Expo West, Pet Expo, Toy Fair, and the National Hardware Show: What to Know Before You Go to Specialty Trade Shows

Specialty trade shows aren’t just industry events; they’re one of the most direct throughlines to your customers, removing much of the guesswork that typically comes with digital prospecting and outreach. Instead of trying to interpret market signals from a distance, you’re standing in front of the exact buyers who shape your category.

These events concentrate influence in one place by gathering the people who are actively engaged in strategic sourcing, evaluating emerging trends, and in many cases, identifying brands worthy of investment or distribution. While the audience may be niche, it is highly influential, and many attendees are decision-makers prepared to place orders or begin onboarding new vendors.

That opportunity, however, comes with heightened expectations. Selling in today’s market is intense and often exhausting, particularly as supply chain demands continue to accelerate. Buyers aren’t just assessing your product’s appeal; they are evaluating your operational credibility. They want confidence that you can meet demand, comply with requirements, ship accurately, and keep pace with their evolving expectations. In this environment, your product might open the conversation, but execution determines whether you earn the business.

Specialty trade shows like Expo West, Global Pet Expo, NHS, and Toy Fair differ from traditional trade shows by focusing on depth rather than breadth. These types of trade shows focus on niche verticals, with summit-style learning and targeted demonstrations tailored to your industry. The dedicated matchmaking and deal rooms provide opportunities for growth-focused brands to meet directly with investors. The benefit? What would normally take months of business courtship can be condensed into a few days of direct contact.

Specialty Trade Show Planning: Pre-Event Planning Process

If you’re not careful, trade shows can be a vendor-to-vendor echo chamber. To avoid this, there are a few key steps to ensure attending a trade show doesn’t feel like a waste of time for your brand.

To get the best possible return on investment, forward-thinking brands will start the trade show planning process five to six months before the event, slowly promoting and nurturing relationships to ensure the business partners you’re meeting feel their time is well spent. We’ve broken down the critical stages of preparation to help you guarantee operational readiness.

Identify Clear Event Goals and Conduct Research (5–6 Months Out)

Goal setting is one of the most powerful strategic tools, yet it’s commonly ignored by brands prepping for a specialty trade show. A successful trade show relies on a clear, defined, and achievable goal. Is your attendance focused on launching a new product? Gaining a more diverse retailer foothold? Do you want to expand sales into a new segment? Agreeing on a clear goal helps you navigate the how and why behind everything you do at your trade show.

Research is also a key component of prep work before a trade show. Lists of fellow attendees shine a light on key competitors and can open up further opportunities at additional trade shows that might not be on your radar. Trade show organizers often release exhibitor maps once attendance is confirmed, so we recommend reviewing the list early to identify potential clients, partners, or collaborators. The more information you have, the better prepared you will be.

Be an Industry Leader With Digital Foundations and Marketing (3–5 Months Out)

Marketing is a key differentiator for better trade show ROI. It’s important to have a clear and strong digital presence to capitalize on potential connections both before and after the show. It’s helpful to think about your specialty trade show marketing like a movie trailer: You want to intrigue and draw interest so customers will buy a ticket (to visit your booth).

Create a Trade Show Landing Page

This page differs from customer-focused digital marketing in that it’s focused on network marketing, so other attendees, dealers, and decision-makers can find you at the event (here’s an example of a brand’s trade show landing page). It also helps improve the show’s SEO rankings and guides digital traffic to your brand. Make sure website visitors can easily find you, with your booth number clearly marked and a form to capture leads and assist with scheduling meetings at the trade show.

Build a Prospect List to Generate Leads for Your Sales Team

Many trade shows will share a full attendee list with participants, which is a great way to follow up on leads. However, it’s common to release this list after the event, making it challenging to utilize before the event. To capitalize on pre-planning and networking opportunities, you can identify attendees through manual processes that involve LinkedIn searches, event apps, and piecing together clues about who’s attending. It works, but it’s time-intensive and may take days to secure a meaningful number of meetings.

Market Slowly but Surely

Get your social media team involved early, with key stakeholders and decision-makers on board for social strategy. As with all social media, getting the right messaging to the right platform is huge. Trade show social timelines are helpful — beginning with monthly, then weekly, then a few posts the week of. Working with the trade show’s marketing team in tandem can also outline new audience opportunities.

Supply Chain Prep and Operational Readiness (3–5 Months Out)

Brands today need to speak the language that shows modern reliability. Your brand should be able to speak fluently on automation, AI-powered operations, and enterprise resource planning.

Retail buyers expect you to leverage technology and nimbleness to navigate the ever-shifting realities of today’s supply chain, and brands with a diverse supplier base and technological acumen will be prioritized. Make sure operations, logistics, and technology are aware of upcoming order spikes, and your supply chain disruptions are as minimal as possible ahead of the show.

Having the right conversations with retailers you want to court can give you a clearer understanding of how each retailer operates and what they expect from their suppliers. By learning how they want orders submitted, what rules they require, and how they expect products to be fulfilled, your team can start preparing early. This helps align your internal processes before onboarding begins, making it easier to move quickly if an opportunity develops and showing that your brand is ready to grow without avoidable delays later.

Tactical Outreach for Productive Conversations (2–3 Weeks in Advance)

Most trade shows use an event app for communications, like Cvent or Expo Pass. Leveraging the event app is key, as attendee lists and vendor maps are often included. This is a unique way to turn your trade show attendance from haphazard to purposeful.

There are a few ways you can utilize this app to make your trade show attendance impactful:

1. Review the attendee list and send meeting requests to potential business partners, such as short value propositions requesting 10-minute meetups during networking windows. A week or two before the event, follow up with anyone who hasn’t responded yet.
2. Take time to review the app to confirm key educational and speaking events you’d like to attend. Make sure you aren’t accidentally scheduling meetings during important speaking events, so both you and potential buyers are both free. Avoiding small oversights like this is key to maximizing your trade show impact.

How to Maximize Engagement During the Show

When you think of trade show preparation, most people focus on the booth. This is the most common way to maximize attendee engagement.

Your booth setup should spark immediate curiosity among passing attendees. While static displays are functional, there are a few ways to add a little more pizzazz. Product giveaways, a machine in motion, or a product solving a visible problem create a congregation effect.

An effective booth experience is further enhanced by removing physical barriers, such as tables across the front, and placing your most compelling marketing hooks at chest level or higher to catch the eyes of those in the aisles. By engaging proactively, you transform your booth from a passive display into an active, storytelling environment.

Some other successful booth strategies include:

• Giveaways (speakers, stickers, tumblers, culturally relevant knick-knacks or toys)
• Live demo screens (on a large TV screen where potential clients can touch and interact with your product or platform)
• An interactive element like a spinning wheel or physical game

The primary goal of these interactions should be to qualify high-intent buyers rather than just collecting a high volume of generic leads. While the numbers might not look as attractive, the less-but-better approach is good to keep in mind here as specialty shows offer exclusive access to qualified buyers and industry professionals.

Capture buyer requirements and retailer onboarding expectations right away while your product is still fresh in their minds, as this helps move the relationship from discovery to deal faster by building on the trust created at the show.

Ask clear questions about how they place orders and what vendor standards they require so you know your team can meet them. Talk about their fulfillment needs and any future growth they expect in your category. Handling these details early can speed up onboarding and show that your brand is ready to be a well-prepared partner.

The Most Overlooked Step — Post-Trade Show Execution

Post-show execution is the ultimate differentiator between a high-ROI event and a failed investment. While many exhibitors rely on a single follow-up email, the true magic happens in the months following the show. A common failure is the lack of a persistent nurture strategy; most competitors stop reaching out after a few weeks, whereas successful teams maintain engagement for up to a year.

Booth Visitor Lead Prioritization Frameworks

Rather than treating all leads equally, categorize them into an A, B, or C framework within your CRM (customer relationship management tool like HubSpot) to ensure your sales team spends time on the most valuable opportunities:

• A Leads: Immediate, solid leads ready for a conversation or project quote now.
• B Leads: Prospects who have a future need but are not ready to buy today.
• C Leads: Generic scans or “educational” contacts who require long-term brand awareness.

Each bucket of leads should be nurtured differently and require specialized communications.

Follow-up Cadence Best Practices

Persistence is key, as most industrial and CPG leads require one-on-one conversations nurtured over three, six, nine, or even 12 months before a need arises. We recommend following this strategy for your full prospect list, and adjusting your marketing plan as needed, as you recognize a specific partner’s needs or timeline.

Personalize outreach with project-specific questions or relevant case studies instead of generic check-ins

Retail Onboarding and Team Coordination

To move from show-floor interest to real sales, strong teamwork inside your company is essential.

• Prepare for retailer onboarding by writing down their requirements, order methods, and delivery expectations during the show. This helps prevent delays and keeps things moving smoothly later.
• Make sure your sales, operations, and supply chain teams are working together so they are ready to handle new orders as interest turns into real business.
• Use enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to track production and inventory in real time so you can respond quickly to sudden spikes in demand.
• Use the show to connect with manufacturing partners who can support your growth if your own production reaches capacity.

Conclusion

Specialty trade shows serve as powerful growth accelerators for brands that approach them with a holistic strategy, beginning with deep preparation five to six months before the event. True success on the show floor requires a seamless alignment between high-energy sales momentum and the operational scalability needed to fulfill the resulting demand. Brands that prioritize readiness are better positioned to turn initial buyer curiosity into enduring retail success.

Learn how SPS Commerce helps brands onboard retailers faster by establishing a data foundation for item, order, and shipment information that meets complex compliance standards.

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Victoria Branch

Marketing, Marketing Content Team at SPS Commerce

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