Using trade fairs in key account management

Trade fairs play an important role in marketing. In many cases, exhibitors view trade fairs as an opportunity for transactional selling, and thus may overlook opportunities that exist for initiating and building relationships with key accounts. This paper maps exhibitors' and visitors' exhibition objectives against key account management (KAM) activities, and in particular examines the role trade fairs can have in solving specific problems that arise at different stages in the development of the relationship between firms in a dyadic KAM scenario. Drawing on research conducted in the UK, US and Greece, the author concludes that trade fairs should occupy a pivotal position in KAM, but the evidence is that exhibitors are not taking full advantage of this opportunity. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.