Exhibiting can be an expensive business so its important to make sure you get it right. With careful planning and the right mix of marketing, design and staff you can make your stand is an experience not to be forgotten.

Why exhibit in the first place?

Exhibitions can provide a wealth of business benefits and should be considered as a part of the overall marketing and sales strategy for any company.

• An opportunity to network with existing clients and new prospects.
• A platform to announce the launch of a new product or service,
• Generate new sales leads and sign contracts,
• Build awareness of your brand, visitors to the show will remember seeing your company

What are your key objectives?

This is critical to the success of your presence at any show. You should carefully consider why it is that you wish to attend the show and how are you going to maximise your investment.

Questions you should ask;

• What do we want to achieve by attending the show? Is it purely to sell products, generate leads, build awareness. Decide what you want to achieve and ask how you will measure it.

• Do you want to launch a new product or service?

• How will other marketing activity support your attendance at the show? A common mistake is for companies to treat their exhibitions and events in isolation. It is critical to the success of the event that it integrates with the rest of the marketing so ensure you have involved all the right people and departments your organisation.

• Who is your target audience? Knowing what type of person your customer is will help you when planning your stand. Whether its a trade show targeted at business executives or a consumer event, know who you want to attract to your stand. Its important to know who your customer is. This will help you plan any on stand promotions and events.
  

• How will you market your presence and attract visitors to your stand?
  

The exhibition organisers will market the event and ensure that a certain amount of visitors attend the show but how do you ensure they come and visit your stand?

• Send out pre-event mailings and emails to your clients and prospects, invite them to an on-stand drinks reception for example.

• Advertise in the trade press to announce your presence at a show.

• Talk to the trade press journalists about your plans for the show. They might just be looking for a showcase to feature in their magazine.

• Insert a flyer in the delegate or exhibitors pack

• Make your stand an experience, make it fun and interactive, anything from having an on stand strong man to computer games to a chocolate fondue. Be as imaginative as you like, it doesn't have to cost the earth! Whatever you do, tell people about it so they make a point of visiting your stand and make it visible so that passers-by will pause to take part.

• Remember that first impressions count so having the right caliber of staff on your stand is key. The best sales person over the phone might not be the most charismatic when dealing with people face to face.

• If you have the space, offer some hospitality or hold a reception or drinks event. Exhibition halls are noisy, exhausting places and your stand could just be that oasis your new client is looking for to rest for 10 minutes and have a juice or a cup of tea while talking to your staff. Be wary of the campers, especially at consumer shows, you don't want a crowd of old dears getting their picnics out on your stand, don't be afraid to politely move them on, they're chancing they're luck!

How can you measure the success of your stand?

This will depend on the nature of your business and your strategy for the event. If you're attending a show to improve brand awareness then you could have an on-stand completion, this will generate leads and will also measure how many people stopped to register their interest with your company during the show.

Other metrics are of course, sales, how many leads you generated, did these result in sales and what was the overall revenue generated from these sales. don't forget to include sales generated from leads that were followed up after the show. Other measures of success might include - did you get free press coverage by doing something interesting on your stand?
 

The dos's and don'ts of exhibitions

Do set targets and objectives

• Do you want to generate sales or leads or both, how many and what revenue will they generate. Make sure your targets are SMART.
  
• Specific
  
• Measurable
  
• Achievable
  
• Realistic,
  
• Time-related.

• Do talk to your stand designer

Allow plenty of time to talk to the company designing and building your stand.

At Younger Design we have a wealth of experience and will be able to help you with many ideas to make the most of your stand space both in terms of visual appeal but also ideas to make sure you stand out and are remembered for your presence at the show.

 

Do plan every last detail

Your exhibition will probably last 3 or 4 days and the last thing you want is to be short of stock half way through the second day. Make sure you anticipate everything you are likely to need on your stand from graphics to catering and merchandiser staff to marketing material and freebies. The more prepared you are the more time you will have to concentrate on what you are supposed to be doing. Talking to your clients!

Do make sure you have good staff on your stand

Good people are key to your success. Its no good having the best telesales person on your stand if they lack the necessary charisma it takes to sell face to face. Exhibitions allow you to engage your client and capture their imagination with product demonstrations, the right person needs to do this for you. Do fully brief staff well in advance of the event. What is expected of them, set them individual targets, offer incentives and have a sales person of the day award each day. Remember to include practical things for staff in the brief like what to wear, don't wear new shoes for example. Where do they need to be and when, warn them to allow extra time for traffic and parking.

Do use open question techniques

• 
  Engage the client in conversation using open questions. These are questions that are designed to give information and can't be answered with yes, no or other one word answers but help you find out more.
• Open questions start with words such as
  
• How...
  
• Why...
  
• When...
  
• Where...
  
• What...
  
• Who...
  
• Which.
  
• How are you enjoying the show so far? What are you looking for at the show today? Who have you seen so far? etc
  Avoid closed questions.

A closed question can be recognised easily because it starts with words of phrases like:

• Do...
• Is...
• Can...
• Could
• Will...
• Would...
• Shall...
• Should..

Don't clutter your stand

It is best to keep your stand clean, tidy and easy to take in. Don't have very wordy graphics for example, your messages need to be clear and taken in at a glance. Keep the on-stand marketing collateral to a minimum ensuring that it is relevant and fits with the objectives. It is better to engage your clients in conversation or on-stand demonstrations or get them involved in your on-stand attraction or competition.

Don't let those valuable leads go to waste

All too often leads get lost or forgotten after the event. Make sure they get followed up, these potential clients will be expecting to hear from you and it will give a bad impression if you don't get in touch.

And what about all those hundreds of competition entries, make sure you have captured the relevant contact information and asked the right data protection questions so that you can phone, write to or email these leads after the show.