Great exhibits start with a well-defined goal. Before you plan your next trade show, ask yourself what you are trying to achieve. Having goals gives you a target to focus on and a path to follow, so you can get the most out of exhibiting.
What is important to you? Trade show goals can be described as one or a combination of the following:
- Lead Generation: finding new leads or picking up email subscribers
- Awareness Building: raising brand recognition or educating your audience
- Networking: making new industry contacts, finding investors, or recruiting staff
Your goals should be clearly defined, actionable, and measurable. Here are some tips in setting your trade show goals:
- Stay focused. Having a goal is good, but having multiple major goals is not. Setting too many major goals will dilute your effort to execute them effectively.
- Build on past success. It’s helpful if each goal you set builds on a previous result. For example, rather than aiming to increase new leads, set a goal of increasing new leads by 15% more than at the same show last year.
- Use hard number. Goals work best when they are well-defined, so it is good to use hard numbers whenever possible. For example, if lead generation is your goal, set a target number of leads that you want to get. This will make measuring the success rates much easier post show.
So, what are you trying to get from your next trade show? Whatever your goals are, we would like to be part of your team to help you reach these goals and get the best return on your investment.