Increase traffic and ROI
Exhibitions deliver a qualified audience to you. The collective drawing power of an industry is its drawcard affect, however gone are the days of, ‘If you build it they will come’, when it comes to individual exhibitor stands.
Today exhibitors cannot turn up with the same old display and products and expect to maintain the previous year’s sales. Some expect that visitors will just come and nothing more is required, but as I have said many times, the only certainty is change and change itself, if you’re not evolving to meet your customers’ needs you will soon become irrelevant.
Change doesn’t take large sums of money – it simply takes time to reset and plan to meet customers and their needs.
Exhibitors have an opportunity to stand out and become a magnet to visitors, and by following some simple strategies and activities, your results can step up.
Some of the things you may like to consider:
– Have documented objectives and goals.This has a number of benefits, it creates a blueprint of what’s important to showcase and puts some context around what to focus on
– Promote and tell them.If you don’t invite your current and potential customers it’s like throwing a party and forgetting to invite anyone – and your exhibition stand is no different. Whilst the event organiser will do broad promotion, your job is to maximise the time. Think about a reward if they visit your stand; a gift, special offer or saving, or an exclusive demo
– Become a hive of activity.Demonstrations and interactive activities attract the attention of visitors and once you get one or two to stop soon you will have a group – a crowd attracts a crowd! Give visitors the chance to be part of the story, stories are memorable, and this is a great way for visitors to learn more. If you can involve them and let them get hands on it’s even stronger
– Become single-message focused.You need to think billboard. Have a single focussed message that is less than 10 words long that creates attention and gets people inquisitive
– Select the right staff.The single make or break can be your staff. Make sure they look the part and can easily engage with all levels of visitors
– What else can you do? Look for easy opportunities to increase your awareness, eg is there an official website where you can place product promotion, look around onsite at the show APP, newsletter, onsite guide?
> Solve their problems. Remember visitors are looking for solutions, you need to look at what benefit you offer visitors. Too often companies default to features and these don’t have the same emotional connection without a direct link to a benefit which solves a problem
> Prearrange your time. It doesn’t matter whether the event is consumer or trade, maximise your time by booking people into times to meet face to face. There are always busy and quiet times and just like a demo, if you load appointments early morning or later in the afternoon when people see others sitting and talking, they often gravitate to the stand as well
>Focus beyond Return On Investment(ROI). Some of your objectives and sales may take time, so consider Return On Objectives (ROO) as a measure, as depending on what you set as your objectives, they may not link immediately for an instant return on Investment.
