On LinkedIn, one of the groups I belong to is called “Industrial Outside Sales Network”. Recently, an interesting question was posed by another member, Chuck Martin, who is the S.W. Regional Manager and Latin American Sales Manager at Ebara International. I want to give Mr. Martin full credit here because I am blatently stealing his idea which I thought was very good. On this site, he asked the following…”For budget reasons, if you had to choose between exhibiting the most important trade show of the year or placing an important add in your industry publication, which would it be?”
Good question!! And, with a good question, you get some good answers. Within just a few days of the question being posted, thre were 17 answers. Almost without exception, the answer given was the trade show. In a nutshell, the most common reason for choosing the trade show over the advertisement was because of the feeling that there were more relationship building opportunities at a trade show. A few responders commented that the show was better only if decision makers would be at the show. I think in some recent years some shows were being skipped due to the economy and the cost of shows, but I think some of that changed again in 2010. A couple other people said they would first choose to focus more on creating a quality website but did say a well attended show also had good value. How you prepare for a show will determine whether or not a show is good for you and your company, according to a few responders.
So, whether these sales professional are right or not, it is the trade show that they seem to favor. That being said, I went to Global Fastener News to look up the upcoming fastener trade shows for 2011 (another tab on the site I have recently investigated). On the Global Fastener News site, they describe each show but here I just want to share a quick summary of the shows they list.
Fastener Fair Stuttgart – Stuttgart Germany, February 22-24
Fast Tech 2011 International Specializes Exhibition – Moscow, Russia, March 15-17
Metkom – Istanbul, Turkey, April 7-10 […]
Source : Fastenerblog.net – Read the full Article here via Fastenerblog.net: Trade Show vs. Advertising.