Showcase or Click: The Trade Show and Digital Media Dilemma

Showcase or Click: The Trade Show and Digital Media Dilemma

American craft Made Baltimore 2025 had a successful closure on 2/23. There were nearly 400 accomplished artists and makers, and more than 10,000 dedicated collectors and visitors during the 3-day event. It was very impressive to see such big traffic in 2025 when many shops are experiencing shut-down and little-to-no traffic. Tradeshows are one of the most effective ways to drive brand awareness, engage customers, and enable direct communications between artists and collectors. The questions came to my mind - are tradeshows still as effective as 20 years ago? Is the traffic comparable to how it was before pandemic? With customers more leaning to online shopping for its convenience and variety, are entrepreneurs/artists/makers gaining enough profit? Is the trip worth it? 

Problem Statement

Market demand:

Source: Google Trend

  • Jewelry demand over the last 5 years saw no decline in the US.
  • The demand for handmade crafts is less than 5% of the total jewelry demand

The market and demand are there, but the artists and makers see decline of traffic, purchases, and revenue, making it harder to keep the business grow while driving innovation. 

Customer Demographics

  • Age: most people at ACC are between 50 to 70 years old. The collector & visitor group is aging, because most of the Gen Z and Millennials, around 45-50% of the US population prefer to shop online. 

Customer purchase behavior

  • E-commerce has a growth rate of 14.2% year over year from 2019 to 2024 in US. 
  • Brick-and-mortar stores observes slower growth but continue to play a crucial role for retail ecosystem, while giving customers an immediate and interactive shopping experience. 

Profitability

  • With slower traffic at ACC, artists experience a smaller profitability. Some experienced a 50% less of revenue after pandemic. Some even expressed that they could not earn back the investment for the event, travel, and hotels.
  • With the increase of raw materials, some artists shy away from wholesales to make up for the margins. 

Recommended Approaches

Omnichannel Sales Strategy - use the growth of digital presence to drive qualitative and quantitative traffic to the tradeshows or physical stores.

Definition

  • A sales approach that enables customers a seamless experience through online, in-store, mobile, and etc. 

Business impact

  • Use tradeshows and brick-and-mortar stores as a venue to strengthen brand credibility and authenticity in the local region.
  • Leverage online presence to drive traffic and sales to in-store and tradeshows while establishing digital brand credibility. Remember, 70% of the customers will check your online store and social prior to making their visit to your physical store / trade shows.

Enhancement of digital presence - offer the opportunities to the right people to find you, appreciate your arts and crafts through organic content and digital ads. 

Digital channels 

  • Social media: pick one to two social media as the main platform(s). Post and run ads using best practices.
  • Branded website: create or enhance the website with customers in mind. Additionally, remember that the website is also made to be resurfaced in the search results. Strategies and techniques should be adopted for SEO and performance optimization. Google ads are recommended under certain conditions. Connect with me to know more! 
  • Email Marketing: the best approach to cultivate customer relationship while driving conversion with existing customers.

Business Impact

  • Drive qualitative and quantitative traffic from your digital channels to tradeshows or your physical stores. Image in a world where people come to the show just for YOU and YOUR BRAND.
  • Increase customer acquisition through social and website. At ACC, there were 10,000 visitors. In digital world, you can virtually connect with 90% of the entire population. We are talking about BILLIONS. 
  • Drive sales and brand loyalty through nourished customer relationship and referrals both in-store and through digital channels. This enables the customer acquisition and engagement across different age groups.

Conclusions

  • Modern tradeshows are losing its charm due to the change of customer purchase behavior. The most effective way for small businesses to drive sales is adopting omnichannel sales & marketing strategies to increase customer demographic coverages and enable different shopping experiences.
  • Tradeshows are effective to give immediate shopping experiences. For an enhanced experience, leverage digital presence and digital ads to drive more qualitative and quantitative traffic to the tradeshows. Let your customers find you! 
  • E-commerce is growing exponentially. Failure to adopt the new sales channels is saying no to money and saying no to growth. 
Back to blog