According to show presenters, the Tools & Equipment section of the 2009 SEMA Show in Las Vegas was the biggest yet. “The Tools & Equipment section is always one of the most popular at the show,” Dan Hobgood, SEMA senior director of marketing, said.
“It highlights products that make mechanical life a little easier for the installer, fabricator, builder and garage enthusiast,” Hobgood said. “Including, shop and testing equipment, lathes, grinders, hand tools, air conditioning, lifts, jacks, power tools, engine-building equipment, dynos, wheel mounting/balancing and alignment systems, hoists, lifts, and containers.”
SEMA used a new digital tracking method at the New Products Showcase, allowing buyers to scan product barcodes and receive product details via printout or e-mail. Products most popular with buyers and attendees ran the gamut from bending pliers to portable TIG welders.
Manufacturers entered 95 new products in the Best New Tools & Equipment category, and buyers made more than 1,600 scans requesting additional product information. Retailers logged more than 9,400 scans; warehouse distributors, 3,900; repair/service/installers, 3,900; and builders/fabricators, 3,500.
Hobgood said the larger Tools & Equipment section was in response to information gathered when buyers pre-registered for the 2008 SEMA Show. In all, 31,917 domestic and 10,786 international buyers expressed interest in tool and equipment products; more than 7,603 attendees expressed interest in those products; and more than 18,806 attendees swiped badges at those specific exhibitor booths.
On the marketing front, SEMA employed highly targeted methods to attract tool and equipment product buyers to this year’s SEMA Show. “The extensive, multi-channel marketing targeted not only past attendees, but also fresh new prospects that have never attended the SEMA Show,” Hobgood said.
“Number one on any buyer’s list of goals for the SEMA Show is to see new products,” Hobgood said. “Our targeted, e-mail and direct mail to buyers emphasized all the new products they’d see at the show, many of which are conveniently located in the New Products Showcase.”
Hobgood said the mailings also included tool and equipment industry information, exhibitors that had already signed up and education sessions that keyed in on that buyer group’s interests.
