{"id":10673,"date":"2018-05-10T11:56:04","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T16:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/article\/\/"},"modified":"2018-05-10T11:56:04","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T16:56:04","slug":"trade-shows-and-expos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/trade-shows-and-expos\/","title":{"rendered":"A good rule of business: Go where your customers are"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In 2017, digital marketing surpassed television advertising in terms of money spent to become the No. 1 way businesses get the word out about their products or services.<\/span><\/p>\n

The attraction is obvious. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter all have an expanding base of users and an increasing number of tools to target specific people or businesses. This work can be handled in-house, without hotel and travel costs. Those same tools make it easy to calculate return on investments, and it is easy to do A\/B testing to figure out which messages or sales pitches resonate the most.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even with the rise of social media, a tried-and-true method that involves personnel and conversation is steadily growing as well: industry shows and expos. According to Statista, which tracks trends across a number of industries,\u00a0the percentage of companies expecting to increase the number of trade shows has surpassed those expecting to cut back every year since 2010-11<\/a>. In 2016-17, the most recent numbers available through Statistia, 26 percent of companies surveyed were going to do more shows in 2017-18 versus 6 percent expecting to do fewer.<\/span><\/p>\n

At Thinker, we’ve created trade-show marketing materials for dozens of companies. This past month, we decided to get on the other side of the table and be a part of the Rockford (Illinois) Chamber of Commerce<\/a> Celebration of Manufacturing & Expo, and we got a firsthand look at why these events grow in popularity:<\/p>\n