Trade Shows: Is It Better To Target Audiences On A Local Scale?

When planning your marketing strategy, a visit to a trade show or exhibition may well feature in your plans. There are literally hundreds of shows in the UK every year. Whatever your industry, or service sector, there will be opportunities to get your brand out there.

But, how do you start to choose where to go?

The large shows and exhibitions will have glossy, prominent promotions trying to lure you in. These shows will have huge numbers of visitors and delegates through their doors, guaranteeing constant foot traffic past your stand. Is more actually more though?

Pros and cons of large exhibitions

• Potentially thousands of visitors will be passing your stall. If your goals are to boost brand awareness and have the staff and publicity materials a-plenty to push into people’s hands from the moment the doors open, then a large, flagship show could be for you.
• Most of the big exhibitions are brand to customer (B2C) as well as brand to brand (B2B) and attract the curious as well as actual customers. This could mean that your target audience is lost amongst the crowd.
• All of your competitors will also be there. This could be an advantage and a disadvantage. You have a great opportunity to keep a close eye on how others in your industry are marketing. This is a chance to learn from their mistakes and also what they excel at. If you are planning to use the exhibition for direct sales, you have chosen the most competitive environment!
• By booking a stand at a large exhibition, you will also be getting a listing and profile in the event guide. Often, this is a glossy publication which gets taken home by visitors giving you valuable, on-going publicity if the guide gets left on a few coffee tables.

Pros and cons of small exhibitions

• If your brand is focussed on selling locally, then a small, local trade fair, show or exhibition could suit your needs. Travelling further afield would simply be a waste of resources, regardless of how glitzy the show is.
• Smaller shows by their very nature, feature less exhibitors. Competition will be less intense and you will have more time to offer visitors an in-depth demonstration of your offerings.
• A small trade show levels the playing field. Your brand, regardless of the size of the operation, gets the same opportunity to attract customers as the bigger businesses.
• The cost of exhibiting at the show will be much lower than if you had travelled to a bigger exhibition. Here you have an opportunity to improve your return on investment (ROI) from your marketing budget.
• Attending a small exhibition is the very best way to network. Get to know other exhibitors in detail and create complementary working relationships in your area of expertise.

Whatever the size of exhibition you decide to attend, let us here at Conex put the perfect trade stand package together for you. We have supplied stands for businesses at trade shows of all sizes.

Get in touch today to see how we can make your brand stand out at your next exhibition.