استفاده از نمایشگاه های تجاری در مدیریت حساب های کلیدی

Trade fairs play an important role in marketing. In many cases, exhibitors view trade fairs as an opportunity for transactional selling, and thus may overlook opportunities that exist for initiating and building relationships with key accounts. This paper maps exhibitors' and visitors' exhibition objectives against key account management (KAM) activities, and in particular examines the role trade fairs can have in solving specific problems that arise at different stages in the development of the relationship between firms in a dyadic KAM scenario. Drawing on research conducted in the UK, US and Greece, the author concludes that trade fairs should occupy a pivotal position in KAM, but the evidence is that exhibitors are not taking full advantage of this opportunity.

Trade fairs occupy an important place in marketing expenditure, especially for small and medium enterprises. The exact role trade fairs occupy in the marketing mix is open to debate, and many exhibitors appear not to know what the most appropriate role is for their exhibiting activities [1]. Perhaps, more importantly, exhibitors are often unable to say whether the show has worked at all [2] and [3]. Aims for exhibiting can be divided broadly into selling and nonselling activities [4], [5] and [6]. Selling activities include lead generation, closing sales, finding new customers, qualifying leads and prospecting. Exhibitors very commonly cite these activities as their main reason for attending trade fairs [7]. Nonselling activities are broadly categorized as meeting existing customers, enhancing the image of the company, carrying out general market research, meeting new distributors or agents, launching new products and even enhancing staff morale. Most exhibitors do not rate these aims highly, with the exception of enhancing the company's image [8]. Yet, in many cases, these aims are exactly those that support a key account management (KAM) situation. Trade fairs spread across most, or all, of the elements of the marketing mix, and contribute to each one. Trade fairs are seen as a tactical technique for achieving or helping to achieve specific marketing aims. In most cases, these aims are concerned with communication, since contact with potential buyers is reportedly an important motivation for exhibitors, and obtaining up-to-date information is an important motivation for visitors [9]. Different types of problems will be dominant at each stage of development of a key account relationship. The KAM/PPF model [10] links these stages of development to the prevailing problem type, offering a way to predict the parameters of the relationship between firms. The purpose of this paper is to link research on visitors' and exhibitors' behavior at exhibitions and trade fairs with the KAM/PPF model of KAM. The research is based on a survey of exhibitors at two trade fairs, and on a survey of visitors and exhibitors at a further trade fair. Comparisons are also drawn with two other surveys of visitors at trade fairs in the UK and in Spain.

Trade fairs are used in many ways, and the evidence is that most marketing activities are connected to trade fairs. For key account managers, trade fairs offer three main opportunities: 1. First contact at the pre-KAM or even early KAM stage; 2. Building partnerships and establishing a common culture at the mid KAM and partnership KAM stages; and 3. Offering an opportunity for a shared voice at the synergistic KAM stage. The first contact is far more likely to be with a technical person or an administrator than with a buyer or decision-maker, which means that the key account manager needs to use these people as product champions in order to enter the prospective customer's firm. Given that technical people are at the trade fair for the purpose of finding out what is new in the field, exhibitors might be well advised to put some of their own technical people on the stand in order to explore possible synergies. Trade fairs offer a useful venue for building partnerships. In the early KAM stage, where the prevailing strategy is concerned with building networks, the trade fair offers a neutral territory on which people who would not normally have the chance to meet are able to network with the exhibiting firm. For the exhibitor, the key strategy here is to ensure that the partner firm's technical, administrative and marketing people are specifically invited to the stand, possibly with the objective of meeting their opposite numbers. Interaction between these individuals is likely to encourage the identification of problems, the finding of creative solutions and a closer relationship between the organizations. However, the research indicates that many technical people's needs are not being met—the opportunity to discuss specific problems, which is a common reason for visiting the exhibition, is unavailable because the exhibiting firms tend to concentrate mainly on selling activities. At the synergistic KAM stage, firms develop strategic congruence. At this point, trade fairs provide the opportunity to share a voice. This is, of course, true of other communications media, but trade fairs allow congruence across a broader spectrum of activities than most because of the interactive nature of the medium. For example, trade fairs can be used for concept testing of new products, allowing the partners to obtain quick feedback on the market viability of the product. Trade fairs frequently do not work for firms. In most cases, this is because exhibitors have not thought through their strategies clearly enough, have not set objectives and have not evaluated the success, or otherwise, of the exhibition [1]. Using trade fairs effectively as a tool in KAM means understanding the visitors and how trade fairs work. As in any other area of marketing, the key issue is to meet the needs of those visitors effectively in order to facilitate exchange. Using the courtship analogy, the exhibition hall is the business equivalent of the dance hall. It is a place for chance encounters that may lead to romance, or it is a place to go to on a date. Whether chance or prearranged, the key account manager can only make the best of the event by setting objectives and being clear about achieving them.