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Prepare brand marketing and communication

A brand’s guide to 2023 tradeshow season

12 January 2023

The 2023 tradeshow season is just beginning, and it’s the perfect way to start the new year by strengthening your relationships with existing clients and meeting future buyers and prospects.

With the first major tradeshows taking place at the start of the year, and another wave in the autumn, it’s a good idea to start planning ahead so that you can make the most of these events and promote your brand in the best way possible. 

At Ankorstore, we have a range of tools to help you thrive during tradeshow season and to continue to grow your business on our platform. We’re sharing our top tips below to get you started and help you navigate tradeshows with ease.  

Lea Pillot

Before tradeshow season begins

1. Prepare your marketing material 

Marketing materials such as banners, flyers, business cards, and signage is a great way to ensure your brand gets noticed at tradeshows. Use these materials to decorate your stand, promote your brand, and share key information like your logo, brand name, website address and contact details, as well as your values or your most important USPs. 

Don’t forget to include your Ankorstore Referral offer code on your marketing materials to encourage your new prospects to shop from your brand on our platform. You can find your Referral offer code by logging in to your Ankorstore account and going to the ‘My Network’ section. 

 

2. Let your retailers know where you’ll be showing 

Don’t just rely on footfall at tradeshows to keep your booth busy. Communication is one of the keys to success, so make sure you spread the word to your retailers about the tradeshows you’ll be at so that they know where and when to find you. Use the ‘Messages’ tool in your Ankorstore account to contact your retailers, or post about your tradeshow presence on social media. Don’t forget to encourage retailers and new prospects to book an appointment with you on the day. 

Boost your client list on Ankorstore by training your brand representatives about our platform before you attend a tradeshow. Make sure they’re comfortable talking about how Ankorstore works, explaining the benefits for retailers and inviting customers to your shop via your Ankorstore brand page.

 

3. Manage your stock levels

Keeping your inventory up to date during tradeshow season is important to help your retailers enjoy a seamless ordering experience with your brand. In fact, rejected orders due to stock levels cuts the chance of a retailer ordering again from a brand by 50%. You can easily update your stock via your Ankorstore account, and you can see a detailed step-by-step guide in our FAQ article here

4. Offer exclusive discounts

To make sure you’re offering your clients the best deals, check the prices for products in your Ankorstore shop match those on any of your other wholesale platforms. Boost your sales during tradeshow season by offering a special discount in your shop using our guide here or use our Personalised discount feature to offer your clients the same prices and benefits as buying direct.

During tradeshow season

1. Make your booth stand out

Considering your booth design and product merchandising is key to ensuring your appearance at a tradeshow is a success. Buyers and future clients will be visiting lots of booths in one day, so make sure yours is the one that they remember. Your booth is a great place to showcase your new-season collections, and you could introduce additional elements like interactive displays, product demonstrations or free samples to drive footfall to your booth. 

 

2. Use our Prepared Orders feature

Want to take orders from your clients on the spot during tradeshow season? Now you can with our Prepared Orders feature. Simply click on ‘Prepare an order’ in the ‘Prepared Orders’ section of your account, select the products and quantities your client wants to buy and send them an email link to their pre-populated basket, all your client needs to do is check out. Additionally, you can also create Prepared Orders for retailers who are not yet registered on Ankorstore. To find out more, please read our FAQ article here

3. Network and create a lead capture process

Tradeshows are one of the most important times to meet new prospects, strengthen relationships with existing clients and meet your peers. Having a short digital lead capture form is the best way to get the details of everyone you meet on the day so that you can contact them afterwards. Remember that the WiFi connection at tradeshows can sometimes be slow, so having a physical backup like a guest book at your booth will also ensure you keep track of all your visitors on the day. 

 

4. Lay the foundation for long-term relationships by referring future retailers

Suppose someone who is planning to open a shop reaches out to you. This is the perfect opportunity for you to use our referral programme benefits and introduce them to Ankorstart. Ankorstart retailers spend 50-60% more when ordering from referring brands vs. other brands. Share this link to help future retailers kickstart the launch of their new shop with Ankorstart!

After tradeshow season ends

1. Update your contact list 

Being one of the first to make contact with a new prospect following a tradeshow is a great way to start a positive working relationship. Start by updating your contact list in your Ankorstore account by going to the ‘My Network’ section and then send personal messages to each of the new prospects you have met. Remember that a personal message makes all the difference and you can use your Referral offer code to invite your retailers to join Ankorstore and benefit from a voucher to use on your shop. Find out more about our Referral offer here

 

2. Track leads through the sales pipeline 

Understand the impact your presence at a tradeshow had by tracking any leads you created on the day by following their journey with your brand. Send a follow up communication if you haven’t heard back from them including a Personalised discount to help encourage conversion and take note of the products and quantities they add to their basket so you can check in with the retailer after purchase to see if they’re happy with their order. 

 

3. Measure performance and improvements

Every tradeshow you attend is another opportunity to learn something new about your customers and your brand. Having key performance indicators in place to measure the success of your attendance is a good way to understand impact and make improvements for next time. 

We hope you find these tools and tips useful and we look forward to seeing you thrive during the upcoming tradeshow season.

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