There is a saying ‘If you don’t buy a lottery ticket, you will never win’. Likewise, if you don’t show up at an event, chances are that you won’t get anything out of it. It’s vital for every one of us to visit industry events these days, in order to upgrade business with the latest products and market trends. Implementation of the top takeaways from the industry events into your business is important because being successful today does not assure you a successful tomorrow, more so, next year. The industry events I refer here are particularly of trade exhibitions as well as conferences, open houses and so on.

‘Networking’ is perhaps one of the top takeaways for you from a trade exhibition, as it provides you an opportunity to closely connect with industry fellows. Networking during an exhibition opens the doors to finding common ground for you and your business peers. Subsequently, this is a big lead-generation opportunity. It’s a fantastic idea to come back from an exhibition and you share a handful of leads with your marketing team. Industry events are where you often find right kind of people for whom your products or service are a good fit—you offer them to take the relationship forward.

Sometimes trade exhibitions are turned out to be hectic as everyone is vying for one another’s attention. In such situation, it’s a wise idea for you to recount specific details of the people whom you met and conversations you had with them during the event when you are settled in office next day or so, then remind them so that they can recall you and understand why you are mattered to them. Such follow-up in the post event period provides you meaningful business link-ups. Remember, among the trade visitors whom you meet at an exhibition, there are many who are looking for co-marketing partnership to allow their brands to work together on promotional efforts.

Trade exhibitions are obviously where you discover new machines and technologies. Before you go out to visit a trade expo here is a simple task you must do first. Take a look at the list of exhibitors and find out products and technologies of your interest or closely relevant to your business. It’s important to catch the right exhibits that can influence you and make your business work more efficiently and effectively. At the very least, use trade exhibition as an opportunity to learn more about new products and technologies, even if you’re not ready to make any big purchasing decision immediately.

However, the moment you are ready to invest in a new product or technology, trade expos are a great opportunity to get live product demos. You can also ask the exhibitors some case studies or their customer examples. Exhibitors usually invite their customers to trade expos—meet them face-to-face: it’s a good way to get warmed up, knowing the new product you are planning to adopt from their hands-on experience.

Here the bottom line is to make your visit to industry events worthwhile to implement the top takeaways from there into your business.

– Sonal Khurana
sonal@smediagroup.in