Your brand is exhibiting at a trade show and FINALLY, a retail buyer from a major retailer drops by your booth.  You’re excited and nervous. You answer their questions, give them your marketing material and order form and ask for an order. They tell you they’ll have to review your materials, along with all the other booths they have visited, and will contact you if they plan to order.

Awesome! But NOW WHAT? How will you cultivate this buyer relationship? How will you turn this and other leads into future orders? And lots of them....

This week is ABC Kids Expo in Las Vegas. Leading up to this show and remembering my days walking the floor, I have some DO’s and DON’Ts for how to influence retail buyers.  I’ll focus on the DO’s:

• • DO send emails in the 2 to 3 weeks leading up to the show to set up buyer appointments.
  • DO incentivize buyer appointments with “free shipping”, order discounts or other promotions that make sense.
  • DO create a sense of urgency with a deadline.  Nothing threatening.  But a deadline for when to order to receive the promotional discounts or for when to receive inventory to leverage your marketing activity.
  • DO recognize buyers prefer anonymity and can be afraid to approach a booth if it looks empty...