preparing for the national stationery show - part 1

if you've never prepared for the national stationery show, you've got your work cut out for you. in this post and following posts, we'll lay out what we've had to go through, and what things you should possibly consider, through the perspective of an exhibitor traveling cross country to the nss.

first up: research, research, research. (should i even go?)

before we even considered throwing down the exorbitant amounts of money it takes to exhibit in a trade show across the country, we made sure we'd done the necessary legwork.

using the web wisely: it is an infinite resource of information -- we looked up other people's experiences about traveling to the show, example booth setups, what is included in a standard exhibitor package, what people send to potential buyers before the show, etc. we spent countless hours online, bookmarking and taking notes on an open word and excel spreadsheet.

making sure our product was unique, and would stand up to the competition: there are so many exhibitors that do the old "one-and-out." they spend all this money to go to the show, expecting to write mad orders and talk to tons of interested buyers -- and end up sitting all lonely in their booth, watching people walk by and cursing the show and their luck. then we don't see them again the next year. it's all in the preparation...make sure that your product is not only presented in the best light, but also that it will hold its own in relation to what's out there. do some searches, read lots of blogs, and find out what people in your chosen demographic like. make sure that no one is doing the exact same thing you're doing (and possibly doing it for longer and *gasp!* -- better).

decide what makes you special (you should be able to verbalize it if someone asks you)-- then, go for it. keep your target market in mind when designing your products, and don't be afraid to show them around to get feedback. we made sure to consult anyone we felt within our demographic, and made changes to our designs based on what they said, or just listened to them and agreed to take certain risks. a general rule: don't compromise on quality to be cheaper -- there is always someone out there who can do things cheaper.

starting early: we started preparing for the show a full year and a half before. at least this was for our first time. subsequent times took less effort because we already knew the drill.

number of products: this is part of the research process -- if you have a ton of ideas/designs, think about ways to present them so that buyers don't get overwhelmed. if you don't have so much, consider creating more or find ways to organize and display in your booth to make it look like more, or really showcase what you do have.

it all depends on the exhibitor, but we had about 100 cards at launch. people thought we'd been there awhile because we had so many. i blame bumble girl, who cracked the whip on me to create so many; my hands still haven't recovered from the stress ;) -- anyways, most people start out with a lot less, and each year add a little that makes up their "new line." i'd wished we had less because as you would guess, some designs got less orders than others, and you're stuck with a lot of inventory issues-- not to mention a few buyers would walk around the booth aimlessly and hopelessly overwhelmed by the options (they can't buy them all, after all! there's this thing they have called a budget). in recent years, we've been consolidating and have put our new designs through a fairly rigorous 'user testing' process to wean out the weaker ideas. we've also started discontinuing some of the older stuff, to make way for the new. less is more, as they say. quality over quantity, you get the idea.

organize: use excel, or whatever scheduling program you'd like. but we felt it was important to print out a calendar sheet and post it onto our fridge so we would know what tasks would need to be completed by the end of the week. this way, things didn't escape our attention, and we didn't end up trying to do 50,000 things a week before show time.

walking the show: we were never able to actually do this, since we were all the way in california, but we did try to walk other glm shows, such as the california gift show and the san francisco show. though much smaller scale, it gave us an idea of what to expect. still, if you have the means, try to walk the nss -- it's a much grander scale, and you can see first hand the level of creativity and the vibe that the show has. walk into booths and talk to the owners directly about their experiences/advice. but make sure they are not busy with buyers first -- just good show etiquette :) also make sure they know you are "considering exhibiting in the future" and would just like to ask them a few questions. if you aren't upfront about this, they may think you're a competing/potential idea/style stealer, because yes-- it happens.

consider a web presence: for us, this was a given. i'm a graphic/web designer and bumble girl is a developer/it business analyst, so we were able to throw this up without much cost to us. in any case, owning a site isn't that expensive -- there are really cheap hosting rates available now. you could probably hire on someone to help you do development or translate your designs onto the web -- i can't speak to much about that since i have no experience hiring freelance workers. in any case, the return on this little investment can be huge. you could have a side income (or primary, for that matter) from an online shop, and not to mention start getting some traffic through blogs or other sites. at the very least, create a blog for your company (it's free) -- and start posting. it's free and cheap marketing/advertising, if you do it right.

read the national stationery show official web page: www.nationalstationeryshow.com

they have information on pricing, examples of what you get for your money,what you need to order (i.e. electricity--what??) booth samples, etc. etc. this will let you know what you will need to do to make the booth space yours -- and mind you, there is a lot to do!

stay tuned for part 2-- were we discuss......the booth!