Maximise your Messut. How to get more when exhibiting at international trade shows.

Continuing the theme of taking small steps to international business, this article features a small, additional task you could outsource when attending an international trade show or messut.

When attending an international trade show, most companies can handle the organisational basics; booking the stand, making travel arrangements, staffing the stand for the show. There are several ways to build upon that hard work and expense.

Market Research at a Messut

I recently worked on a project with Xport. Our customer is launching a new product and needed market research among their potential consumers. This is important for them to understand how to position their product and to develop the correct marketing strategy. As it is a new industry, the required research does not currently exist, it has not been done before so, along with Marja at Xport, I was hired to attend two consumer messut; one in Milan, the next in Valencia.

Consumer Research at the Messut

They were due to attend the show for the launch of their first product, but the team was expecting to be too busy to do this important market research while at the messut. They were correct, they were too busy, this is where we came in. While they introduced the product to potential customers, we went to other parts of the exhibition centre asking questions. Armed with tablets and an online questionnaire, we focused only on getting responses from consumers.

“When you have invested in attending an exhibition, what is the next thing you would do if you had enough time or people? THAT is the task that I could help you with.”

We were approaching people as they moved through the exhibition halls, explaining the product and the survey and asking them to spend one minute giving some anonymous information. Also, as we were in another part of the messut, we were introducing the product to some consumers for the first time. We were able to explain the core features and encourage (even) more people to visit the stand.

Speaking Spanish at the Valencia Messut

The following week, at the show in Valencia, I started to improve my technique. I taught myself a few words in Spanish so I could explain what I was doing to the local consumers. I have to say it made a difference – the consumers seemed amused by my bad Spanish, they took time to give their opinions and I managed to get a lot more responses per day at the second event. This work will continue in 2020, when we will attend two more shows to collect more market research data.

What are your plans for attending messut next year? What is the one extra task I could help with at your next trade show? Reach out, let me know…