Participation of an event starts when you book your space, not on the day the event opens.
So remember to communicate your attendance and support for the event in the lead up. If nothing more, invite existing and potential clients to the stand and make sure you explore and exploit all the communications opportunities the show offers.
The show visitors are bombarded with sales messages and have to process a huge amount of information the minute they walk into the venue, so make it as clear and easy to understand your key messages to give you a head start against the competition. Follow these tips to maximise your return on your stand;
- Do not assume everyone at the show knows who you are. Use as few number of words as possible to tell them.
- Consider using images and pictures in place of text; as they say ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’.
- Don’t allow your stand to be designed without considering the floor plan, visitor flow and sight lines. Asymmetrical stands can make your space work harder on all sides.
- If you have something physical to show the visitor, put it in a prominent place and encourage your visitors to touch and feel the product.
- Moving objects, screens and clever lighting will help your stand get more attention. Make sure that the screen content is relevant to the show. Corporate video’s just because you have them are not a great idea.
- Visitors love a freebie and expect to hand over their contact details to receive one. It doesn’t need to be high value, so make them accessible to all.
- The exhibition doesn’t finish when your last visitor leaves, plan your post event activities and how you are going to use the leads you have generated. How will you track these and can you quantify your conversions from attending the event?
Finally, no matter how amazing your stand looks and how much money you have spent on pre-event marketing and promotional goods, if your staff are hungover on the stand and constantly on their phones with their backs to the aisles, everything you have done to this point was a waste of time.