Many foreign trade professionals know that trade shows can be an effective way to develop foreign trade customers. However, despite the months spent preparing for the exhibition—booking booths, designing displays, preparing promotional materials, training exhibition staff, showcasing products, providing samples, and actively engaging with visitors—the number of inquiries received may not be as ideal as expected, and the costs can be quite high.

So, where did things go wrong? What are the key points to note when developing foreign trade customers through trade shows? Let's explore some considerations for developing foreign trade customers through trade shows:

1. Proactive Outreach and Inviting Customers to the Booth

If exhibition staff simply wait passively at the booth, how can customers come to them? During the trade show, it's essential to actively approach potential customers and invite them to visit the booth. Determining which customers are the key targets and which are less important requires careful consideration. After all, trade show time is limited, and there are many people present.

Prior to the exhibition, market analysis can be conducted using customs data systems to identify countries where there has been recent growth in trade volume for your products and to pinpoint areas of high growth.

For example, by querying "LED lights" in the Tendata customs data system, you can see which countries globally are the main importers of LED lights. These countries' potential foreign trade customers can then be targeted for development. During the invitation process, exhibition staff can ask potential customers which country they are from and focus on highlighting their advantages for markets with high growth potential.

2. Post-Exhibition Customer Review

Active invitation during the trade show can double the amount of customer information obtained. However, some customers may only leave their company name and quickly move on. Are these customers still worth developing? Do they have a demand for your products?

At this point, it's necessary to use customs data systems to query the trade records of these potential foreign trade customers.

Free customs data on the Internet typically does not include company trade records. However, the Tendata customs data system can help you determine whether these potential foreign trade customers are still engaged in foreign trade and whether their purchasing volume meets your requirements.

For example, a company that manufactures printing machines obtains the business card of "ACER AMERICA CORPORATION" at the trade show. During follow-up review, you can find out whether this customer still has a demand for printing machines by directly entering the customer's name into the Tendata customs data system.

As shown in the image, this customer has recent purchase records with other Chinese suppliers within the past week, and the purchasing volume is substantial. Furthermore, through upstream and downstream supply chain analysis, it can be seen that this customer primarily purchases from Chinese suppliers and may even have competing companies as suppliers. Therefore, this customer is a high-quality American buyer and is worth developing. The Tendata customs data system can also provide specific information on the products purchased by the company and the purchase prices, allowing you to develop a strategy for developing foreign trade customers through methods such as emails and social media.

3. Expand the Customer Pool

A trade show typically lasts 2-5 days, and attending a single exhibition may yield hundreds of leads and dozens of inquiries through 1-2 steps. With tens of thousands of dollars invested in the exhibition, how can you achieve the maximum effect? By further expanding the customer pool beyond the leads already obtained!

The Tendata customs data system provides analysis of customer supply chains. By targeting customers' suppliers, we can find their buyers from our competitors and even develop customers from our competitors!

Which customers' purchasing needs and prices match? Through the Tendata customs data system, you can clearly see customers' purchasing volume, purchase time, and purchase prices, allowing you to infer customers' purchasing needs. Based on customers' purchasing needs, you can send targeted development emails to further expand your potential customer pool.

4. Find Potential Customers from Global Buyer Directories

If relying solely on existing resources is insufficient, the Tendata customs data system can quickly and batch-find precise foreign buyers and send development emails in one click.

For example, by entering a four-digit customs code "8471," you can quickly find millions of buyers from the Tendata customs data system. By further adjusting the filtering rules, you can pinpoint buyers from specific countries or buyers with recent trade records.

If you find that mass emailing is not efficient enough, you can find key decision-makers from companies through their contact information and then send targeted development emails to increase the chances of converting customers into inquiries.

People who know current affairs know that customs data plays a very important role in the import and export industry, such as determining the target market, looking for overseas quality customers, avoiding transaction risks and so on are inseparable from customs data.

The following is a detailed description of these cases:

1. Determine The Target Market

When a company wants to sell its products abroad, accurate target market determination is key. The consequences of spending time and energy on developing a country where there is no need or very little demand for one's products can be serious. At this time, you can query the product through Tendata I-Discovery, analyze the import and export situation of the product in different regions of the world, and visually view the growth trend of import and export, so that you can know which countries in the world need the product the most, and then the target market can be basically determined. (>>Click to Get FREE DEMO)

2. Looking For Global Quality Buyers/Suppliers

Here to introduce you to a use of customs data to find foreign customers skills. Take the United States as an example: now use Tendata I-Discovery, in the query goods description at the same time, in the conditions of origin, enter CHINA, you can be exported to the United States of all the transaction records of the goods extracted. And then based on Tendata I-Discovery analysis report, the procurement volume of large U.S. companies extracted, which is a potential high-quality U.S. buyers.(>>Click to Get FREE DEMO)

3. Formulate Production Plan to Avoid Trade Risks

For a production enterprise, the development of its own production plan is related to the future trend of the enterprise for a period of time, Tendata I-Discovery allows you to see the real transaction records of each enterprise, as well as detailed information about the enterprise, to avoid the risk of being cheated in trade.(>>Click to Get FREE DEMO)