Defining Trade Show Goals And Objectives In The Sales & Marketing Plan

Your trade show sales and advertising plan should inform any executive at your company why it's a brilliant idea for you to be exhibiting at the trade show you have selected. Consequently, it's necessary to include in the plan quantifiable goals and objectives for the show. As you create your goals, you need to remember that when the show is over, you are going to gauge your success in regards to how well you achieved these goals and objectives. Keep them realistic.

First, you have to have goals and objectives for the goods and services area of your organization. If your company offers a lot of products and/or services, then it will be necessary to narrow your focus in this category to just a few objectives. As you begin to do this, it's important that you consider the needs, wants, and goals of your key prospects who will be attending the trade show. What products and services do you offer that are going to be most interesting to your target prospects?

Goals in the services and products families should not necessarily be sales-based. Rather, they are better if based primarily on Return on Objectives (ROO) which relates to activities and whether they were accomplished. Objectives that might fall into this grouping could include any of the following:

A demonstration of product or service features and benefits

A side by side comparison of your products or services with other solutions or vendors

A demonstration of an improvement in a service or a product

A spotlight on a new product or service

The second class for which you should have specific goals and objectives is sales, marketing, and marketing research. Even if you will already be engaged with your qualified leads when it comes to this topic, widen your focus a bit! Think outside the box a little with this category and network with some other departments in your company. Is project management or is the product development team working on something that could profit from exposure at this trade show? Ask around. You might be surprised at what you learn and the new ideas that grow.

Keep in mind that each time you exhibit at a trade show, you ought to establish a new selling plan for that show. Except that,when it comes to the networking as a goal in itself, you will probably notice that your goals are the same everywhere, show to show. It's likely the only real difference you can see in this category is quantitative - the number of events and contacts you target for the show will change depending on the specific show.

At the end of the goals section of your marketing plan, you will want to list your quantifiable goals. These goals are what you may track to ascertain how successful your exhibition at the trade show truly was. Examples of quantifiable goals could be:

Make contact with a certain number of key prospect decision makers.
Set up a certain number of sales meetings per salesperson to take place at the show.
Establish a certain number of new leads.
Have a certain number of meetings with the media at the show.

When you reach the trade show, and during the course of the show, you will be able to tell who planned for the show and who did not bother to plan. You are going to see how much better your team looks and how much more successfully your team functions solely because you took care to make preparations for the trade show and set these goals.