Flash Drives Deliver Customers to Your Trade Shows Stands
In the UK during 2011 there will be over 1,000 major trade shows, fairs and exhibitions. The shows and fairs cover all manner of subjects ranging from Caravanning to Franchising. Many shows are expected to attract visitor numbers in the tens of thousands so during the year millions of us will attend one or more show(s).
To illustrate the diversity here are just a few examples of some of the major shows that are taking place over the next couple of weeks:
- The National Gardening Show 2011
- The Holiday and Travel Show – Glasgow
- UK Wedding Show – Ascot
- Toy Fair – Birmingham
- Packaging Innovations – Birmingham
- The Baby Show – London
- The Franchise Show 2011 – London
The challenges for the exhibitors at these shows are significant and whilst they do offer a tremendous opportunity to showcase their products and services, the logistics of organising a presence at a show are not for the fainthearted.
A successful show has to be measured by how much new business it delivers. Whilst some will argue that its “ok” to spend thousands on a stand purely to launch or develop a brand the reality is that its orders at the show or a significant increase in orders post the show that are the acid test of whether it was money well spent.
To maximise your return from the show you need to plan ahead and think about how you’re going to attract potential customers to your stand and then turn those potential customers into orders. One option to attract customers to your stand is to offer promotional giveaways such as pens, stress ball, sweets, bottles of water, caps, and badges etc. These are fine and they do bring people to the stands but as products they don’t really help “sell” and many of them will end up in the bins outside the exhibition hall.
An alternative is to commission some branded USB flash drives that are printed with your company logo and website URL and more importantly are pre-loaded with all of your sales collateral (PDF’s. PowerPoint slides, price lists, media files, spec sheets etc). USB flash drives will be a little more expensive that the usual pens etc. handed out BUT by they have a high perceived value, they will attract customers to the stand and they have a very high likelihood of being retained and being used post the show.
By pre-loading your data onto the USB flash drives and “locking” the data so it cannot be erased you can ensue your web site, your sales brochures and so on are always with the customer. The pre-loading of collateral means you don’t have to pay for the brochures to be printed and transported to the show and perhaps more importantly you’re not burdening your potential customers with lots of heavy brochures that again stand a strong chance of ending up in the bin as the leave the exhibition halls!