Episode #77: Get In Front Of 12,000 Buyers With This Year-Round Toy Trade Show
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If the expense of returning to in-person toy trade shows has you a little worried, then there’s a year-round toy trade show platform that you need to know about. In today’s episode we take a behind the scenes look at Toy Fair Everywhere, a year-round, 24/7 virtual trade show that is changing the way the toy entrepreneurs and buyers connect and do business.
The platform functions as a product discovery tool for buyers and a wholesale ecommerce site for sellers. You can make, nurture, and grow new connections inside the platform, and make your entire product catalog available to only those who you are serious vetted buyers.
What once started as a virtual stand in for New York toy fair during the height of the COVI-19 pandemic, is now a mainstay in the toy industry. This tool will allow you to continue conversations that may start at in-person events, and turn leads into sales. Listen in to today’s episode to learn exactly how this platform works and why it may be ideal for your toy business.
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To learn more about the Toy Fair Everywhere Platform visit: www.toyfaireverywhere.info
To view the list of the buyers on Toy Fair Everywhere platform visit:
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Azhelle W: [00:00:00] you are listening to making it in the toy industry. Episode number 77.
Well, Hey there toy people, Azhelle Wade here, and welcome back to another episode of the toy coach podcast, making it in the toy industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by thetoycoach.com Today, I'm going to share with you a behind the scenes. Look at a year round 24 7 trade show that is changing the way that toy entrepreneurs and buyers.
Connect and do business year round. This trade show platform that we're going to talk about today is a virtual one. And with in-person trade shows coming back, I thought it was important to share virtual alternatives that could keep your toy business growing. Even if you don't have the time or resources to attend all of the upcoming in-person shows that are starting to resume. So for today's episode, I'm going to share with you the new year round 24 7 trade show platform that you need to know about. We'll get a little bit into the history of where it started and when then we'll get into the really good stuff and go behind the scenes into how the platform works. Now, if you are a member of the podcast, Insider's club.
Then you were going to be able to access a screen recording of my backend of this platform as well. If you want or not a member? Stop. What you're doing right now? Head over to club dot the toy coach.com to join the podcast insiders club. Okay, let's get started. Now just yesterday, the governor of my home state, New York lifted all of the COVID restrictions put upon the state. Now, whatever your position is on the vaccine or the restrictions. The fact is that many states here in the us are making a big step toward moving on. And for us in the toy industry, this means something big is returning and that's in-person toy trade shows. And while the return of in-person shows is exciting. It can also be scary because these in-person shows are a big investment for new toy entrepreneurs to make one that you simply may not be financially ready to take on.
Aside from renting the space at a specific in-person show, you've got to worry about travel, lodging, shipping, and then deal making to cover the cost of all of those things. Now, when we were forced into a virtual world last year, many virtual platforms emerged within the toy industry, but the very first platform that I saw announced was.
Toy fair everywhere. Launched by the toy association in partnership with ballun.com now this new digital platform launched with a series of digital market weeks, creating a virtual space for buyers and toy companies to connect and plan for Q4. At first, the program included live and recorded events as well as virtual showrooms for exhibitors.
And the goal of toy for everywhere his platform was to replace the toy shows that had been canceled due to COVID 19 exhibitors and attendees could explore a calendar of events, book appointments with one another for virtual demonstrations or just meetings to dive in and drive new business. I got this great quote from Kimberley Carson who said. We were able with this technology to provide that continuity and allow people to keep on selling while it might've felt that we appeared with his magic solution, we've actually been at it for a long time.
So that is where the toy for everywhere. Virtual platform sat in 2020. The toy association was the first that I saw to offer a virtual solution to toy trade shows and kicked it off with four virtual market weeks where toy companies and buyers would pop in connect for a short time and pop off.
However today, the toy fair everywhere platform is now a year round 24 7 service. So I sat down. So I sat down with Tim Knock, Marianne Bossard, Kim Carson, and Jackie R. of the toy association to dive in and get a behind the scenes tour of this new platform.
That platform has now transitioned from market weeks to a year round B2B platform that functions as not only a product. Discovery site for buyers, but also functions as a wholesale e-commerce site. Yup. That's right. A buyer can now discover and purchase your toy product right here on this site, this platform, and the beauty of it is that it's available 24 7. Now I often reiterate this old marketing mantra that you need to know your ideal target market, your ITM.
You need to know what they want to say. And most importantly, when they want to see it. So the beauty of this platform is it's giving buyers the control of looking for product when they want to see it when they need it, whether it's outside of normal buying cycles or not. Okay. Next let's dive in to who this platform is designed for and how you can gain access.
The toy for everywhere platform is currently open for toy companies who are the sellers on the platform and for toy buyers and sales reps. When you sign up for this platform, you'll notice the vetting process is much like in-person events put on by the toy association. And this vetting process is important to the members of the toy ssociation because it gives confidence to all of the toy companies who actually register, pay for this platform that this platform will be filled with valuable contacts and buyers who are actively seeking out product for their stores.
On the toy for everywhere platform there are 12 to 13,000 buyers spanning across 65 countries that you have the ability to get in front of immediately when you sign up.
But buyers, aren't the only ones getting vetted here. Toy companies and their products are getting vetted as well. Checking that your product meets product safety standards is actually a part of the application process, which gives buyers and distributors the confidence to know that they're seeing high quality product when they sign on to this platform. Let's talk about the signup process now to sign up, head over to toy fair, everywhere.info and hit the register button at the top. Right. Then you hit register now and you'll need to fill out your company information. That includes company type which is, are you a buyer or seller trade guests, your email, your company, name, your name, then you hit submit request. Now within one to two days, you'll be reached out to, by a member of the toy association to finish getting your account set up. Now, here is what to expect. Once your account is set up. I really want to walk you through what you can expect to see on the homepage of the site and point out a few key features that will help you make the most of the platform, whether you're a new toy company or an experienced larger toy company.
Now the homepage of the toy fair everywhere website. Once you're logged in, opens with a banner. That banner space, typically advertises toy association awards or events, but you can actually pay for some ad space to advertise here. Now, scroll down a bit and you'll actually get to the toy fair everywhere community feed.
And in my opinion, this is the most powerful section of the homepage. So I had to bring it up on the show today. So the community feed updates, similarly to a social media feed, you can add posts to it, but it also updates depending on the activity that is happening on the site.
So activity that posts here automatically will be things like when a seller ads, new product, or when a buyer joins the site or when a buyer or a seller updates their profile description. All of that activity appears on the community feed depending on your privacy settings and is actually logged in that community feed, which means that you can actually scroll through the community feed and see past activity.
Now let's talk about like, why you would want to do that. What is the benefit of this community feed? Well, the benefit is twofold. One, you can use it as a discovery tool to identify buyers who have joined the platform or have updated their profile information. Once they show up in that community feed, you can then click over to their profile and try to connect with them, set up a meeting, or send them a message.
The second way to use the community feed is as a marketing tool to promote your own product.
As I said, when a new product is added, it will populate here. So if you strategically add new products to your profile every week, or every couple of days, you can keep your product and your brand at the top of the community feed to be seen by buyers. Now I know what you're thinking. Hold on Azhelle. I don't want everybody, every other seller at toy fair, everywhere to see my product.
I know that's why we're going to get right into privacy.
As a seller on toy for everywhere. You can control the level of privacy that your profile has and control who your showroom is actually available to and how much they can see. There are two levels of privacy on the platform.
And those two levels are described as community and connections only. Now, if you set your privacy level to community, that means that anyone not connected with you, but that is a member of the toy fair everywhere site can see whatever you've selected to set as community level privacy. Now, if you set something to connections, only privacy, that means that somebody actually has to be connected to you and to be connected to someone that means you would have had to send them a message to connect and they would have to accept, or they would have to send you a message to connect and you would have to accept. So connections only is the best way to really control who is seeing the product that you're putting up.
Those are the two levels of privacy on the platform, but there are actually three different areas that you can apply those levels of privacy. So there are three different kind of privacy settings that you can apply those different levels too. So the three settings are, you can choose who can view your products. You can choose who can view your pricing and you can choose who can order your product. So you can set a different privacy level for all of those different options. You could say that you want the community to be able to view your products, but you only want your connections to be able to view your pricing.
And you only want your connections to be able to order your products. So each of those different privacy settings can be set at individual levels. Now, the next question becomes, how do I actually connect with buyers? How do I connect and find leads on the platform? Well, when you are in logged into toy for everywhere, you are going to see a leads tab at the very top.
And this is where all of your leads will be stored. There are actually five different ways. To gather leads through the platform. So we're going to go through all five of those ways now because they are extensive and there is a difference between having a connection versus having a lead.
Okay. So the very first way that you can build onto your. Leads tab inside of the platform is with sales match. Now sales matches a really cool feature of toy fair everywhere based on the parameters that you actually input. When you first set up your profile in your showroom, the platform is actually going to give you one lead per day.
And this is a great opportunity for companies to hone in on the specific set categories of product that they sell. So they can match with the right buyers that are really interested in seeing products from those categories. So the first way your leads tab is going to get populated is through the sales match feature, which is a benefit of the toy fair everywhere site.
Now the second way that you can populate this leads tab and get more leads. Is if you import a customer list. So that means you have a CSV file, essentially, an Excel file of customer leads that you already use. And you import those into the platform that is going to fill your leads tab. Now the third way to fill your leads tab is through that community feed that I mentioned earlier now, I said, it's really powerful.
And here's another way that it is. So if somebody views your profile, Or use your showroom from the community feed. They're automatically going to pop up into your leads tab. This happens so that you can continue the conversation with somebody who, for some reason was interested in your product or interest in your company enough to click on it from the community tab.
Now the fourth way to populate your leads tab is through the search feature of the site. So let's say a buyer heard about your product in a magazine and they go into toy for everywhere to see if you are on the site so they can purchase it right now. If a buyer searches for your product or your brand, they will show up in your leads tab.
Now that gives you the opportunity to know that somebody is interested in your product. You could reach out to them, connect with them and share with them by connecting more of your product information pricing, or open up the ability for them to order now the fifth and final way a potential customer could end up in your leads tab is if they actually visit your profile through another third party website or link. Once your lead tabs start to fill up, you can organize these leads. You can tag them, but most importantly, you can send them a message to connect with them or start a conversation.
One of the really cool features about the toy for everywhere platform is that you can actually see the activity feed of your leads, meaning that you can see the products or the companies that they've been looking at recently. This will give you some insight into what they're currently interested in and allow you to start a more strategic and timely conversation with them.
Offering your products.
Okay. So those are all of the ways that you can uncover leads and get leads added to your leads tab inside of the platform, but based on what your privacy settings might be. Some of your leads may not be able to see your product or see your pricing or be able to order. So it's really important that you connect with those leads.
So it's similar to connecting with someone on LinkedIn, but you want to connect with them through this site so that they now have access to see your products that you're pricing and place wholesale orders. Okay. So how do you do that? All you need to do to connect with a new lead is head over to the profile page of the person you want to connect to and tap the little connection symbol at the upper right hand side.
A little box will pop up, asking you to write a message to send them and the toy for everywhere site. Actually, auto-populates the perfect message for a seller to send a buyer. So really all you need to do is select the person you want to message from the dropdown bead and then hit, send.
Now this point, you may be wondering, okay, Azhelle what do I need to set up my toy here? Everywhere profile. You might be feeling like you have too much on your plate. Maybe you don't have time to learn a new tool or to get new images ready. but I do want to tell you not to worry. From the day that you signed up for toy for everywhere account. You will have a customer success manager on your side who will help you get set up and keep you moving every step of the way.
And for most seller profile showrooms. And for most seller profiles, all you need is a brand intro video, a branded banner, much like a LinkedIn banner to promote your latest specials. You'll just need your catalog or brochure to upload into the platform. Your pricing, product images, all of which I'm sure you already have having shown your product before at toy trade shows, but that is all you really need to get started.
And the team at the toy association is really there to help guide you every step of the way
Now I do want to talk a little bit about when you get new leads, what happens in your inbox?
You'll actually get a notification in your inbox from toy for everywhere saying you've got new leads. Whenever you have a new lead added to your leads tab.
I did reach out to the toy association and ask, how are they making sure to get buyers on the site? And what they shared with me is that they created a toy fair tools for buyers in which they chat with their retail community of again, over 12,000 buyers and share this opportunity to shop product digitally on the site. They're constantly utilizing their extensive email list and social media to share and get more buyers interacting on the site each and every day.
If you're curious of who the buyers are that are listed on the platform. I think a great thing for you to do would be to check out the buyers list. So head over to toy fair, everywhere.info/buyers. And you can check out the entire list of retailers, distributors, importers, wholesale and wholesale buyers that are on the site. working with your buyers and connections.
I believe the toy for everywhere platform is going to be a great place to continue working with your buyers and connections even after an in-person show ends. We often see during in-person shows that we get feedback from buyers that we have interests, but maybe not direct follow through and having a platform where buyers will know that they can go to purchase or review or see updates to all products and all brands that they also see at New York toy fair or Dallas toy preview is going to be fantastic. And I really believe it's going to be game changing to our industry. What's excellent about the toy for everywhere platform is you're not paying a commission while this is a tool to help you make sales you're just paying a flat monthly fee, no commission, but you have the opportunity to sell to thousands of buyers worldwide. And for buyers, I can see that there is a benefit to just being able to shop on their own schedule, order on a secure digital platform. And for everyone, the ability that this platform brings to. Reduce year-round travel. The fact that you can access it and update it 24 hours a day. I mean, there, there really are a lot of opportunities here, and I hope that you choose to take advantage of this platform sooner rather than later, and take advantage of the fact that the toy association is so involved in onboarding and setting up new sellers as they come into the platform.
If you are interested in learning more about the toy for everywhere platform, head over to toy for everywhere.info. And I will put the link in the show notes so you can check it out there as well.
If we've learned anything from this past year is that we need to be agile. We need to be ready. To go completely virtual at a moment's notice. And this platform is going to help you do that easily securely.
Well, there, you have it toy people. This is your introduction to toy fair everywhere. The year round toy trade show that will help you get your product in front of thousands of buyers on their protected online platform.
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