find out more about building a prosperous business with Belinda's free resources at http://CreativelyBelle.com/business

Of course if you want to do a bit of online sale shopping for great gift ideas visit http://CreativelyBelle.com/sale for earring holders, beaded necklaces, freshwater pearl earrings and more.

(c) Copyright - Belinda Stinson. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

# posted by sochalzqzsuh : 10:31 PM