Participating in bridal shows can definitely benefit your event planning business. It’s a great way to meet clients and make a personal impression that you can’t make in other ways. But investing too many of your resources in bridal shows may not be the best course of action.

In fact, 30.9% of brides say they don’t even plan to attend a bridal show during their engagement. Fewer than half (45.2%) of brides plan to attend 1-2 shows, and only 24% say they’ll attend three or more shows.

In other words, going to a bridal show that exposes your business to only a segment of brides and where there is massive competition for brides’ attention may not be the best avenue for gaining the most new business. However, you can use bridal shows to benefit your business in other ways.

First, going to a bridal show is a great way to perfect your or your employees’ interpersonal skills. Experiment with different things like tone of voice, hand motions and posture when talking to brides. You’ll quickly catch on to what makes bride stick around and talk to you, and you can apply these concepts when meeting with brides elsewhere. As we’ve discussed before, making a personable first impression is very important.

Second, use bridal shows to find out what your brides want. Conduct a basic survey and offer a prize as motivation to complete the survey. Also, simply by talking to brides you’ll glean lots of useful information. Carry on a conversational tone rather than a sales pitch. Ask them questions about why they’d be interested in your business, what kind of services they are looking for, and if/why they like/dislike the competition.