While these printers’ initial instinct might be to say these shows bear no relevance whatsoever to their day-to-day existence, so why should they bother attend, they would be wrong.
As Nick Devine, aka The Print Coach, explains: “99% of the people who write out cheques for the products and services a printer sells do not attend print shows. They attend their own industry trade shows.”
Neil Falconer, managing director at Printfuture, agrees. “There’s nothing wrong with printers focusing on product innovation, but they tend to be more focused on selling a particular commodity product rather than selling something that is unique to customers,” he says. “Printers will tell you that they’ve got good at satisfying customer demands and they are to a certain extent. But they’re not focused on being customer centric so they don’t look at ‘what does the customer want?’, they look at ‘what can we sell him?’.”
That’s partly because many printers haven’t taken the time to learn more about their customer’s business and the sector that they work within. As a result they’re missing a trick, says Devine.
“While it’s important to know about the business of printing, it’s more important to know about the business activities your client is engaged in,” he explains. “Business buyers in your target market do not want to talk print, they want to discuss the business challenges they’re grappling with. If you want to help them, you have to have an understanding of their business issues – both the opportunities and problems. It’s difficult to create ‘sales resonance’ with a prospect simply by discussing print. If you want to meet the prospect go where the prospects hang out. I hang out at print shows because that is the market I currently serve.”
The best way to pick which trade shows to attend is of course to look at the business sectors you most commonly serve. But you can also apply more strategic thinking to your decision, according to Falconer.
“Most printers don’t have a plan as to where they’re going in the next two to three years, but if you’re going to get into a new market you have to understand what you’re getting into and what the dynamics of the market are. Then you should start going to one or two conferences and trade shows where you can start to build a network of contacts and get a real understanding of where the opportunity is. You can even potentially start taking a stand at these trade shows when you’ve got something to talk about and you’ve established a foothold.”
This is an approach that BPIF chief executive Kathy Woodward has already seen some forward-thinking firms embrace. “For example, Ryedale took a stand at the National Horticultural Show where they were featuring developments in intelligent packaging and the possible role of printed electronics,” she says.
Strategic approach
For many companies this might be a step too far and they’ll be better served by using trade shows in a strategic way to research existing and future markets, says Devine.
“You need to work out who you want to meet and look for ways to add value because your goal is to serve not to sell,” he explains. “‘Help’ could be anything ranging from a case study that demonstrated how you helped a similar prospect produce a business result to a white paper that provides helpful tips related to how you help clients – ie: five mistakes to avoid when using cross-media, or seven proven ways to make your packaging stand out on a retail shelf. Your goal is not to win a client at a trade show – your goal is to begin a relationship by adding value.”
So don’t just show up with a load of brochures and business cards and hope that this will do the trick. “Trade shows are not necessarily the place for you to be selling your own products so I wouldn’t just rock up with a bag of collateral,” says Woodward. “Equally your customers are focused on selling to their customers so you have to be pretty sensitive as to how you handle your presence with your current customers. Unless you have a strong relationship and they see the advantages in you having a multi-customer presence, some will get nervous if they think there is a threat to their market edge.”
She sees the trade show opportunity as being two-fold. “One is to sit in on presentations. What is the language being used and what is the direction of travel for the specialists – what are seen as the hot areas and what insights would they like? Secondly, there is an opportunity to engage with customers on the stands when they aren’t busy. Pick what you think is the best piece of their collateral and ask them if it works for them and what they would do differently. And then give them the normal buying information: who, why, what and how much? Do they link it into other media campaigns, etc? And remember the stands on the fringes can have as much future potential as the big stand holders.”
Ultimately the key to making these shows work is having these types of conversations with customers to get a real feel for what they want and what will make a difference to their bottom line, says Falconer.
“In the past printers simply haven’t had the discipline to do the hard work and hold the right sorts of conversations with their customers,” he explains. “This is something that we bang on about all the time because if you don’t know your customers and their businesses intimately then you won’t have a hope in hell of selling more complex products like cross-media effectively.”
Key UK business sectors - the state of the nation
Automotive
The UK automotive industry is booming at the moment. If you need further evidence just look at the numbers. Over 1.5m vehicles are currently produced in the UK each year, with car manufacturing volumes on course to break all-time records by 2017 (source: SMMT). The growth of the industry has spawned a booming supply chain with around 2,350 UK companies regarding themselves as automotive suppliers, employing around 82,000 people. As 80% of production is for export, even if UK car sales begin to slow down over the next couple of years, the industry has a strong future serving the rapidly growing middle classes in the emerging markets.
Creative industries
Encompassing advertising and design agencies, through to television, film, music and video game developers, the nation’s creative industries accounted for 1.68m jobs in 2012, which equates to 5.6% of the total number of jobs in the UK. Between 2011-2012, the number of people employed by the creative industries grew by 8.6%, according to figures from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and this is anticipated to grow further in the future. Approximately 8% (£15.5bn) of total UK exports in 2011 were from the creative industries, with more than 60% of productivity during the period 2000-2009 driven by innovation from businesses in the creative industries.
Financial services
Love it or hate it, the financial services sector is a valuable contributor to the UK economy. There are more than 2m people employed by professional and financial services companies in the UK, with the industry having a gross added value to the nation’s economy of £195bn (source: TheCityUK). Banking, management consultancies, legal firms and accountancy groups are the most dominant businesses, and although the industry has received a bad rap of late, thanks to the part that some members played in the global financial crisis, it’s expected to enjoy significant growth in the coming years with PWC forecasting that a “sustainable and well-functioning” financial services sector could create an extra £62bn across the UK by 2020.
FMCG
The UK’s fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) groups face a mixed outlook at present. Although a number of manufacturers are seeing strong growth, some FMCG companies are still feeling the pinch as the squeeze on consumer spending continues, despite the brightening economic outlook. The one sector performing particularly well at the moment is food and drink – especially on the exports front. According to the Food and Drink Federation, exports of UK food and drink grew by 5% to £12.8bn in 2013, with exports to non-EU markets up 11.5% compared with 3% growth to EU markets. This trend is forecast to continue going forward, with UK products proving increasingly popular in some of the emerging markets.
Leisure
The leisure sector is as vulnerable to an economic downturn as any other industry, with consumers cutting down on treats as they tighten their purse strings. So with the recovery already in full swing it’s anticipated that there could be some boom times ahead for UK leisure companies. The industry already generates more than £200bn worth of revenue per year and supports more than 2.6m jobs (source: Business in Sport and Leisure). It also boasts a large number of SMEs (they account for 66% of the industry) and a strong business start-up rate that is 20% higher than the UK average.
Retail
Few businesses have suffered more from the economic downturn than high-street retailers, with a number of household names disappearing from the nation’s high streets over the past seven or so years. On the flipside, few have benefited as much from the economic recovery, with the latest Office for National Statistics figures for the three months to April this year showing that retail sales grew by 5% compared to a year earlier – the fastest volume growth rate seen since 2004. Real income growth coupled with rising confidence on the back of increased housing wealth is responsible for this recent boom, with department store sales via the internet and internet food sales posting particularly strong numbers. Internet sales are expected to be a strong growth area for retailers in the future.
Property and construction
The UK is currently in the midst of a property boom with house prices soaring through the roof as it were. It’s a trend replicated in the property and construction industry, with housing construction growing for the 15th straight month running to April this year, according to the Markit/CIPS construction PMI – the longest period of continuous growth since 2006-7. The broader construction sector grew for the 12th consecutive month in a row in April, with ONS figures released in April showing the number of job vacancies in the sector growing to 20,000 in the first quarter of 2014. The only potential fly in the ointment for the sector is that some experts fear house prices are getting out of control, and are unsustainable, and could potentially lead to a market crash.
Utilities
Power and utilities companies have never had it so tough, with significant investment needed to ensure the industry’s infrastructure is capable of meeting growing consumer demand as well as complying with environmental legislation. But these factors haven’t stopped companies in these industries making enormous profits, with the energy industry alone making a total direct contribution of £20.6bn to the UK’s GDP in 2011. The number of people directly and indirectly employed in the energy sector currently stands at more than 600,000, which is expected to increase going forward as the industry invests significantly in its workforce to make the necessary infrastructure changes.
Tourism
Visitors to the UK spend around £20bn a year, and when combined with domestic tourism this figure grows to around £127bn per annum, according to VisitBritain. Crucially, over the recessionary period the tourism industry has continued to grow, with tourism the fastest growing sector in employment terms in the UK over the last few years. Going forward this growth is expected to continue, with Britain boasting a tourism industry worth more than £257bn by 2025 – just under 10% of UK GDP – and supporting almost 3.8m jobs – around 11% of the total UK number.
TRADE SHOW DIARY
Retail Week Live
Date March (2015 dates TBC)
Location Central London
This conference takes the form of a series of seminars, which attract some of the best speakers and leaders from the retail sector. It also offers plenty of good networking opportunities.
Motorexpo
Date June (2015 dates TBC)
Location Canary Wharf, London
www.motorexpo.com/london-motorexpo
This free show takes over London’s business district with exhibitors showing their wares both inside the exhibition space and out on the streets. The world’s leading car manufacturers attend the show, which draws in excess of 425,000 visitors.
Marketing Week Live
Date June (2015 dates TBC)
Location Olympia, London
Marketing Week Live is a must attend event for members of the UK creative industry. In addition to a range of high-profile keynote speakers, it offers seminars covering issues like digital marketing training and branded and promotional products.
Speciality Fine Food Fair
Date 7-9 September, 2016
Location Olympia, London
www.specialityandfinefoodfairs.co.uk
The Food & Drink Expo is the UK’s leading trade event for food and drink producers, but the next show isn’t scheduled to take place until 2016. The Speciality & Fine Food Fair, which is now in its 15th year, attracts 11,700 leading retailers, caterers, hoteliers, restaurateurs, chefs, farm shops and deli owners.
Financial Services Expo
Date 24-25 September
Location Old Billingsgate, London
www.financialservicesexpo.co.uk
The Financial Services Expo has been designed as a “modern-day event for the modern-day finance professional”. The expo is attended by high-street lenders and more than 60 industry exhibitors.
Leisure Industry Week
Date 30 September–2 October
Location NEC, Birmingham
More than 7,000 professionals from gyms, health clubs, hotels, spas, leisure centres, local authorities, theme parks and play centres, attend to meet with new and existing suppliers, attend the seminar programme and network with industry colleagues.
World Travel Market
Date 3-6 November
Location ExceL, London
With more than 50,000 travel trade attendees, the World Travel Market is one of the largest B2B events for the global travel industry, and attracts an impressive number of international and UK exhibitors.
European Utility Week
Date 4-6 November
Location Amsterdam
Europe’s largest and most comprehensive smart energy event, Utility Week covers all major issues affecting the energy sector and attracts more than 10,000 attendees.
MAPIC
Date 19-21 November
Location Cannes, France
MAPIC is the key European meeting point for retailers looking for partners, and property developers and owners looking for retailers to enhance their property sites. It attracts more than 8,000 attendees including just shy of 2,500 retailers from 67 countries. MAPIC has a sister show, MIPIM, which takes place in March each year, also in Cannes.
