We’re well into the New Year with a renewed vision, and revenue focus that has never quite been as strong as it is for 2011. And this year, your plan, like many others, is to create an even larger brand awareness and Corporate image footprint in your business community. So you decide to exhibit at business shows and trade events in your region where you have the opportunity to meet fellow professionals and visitors who are interested in the services and products you have to offer.
But before you build your stand, and long before you start printing your signage, there are a number of things to consider and decide on to help your business capture the ears of the right audience, and ultimately, sell your product and service.
It is a widely-known fact that 75% of all visitors attending shows and exhibition events are there to buy, or are planning to buy. They are there because they want to meet the people behind the product and service. They want to hear what you have to say and show; so it’s critical that you deliver exactly that.
The first step therefore is to decide what the objective you want to achieve by your attendance at the show is. Naturally, you want to sell. We all do. But it’s really so much more than that.
Thinking about it
Setting your exhibition objective should be made up of the following 5 parts:
- Your objective should be specific: You should decide on what the aim is of the following:
o What is the aim of your company and its attendance at the event?
o Why have you booked to be at the event?
o Why are you exhibiting at the show?
o What do you want to get out of your attendance at the event?
eg. Is your focus to merely grow your database of new potential customers? Do you wish to launch a new product? Is it merely a marketing exercise to increase brand awareness?
- Your objective should be measurable: You cannot manage something you cannot measure, so you need to decide on how to quantify your objectives so that you can manage your successes.
- Your objective should be agreed: Once you have decided on your main objective, you need to ensure that the entire team present on your stand, is aware of, and agree to, the objective. Working together towards the same objective will result in a much higher productivity level than having each individual working on many smaller objectives. You essentially want an objective that is sharp, focussed and clear – as opposed to an unclear, almost dissolving, plan of smaller varying targets.
- Your objective should be realistic: They say that one should aim for the moon, and even if you miss it, you’ll still land amongst the stars. Set yourself realistic achievable objectives and aim high. Don’t settle for mediocrity that would easily be achieved without you actually exhibiting at a show or event.
- Your objective should be timebound: Any objective set should have a start and end time and date in order for it to be managed and measured effectively.
The Fun Stuff
Once you’ve decided on the goals that you want to achieve, you’re just about ready to get stuck in and start preparing (or getting to the “fun stuff”) for a show. Before you enter this phase, it may be a good idea to make your objective visible, as you follow the preparation and setup phase of exhibiting. Write it up. Stick it up on your wall. Repeat it to yourself as a mantra, daily… do what you must. Remember that your stand is your shop window. A direct invitation to say “Look at Me!”. It is essential to therefore match up your business objective with the visual representation of your exhibition to create the right business and corporate ID. And it doesn’t have to cost you money!
Deciding on a space that will suit the objective you’re trying to achieve could be challenging at times, and all too often, people get carried away with the idea that size is better than focus. Exhibiting is about having great ambitions – not huge budgets.
Here are a couple of ideas and things to consider when deciding on your visual presence at any exhibition:
- Planning your stand: a good tip is to mark out your stand size, and plot the same stand size in your office or boardroom. Get a feel for the space you will occupy – you’ll soon see what you can include and what you’ll need to leave out. Once you’ve decided on your stand, ensure that you create a concise and specific brief for all stand-builders, signage companies etc and ensure that your objective is their objective as well.
- Get Creative: Creativity is about producing new ideas or combining old ideas in a unique way. Creativity is only constrained by imagination. Think about lighting. Think about audio-visual. Think about movement. Think about shapes and height. Think about visual vs text overload.
- Stick to budget: Exhibiting is not always about creating something new and spending lots of money. It may be that you’ll need to use something you have in your office already.
- Giveaways: A lot of money is often spent on giveaways that don’t relate to the message or brand and that often end up on the floor of the exhibition or forgotten in someone’s desk drawer. Your giveaways need to be relevant – something that will stick in people’s minds!
- Ensure that your event organiser understands your business nature and requirements: The placement of your stand may be critical on the target audience you aim to reach. When discussing your requirements with your organiser, negotiate the best possible location of your stand, at the price you can afford.
Running alongside your stand design planning is the consideration of your physical business presence at the event. Understanding who your audience will be is probably one of the most critical aspects of exhibiting. The type of audience that will be attending your show directly influences your marketing strategy, your choice of members of staff present on the stand, and ultimately, the success rate of your objectives being reached.
Now that the show is a mere couple of weeks away, your signage has been sent off for printing, your furniture ordered and you have a couple of minutes to quietly sit back and think about the upcoming show, your focus turns to creating the awareness of your upcoming presence at the show as well as your physical presence at the show.
Get Involved
Your marketing strategy should be one that draws people not only to your stand, but to your presence at the actual show. So start working with media partners and advertise your presence. You may want to put visual banners on your website, with an invitation to your customers to come and visit you at your stand. You may want to form an email marketing campaign and send out regular email updates in the week leading up to the show. Get involved in the marketing of the actual event and work closely with the organisers to see how your business name can potentially be synonymous with the event itself. Letting people know you’re there is one step to achieving the numbers you want, and what better way to do it than to be part of a bigger marketing campaign surrounding the event as opposed to doing it all on your own!
Show-Day means Go-Day!
One never gets a second chance to make a first impression and Show-Day is your opportunity. You ideally want a team of people representing your business, your objective and your focus; who at the same time understands, can relate to, and can adapt to the person they’re speaking to. Many exhibitors talk about having the Hook candidate (the person who attracts people to the stand), or the Spotter (the person who approaches people and brings them onto the stand), but if you have neither, you ideally need to simply ensure that your team are active, and expectant of visitors seeking business. Interacting with your audience is probably one of the few sure-deal sealing activities that any person manning an exhibition stand could do with relatively little effort. Sometimes, your interaction with the audience doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with your product or business, but it’s a way to draw people to your stand, creating a talking point, and allowing you to take it from there.
A good example of visitor-interaction are exhibitors which have used ideas that appeal to our sense-buds. We are a sense-driven human race – we like to hear, see, touch, taste, even smell things. Our perception of something is created long before someone has actually approached us with a sales pitch. Some like to use food, others like to use scented candles – whatever your method, make sure that your interaction is not intrusive or overwhelming, but just enough to get people to stop for a split-second, register the source of the sensory-hint, and allow you to step in and strike up a conversation.
The final point to any exhibitor looking at How Best to Exhibit, is to remember your objective! Live it and breathe it. If that becomes ingrained into your exhibition presence, you will find that you will need to do very little else and business seekers will ultimately find you.
Have fun with what you’re doing and remember that we all, exhibitors and delegates alike, function in very much the same way. The need to be recognised, valued and spoken honestly to.
The rest, I’m happy to say, will usually work out by itself.
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