Trade show season is almost here! The last year brought many changes and challenges to our industry, with the ability to host trade shows taking a serious hit. Many brands relied on digital strategies and sell-in events to shore up the gap. But, as vaccines become more and more widely distributed, we are starting to see the return to more in-person business, which means trade shows are going to become part of the seasonal cycle again.
You’ve probably adopted a lot of technology over the last year, or at least relied much more on your existing B2B platform to keep business moving. So after a year of trials and tribulations, how can your brand take advantage of your B2B software to get back into the face-to-face groove? Here are three simple, powerful ways you can use your B2B to improve the trade show experience for you and your retailers.
Build your assortments before the show to make the ordering process easier! Use the lead up time to prep all of your assortments, creating a variety of generalized, but unique assortments for different types of shops. Build assortments that are more specifically customized to specific accounts you know well.
You can use these custom assortments to walk the wall and streamline the ordering process. Or use them as “takeaways,” and send them out virtually after the meeting as a follow up for buyers that need more time to consider their best-fit order.
Prepping your assortments ahead of time means more time spent face-to-face with your retailers, building that human connection and creating smart orders together.
Take the time to build out engaging presentations for brand storytelling and product education. These presentations are great for guiding new buyers as they learn about your brand, highlighting technical features, or hyping up new product lines.
Making sure your buyers understand who you are and what your product is all about is critical for buy-in. And, the more that retailers can understand and believe in your brand, your product, and your values, the more they’ll be able to sell. Because buyers sell more of the product they know.
Print can be powerful, but it’s also a bit of a burden at a trade show. Loading your buyers down with a ton of printed materials means most of it will end up left behind in the hotel, or dropped in a recycle bin. Make sure your B2B platform is equipped to easily share and distribute assets like price sheets, catalogs, lookbooks, assortments, and anything else you want them to walk away with.
But! We know that sometimes print has its place. If you need to razzle-dazzle a bit, then those high quality, impactful takeaways are great. For the rest? It’s easier for retailers to learn from and follow up on digital materials than print. And bonus points because you’re creating less paper waste.
And that’s it! Three quick tips on how to harness the power of your B2B at trade shows, so you can spend more time doing what matters - creating strong, personal connections with your buyers.
After a year of staring at each other through screens and using digital tools to do everything, it’s exciting to get back to being in-person. Because it’s that human touch that lets you connect to your buyers, get to know them, and build strong seasons together. Your B2B platform should support that, not rule it.
Get in touch with us to learn more about how Envoy B2B can keep you connected to your retailers with powerful tools that grow your wholesale channel.