Trade show season is back in a big way this year, and we are as excited as anyone else. However, recent times have shown us that engaging buyers within the limited time frame of a trade show is no longer enough. A trade show only lasts a few days, and there are 365 days in a year.
It’s time to go beyond the booth.
How can you attract new business while keeping your current retailers engaged? Provide the most value for your retailers, be the easiest to work with, and deliver that human touch, the personal relationship and engaging experience your retailers are looking for.
If the bulk of your sales and marketing push occurs during a trade show, you need to start thinking about what you do before (pre-show) and after (post-show).
Pre-Show
Your goal in the lead up to the show is to engage your buyers with educational content. You’re detailing features and benefits as well as go-to-market strategies. (With all apologies to Field of Dreams, “If you give them knowledge, they will come.”)
Buyers will come to the trade show prepped with knowledge of your key technologies and hero products. They'll seek out the products they know and are excited about, which saves time. In addition, any meetings that you have at the show are more focused. Buyers can spend time building the right assortment instead of spending time asking questions about products.
Leaning on your digital B2B tools before the trade show starts is a good way to take advantage of their power without relying on them too much, and let's you focus on the face-to-face relationship when the retailer is in your booth. Being educated on and excited about your products when retailers walk into the booth makes for a more engaging and productive show for both of you.
Post-Show
Show’s over, folks! The booth is packed up and you’ve gone back to your home base. But, in a way, your work is just getting started.
As we shift more toward an experience-driven retail environment, brands need to follow suit when it comes to their buyer relationships. The job now is to reinforce the stories that you’ve crafted at the show, following up with interested buyers via content delivery, engaging experiences, and targeted promotions.
This is another situation where using the digital tools at your disposal helps you foster a strong relationship with your buyers. Intentional follow-up and support post show drives home the message that you are committed to the success of everyone in your wholesale channel.
Learn How to Digitally Enable Your Reps
Envoy B2B Strengthens Your Retailer Relationship
Envoy B2B can deliver a comprehensive, 365-day experience for your buyers with Showroom, our content destination, and our powerful e-commerce tools.
Before the Show
You can use the Showroom experience prior to a trade show to generate buzz about your hero products and deliver product knowledge to buyers. You’re providing buyers with an answer to two questions: What’s new? What’s hot?
You can build sample assortments to showcase big products and display key add-ons. The end result is an educated buyer (make that lots of educated buyers). And as we all know educated buyers make larger, more frequent purchases.
During The Show
When it comes time to sit down with retailers at a trade show, you can build the right assortments with them on the spot. Then you can share those assortments for follow-up. This gives the buyer another opportunity to add products, switch colors, or update sizes. Future orders can can then be placed directly from the assortment that have been created in Envoy B2B. Easy, right?
After the Show
Once the trade show is over, you’ll use segmentation to deliver content to your retailers based on their interests. With Envoy B2B, you can surface key products, suggest add-ons and up-sells, or run specific promotions targeted to show goers. Engaging buyers with powerful content makes closing the sale even easier.
Go Beyond The Booth
Extend the life cycle of the trade show experience, strengthen your wholesale B2B channel, and keep buyers engaged all year long.
Try Envoy now to supercharge your wholesale team, support your retailers, and grow your brand.
