In today's world, trade shows are a fantastic opportunity for businesses to communicate their brand and build relationships. But it's so easy to spend too much money on your stand at trade shows and not focus on what you are there to do.
One of the guides we give ourselves for trade shows is the one third, one third, one third rule of budgeting.That means we spend one third of the budget before the show, the next third on the actual exhibition and the remaining third is what we do after the show.
You've got to have enough budget and time to set everything up before the show and follow up. You aren’t going to form the right relationships unless you’ve done your research to know who you want to meet with. Then you've got to follow up with everyone you’ve met after the show.
But at the same time, the quality of how we tell our story is becoming more and more important. Businesses have to be polished and professional at trade shows, but at the same time they can't spend all their budget on the stand. So it's a balance. That's where New Zealand Story comes in for us and gives New Zealand businesses an advantage.
Leveraging the NZ Story Business Toolkit
The toolkit gives us an incredible opportunity to get a bigger bang for our buck on the dollars we're spending at the shows. At international trade shows we're trying to stand out from thousands of much bigger companies. We have to be really smart about it and to show a difference.
The open source format of New Zealand Story's material gives us the opportunity to add depth and texture to our stand, without having to spend our own money on it. Depending on the situation, we might have the New Zealand Story brand video playing in the background.
We've included the New Zealand Story in our brochures and presentations. We also hand out New Zealand Story artwork on cards to our distributors, so that they can give it to their customers. By doing this we can be consistent about what we're saying about Foot Science International, have an excellent stand and be ready to build quality relationships.