Following a year like no other and the importance of face-to-face connections in 2021 getting your exhibit participation and stand sorted is crucial to maximising results. Dusting off your stand and attending a show based on when you were last there and the same results or better would be naive.
In an age of digital overload, remember exhibitions are the only medium where the buyers, sellers and products physically come together in a 4D medium with the impact of live demonstrations, conversations, learning and direct exchange of questions and answers.
There are also a myriad of statistics indicating that a significant percentage of attendees to many events will be brand new, as well as that some people will remain cautious in the return and be selective in which events they attend. The exact numbers won’t be known until events return, but it’s important to account for the potential change in market you’ll be delivering too.
Successful companies have just three things in common.
1. Plan for their success, including activities before, during and after, and how success will be measured.
2. Support and integrate the participation in an event with other marketing activities.
3. Provide and involve their staff with the right tools and resources to achieve the objectives and goals.
For some, these tips are a timely reminder or could emphasise something to consider for this year’s plans as face to face contact will increasingly play an important role in our businesses rebound.
Pre-Event
1. Be in the right show!
Make sure you know who the visitors are and they reflect your target audience. Smart exhibitors build knowledge about the attendees before the event to ensure they marry up to the right audience.
2. Set objectives and goals
Know what you want to accomplish, make it realistic and measurable so you can track your results. Try to focus on three main objectives, plan every aspect around them and refer back to them. We are human and will justify failure when it might just be that we haven’t kept to our plan. The two guiding outcomes should be:
a) Create business – meet your customers, increase your revenues, expand your network, find new prospects and build a database
b) Increase your exposure – when business is challenging it’s crucial to raise your profile and leverage awareness and your relationship to the industry you work in.
Success starts with a clear blueprint and allocating your time appropriately.
- 40% should be pre event
- 20% at the event
- 40% dedicated to post event activities
Establish a timeline and monitor it to ensure you don’t miss deadlines.
3. Budget
Once you set your objectives and goals, make sure you have the budget to make them happen. As a rough rule of thumb the floor space should be around 1/3 of your overall costs excluding travel and logistics. Track costs and stick to the budget, but don’t short cut elements that reflect the brand image of your company and your offerings.
4. Select and identify what you want to show
The number one reason visitors attend a show is to ‘SEE WHAT’S NEW’. It’s crucial that at every show you draw attention to what’s new or how current products can be used in a new way.
Visitors want to interactively experience your product/service. Consider whether your stand is an enabler who makes it easy to shop at your stand or an inhibitor who presents hurdles at your stand.
5. Engaging the human senses
An exhibition like all live events allows you to engage all the human senses and by tapping into as many as possible can greatly influence the likelihood of a sale. Stimulating the senses doesn’t mean big expenditure on multimedia and interactive technology, you can achieve striking results with the simplest of ideas. Demonstration/interaction = Retention and increases memorability. Be prepared to educate rather than just sell, this positions you as an expert.
6. Stand selection and size – it’s about more than just a location
Make sure you can fit everything NEW as well as the dependable staples in your space. In planning size and layout, remember research has shown visitors only see 60% of your stand depending on layout and messaging. Pick a location to suit your product, e.g. aligned to a feature area, on-floor education, catering etc.
7. Stand Design – getting noticed
Some exhibitors work their stand while others have their stand work for them. Identify the core message. A stand that’s well thought out should be inviting, entertaining, educational and memorable. You need to be evolving and changing in any year but in 2021 and beyond this is even more important. You need to find new ways to distinguish yourself. Your key messages should promote benefits to end purchaser, not features. Make your stand open and inviting and keep barriers such as furniture to a minimum. Incorporate ‘speed humps’ that create a focus and can be changed daily. Graphics need to be simple and demonstrations engaging and lead to product selection and transactions on the stand. Consider lighting too, as this can be the differentiator in getting visitors’ attention. Create and control the customer experience.
8. Pre show promotion – grabbing attention
If you exhibit without doing any pre-show promotion, it’s like throwing a party without sending the invitations. Three out of four people pre-plan what stands they will visit and on average a visitor will only stop at 27 stands. 50% of visitors will not attend another show this year. Become a must-see destination – that occurs by pre-communicating new products, demonstrations and special stand offers and this can also increase attendance to your stand by around 33%.
9. Stand staff – your most valuable asset
Remember people buy from people and justify their decision later. 80% of exhibition success is down to staff… so training is crucial! You need to select staff based on the visitors attending. They must want to be there – it’s show business and you need great actors! Ensure they know the goals and objectives and are part of the process. Train and remind them on qualifying tactics and closing sales and ensure they are across every product or service on the stand. Have clear dress and conduct codes for the stand and ensure everyone follows them. 85% of visitors first impression is based on the stand staff.
10. Know your stuff
Take staff with a good knowledge of your products and an awareness of competitors. An exhibition is not a good training ground, so prepare your team before the event.
Remember visitors need to have product benefits reinforced to them and a feature should not be shown or discussed without a benefit being woven in to it.
At The Event
11. Get orientated
Make sure you and your staff can be a wealth of information for visitors. Know where the catering, toilets, security, first aid and organiser’s office are all located.
12. Remember the visitor
Simple gestures like eye contact and smiling cost nothing but establish immediate rapport. Spend the appropriate time with each visitor and don’t get caught up with time wasters. Have a plan of how to nicely break conversations and move onto the next prospect.
Stay focussed and ensure if things are slow, you don’t have too many staff standing around as visitors will be scared to enter your stand. Make sure staff get breaks to stay focussed.
13. Lead generation – contacts are everything
One of the most valuable assets your business has is its database of customers and prospects. It’s important you establish what information you want to capture and this will vary between a consumer and trade show. Start with name, company and contact details. Record their preferred way of communication – email, mobile or landline, plus their product interest, current supplier, why they would change and time frame for purchasing. A crucial step is advising and agreeing what the next contact will be and when. Many trade events will have lead capture technology available to exhibitors (Expertise Events offers this for free), and this will speed up data collection and allow thought into customisation of questions like ‘is this an existing customer?’ or ‘when are they next looking to purchase?’.
14. Ensure the entire team is ‘market aware’
It’s important that being in a live environment your team is across all product, research, competitor information that could be relevant in conversations. The last thing you want is for your brand image to be impacted because of a lack of understanding. Don’t let your event experience highlight these areas, ensure proper training and information sharing.
15. Make the stand work
If, after the first day the stand isn’t working, ask the organiser or stand next door for feedback. You can always change it to increase the appeal and if it’s not working there is no point complaining after the show. Remedy it there and then! It’s a good idea to change focal point each day so repeat visitors are drawn in.
Post Event
16. Follow up
Up to 90% of exhibitors fail to follow up leads they collect on site – so make the commitment to your prospects!
The longer you leave a lead, the colder it gets and a plan should include following up within 72 hours post show or the agreed date to do so. Do what you said you were going to do for the leads you gathered – it’s too easy to get distracted by catching up on what you missed while onsite at the show. Developing things where you can communicate at least six times post show increases your success and conversion, here is just some items to get you going!
- Networking invites
- Newsletters
- Share something unique or has a perceived value-education, tips, savings, special offers
- Connect through social media
Exhibition recall lasts for 12 months and can be as high as 70% at six months so capitalise on this through follow up.
17. Post show evaluation – once it’s all over
Assess your objectives and whether you achieved them and if not, why not and be brutally honest, as humans we tend to blame everything else bar ourselves and if you haven’t followed the plan or taken a short cut identify it!
Review the budget and where you need to increase or decrease spending next time, and continue to monitor and track leads and pending sales. Most shows have a special stand rebook offer that avoids increases and retains the location you have made your own, so rebook quickly.
By following the above points you’re a step closer to exhibition success in 2021 but more importantly you will maximise the personal relationship well into the future..