As usual at every trade show, you end up collecting a lot of brochures, flyers, pamphlets and name cards.
I have difficulties putting the face to a name card and remembering what was the conversation all about. This is especially true when you attend an exhibition with hundreds of exhibitors and all looked so similar to each other. The brochures look the same. The exhibitors dressed the same. The banners look the same. The sales pitches sound the same. Even the conversations are similar.
The only exceptions are well known and famous brands or brands you already know or exhibitors with specially and beautifully designed booths. And also companies with quirky names or interesting displays or freebies to attract visitors to drop by their booths.
That's the reason why I always try to talk about something different with each exhibitors. This way, I just need to remember that one topic. It also makes it easier for me when following up with them as the topic can serves as a connection and perhaps help ring a bell in their mind.
What most exhibitors do at the end of the show is to follow up with a standard email pitching the company's product or service. As for visitors, they would choose to contact the exhibitors that they are most interested in.
For me, I prefer to contact those that I have something useful to them.
For this exhibition, I wrote to two.
One is to give them a feedback about their packaging problem that my friend and I encountered.
The other is to remind the staff to try out a product I tried which is similar to what they have and had not tried as well as to find out where they are selling the product.
The first one replied back thanking me for the feedback and said will forward to their colleague.
The latter one forwarded the email to a colleague who then gave me information on where to find their product.
I was a little puzzled why they aren't interested in finding out more from me.
What do I think about their packaging? Do I have any suggestions for their packaging? What do I think about their product? Am I interested in getting their product since I asked where can I get them? What do I think about them retailing at that particular place? Is it convenient? Am I their potential target group?