Three Things You’ll Wish You Did for IMTS 2026
The halfway point between IMTS 2024 and IMTS 2026 is approaching fast. Scary, right?
IMTS 2026 will be my 14th show (15 if you count IMTS Spark in 2020). I worked at exhibiting manufacturers for the first four shows, and in 2005, I founded a B2B marketing agency to help companies of all sizes get the most out of their IMTS investments. From 10’ x 20’ exhibits in the back of the hall to front row machine tool builders, Ivor Andrew has worked with them all.
While IMTS has evolved considerably over the years, one truth remains constant: exhibitors who prepare thoroughly are the ones who achieve the greatest ROI.
A year from now, you'll be immersed in tactical decisions, from booth graphics to hospitality events and pre-show marketing. That's precisely why now is the crucial time to concentrate on three key areas you'll be grateful you addressed when the show concludes next September.
Thing One: Set the Table with Brand Positioning
IMTS 2024 featured 1,737 exhibitors. Chances are several were your direct competitors.
One thing has always surprised me about IMTS. Exhibitors spend thousands of hours developing their products and hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on IMTS, yet many seemingly take little time to consider how they are truly perceived in the marketplace compared to the competitive set.
The cliché taglines make it easy to spot the exhibitors that have spent zero time on their brand positioning. You offer “innovative solutions?” So do three other exhibits in your hall. You want to be my “technology partner?” Get in line, my friend.
But brand positioning goes way beyond taglines. It’s an integrated strategy to get in front of prospects and tell them who you are and why you matter to them. This legwork has a way of making the sales team’s job easier. But to do this, you first have to:
Understand who you are
Be able to easily communicate this in a way that resonates with customers
Build a comprehensive plan that reinforces your position across all touchpoints
You may ask: why should I start now? Isn't a big trade show like IMTS the best place to launch new brand positioning and messaging?
Here’s why now is the time:
There’s too much going on at IMTS. With close to 2,000 exhibitors and millions of marketing dollars focused on the show, it’s more challenging to get a completely new message seen and remembered at the show.
It takes time to craft a compelling brand positioning strategy that’s also interesting and relevant to your customers. Good brand positioning doesn’t happen in a 60-minute brain dump with your team in front of a white board. It takes months. And it’s impossible to read the label from inside the jar, so to do this effectively, you’ll need to find an external partner that knows their way around brand development and, preferably, the machine tool industry. (In case you missed it, this is a not-so-subtle plug for Ivor Andrew’s brand audit and brand building expertise)
A year from now, you’ll be swamped with the minutiae of exhibiting at IMTS. That’s not the right time to be working through the nuances of updating your brand positioning.
You want leads and sales at the show, and repetition is key to getting a brand message to sink in with customers. Launching targeted brand positioning 9 to 12 months in advance of IMTS will drive brand awareness, booth traffic and revenue at the show and beyond.
One of the key benefits we see at Ivor Andrew from updated brand positioning done right: it supercharges your staff. And who doesn’t want to go into IMTS with an amped up staff ready to kick ass?
Thing Two: Invite the Guests with your Demand Generation Strategy
Getting on the short lists of IMTS attendees is key to a successful show. A solid demand generation strategy will take you there.
A quick primer: demand generation is an inbound marketing strategy that encompasses the entire range of marketing and sales initiatives that fuel the buyer’s journey, from initial awareness of a product to making the final purchase (and, in some cases, beyond).
Essentially, we’re filling up the pipeline with solid opportunities for the sales team. A smart demand generation strategy leading up to IMTS will help to guarantee a full booth and more selling opportunities throughout the show.
Chances are your company is already good at some demand generation tactics. Perhaps you’ve got a solid book of compelling customer testimonials. Or you’ve got a hired gun that’s put together a paid advertising program that’s driving website traffic. Or some video content from HQ that gets lots of views on YouTube.
But if you’re like most IMTS exhibitors, your overall demand generation strategy could use a review. It’s the perfect time to pop the hood and see what’s working well—and what can be improved. Here are four key questions to get you started.
How well do you know your target audiences?
Defining buyer personas is an essential first step for a successful customer-centric marketing strategy. Too much industrial marketing suffers from focusing on the seller’s viewpoint rather than the buyer’s, and missteps here impact everything down the road.
What do your customers care about?
Understanding what customers want and need at different stages of the buying process is critical to creating successful marketing tactics and lead nurturing campaigns. What works at the top of the funnel (when a customer is just becoming aware of your product) isn’t going to be as useful when they’re in the buying stage (when they need more content to be convinced that you are the right choice for them).
Where does the sales team and distribution network fit in?
Most IMTS exhibitors sell products through a dealer or integrator network that is involved at different stages of the funnel. These distributors are rarely the introductory point to a new brand, but they’re more likely to be involved at the further stages in the funnel. The goal is to create a seamless path to purchase, so it’s critical to coordinate demand gen initiatives with marketing, sales and distribution.
How is success measured and defined?
Certain KPIs, such as Cost Per Acquisition (CPA), can be difficult to measure for complex products with long buying cycles that are sold through a distribution network. But just because certain metrics are challenging to measure doesn’t mean that other KPIs should be ignored. Define what’s important, and get on board with an analytics platform like Databox to share what’s important across your organization.
Rebuilding or fine-tuning a demand generation program can be challenging, but you don’t have to go it alone. It does take time, so now’s the time to get started to make sure you’ve got a solid plan in place to maximize your booth traffic at IMTS 2026.
Thing Three: Seal the Deals with Sales Enablement Tools
It’s 2025. Sales doesn’t happen like it used to.
If you’re effectively using a sales enablement tool like ShowPad, Seismic, or Highspot, feel free to skip this portion of the article. But If you’re using a homebrew intranet, Google Docs or something that you know in your gut doesn’t work, it’s time for an upgrade. The effectiveness of your sales staff and distribution network depends on it.
For organizations that sell complex products through a distribution network (read: most of the exhibitors at IMTS), sales enablement tools are a mission critical system. They are more than just a hub for information; they allow you to organize and deliver sales content to prospects at exactly the right time during the sales process. They help you to train new salespeople and inform existing team members, helping everyone to sing from the same songbook.
One of our large machine tool clients was previously using a custom iPad application to share content with their sales and distributor teams. It was expensive, clunky and, unfortunately, quickly outdated within months of launch. When they asked us to develop a new iPad app, we took a different approach. We reviewed multiple off-the-shelf sales enablement tools, eventually choosing ShowPad for their needs.
Their salespeople are now able to access hundreds of brochures, product videos, technical data and inventory lists in the field while with customers. Machine quotations are shared through ShowPad, providing actionable intelligence back to our client every time quotations are opened or forwarded. The tool even tells you the specific pages of the PDF where customers are spending their time. We’ve used coaching tools to help bolster sales team knowledge and performance.
This client has now used ShowPad for years, including at multiple IMTS shows. What works so well in the field is even more successful on the show floor. Their teams are more informed than the competition, leading to better outcomes.
If you’re looking to get more sales at IMTS and in the months following, now is the time to start evaluating sales enablement tools. It can take weeks to select the right tool, months to configure and populate and months more to get distributors trained. Sales enablement tools are easy to use, but the last thing you want is your salespeople familiarizing themselves with it for the first time on the show floor.
We’ve had great success with ShowPad for multiple manufacturing clients. Their powerful suite of tools and easy integration with CRMs and other platforms makes them high on our list for a range of clients. We’ve implemented it so often that we’re now an official solution partner of theirs.
But ultimately, we’re platform-agnostic. Our only mandate: your team deserves something that makes the job easier. Sales enablement tools cost money, and they take time to stand up. But the complaint we hear most often is the old cliché: “Why didn’t I do this sooner?”
Don’t make the same mistake. Ivor Andrew is ready to help you like we’ve helped other successful IMTS exhibitors in the past. For brand positioning, demand generation, sales enablement and plenty more, take the next step immediately. No time to lose!