Attending your first business exhibition can make anyone a little bit nervous, but going as one of the exhibitors is a whole different deal. To survive and thrive is a good plan. But how? Here are a few tips on how to accomplish that feat and live to tell the tale.
Set Measurable Goals Ahead of the Exhibition
Once the business exhibition gets rolling, it is very easy to lose track of what the original plan was going in. To paraphrase an old saying, without knowing your target, it is impossible to hit it.
Therefore, develop a plan and a series of goals for what the trade show exhibit is intended to create for the business. Is it an improved understanding of the customers? Tapping into what non-customers are looking for and how the company can adapt to grow their market share? Develop a list of leads to follow up with after the show? Whatever the goals are, be clear about them so that the fog of an exhibition doesn’t come down and blind the participants to prevent anything important being accomplished.
Choose the Right Exhibitions
One of the worst mistakes is to choose the wrong exhibition to enter and add an exhibition stand. This poor choice can then lead to either attracting the wrong kind of customers that are inappropriate for the business or not attracting customers at all. This would be a bad mistake for a first business exhibition.
A reliable list of upcoming exhibitions can be found online. This can help businesses to see what events are upcoming and pick from them wisely. Choosing carefully is important. Even a small exhibition that is targeted towards your business niche can often be more successful for exhibitors than a huge exhibition that is more general in nature which leads to vague interest from confused attendees.
Exhibition Stand Concept and Design
What is important to understand about exhibition stand design is that it is something completely separate to all other forms of design. Specialists spend years improving how they conceptualise, design, construct, execute at the exhibition, and then dismantle the exhibition stand after the show is over. It is not something that companies involved in other industries should attempt to do by themselves.
Get the Staff Ready
Staff members will not necessarily be natural outgoing personalities ready to meet the public or other businesses in an exhibition. They may never have had experience of even attending a business exhibition before. It is also possible that some of the sales superstars in the business may be great on the phone but less than stellar face-to-face.
Because of these issues it is important to choose staff members carefully who will be at the exhibition stand. Consider some training courses to help them role-play situations where they are dealing with members of the public or other business staff are approaching them. Play out situations where people are approaching them at the exhibition stand looking to strike up a business conversation or pick up marketing materials.
Surviving the first business exhibition is really the easy part. Getting the most out of the experience to move the business forward is the more difficult part to accomplish. Use these tips to improve the results achieved.
