One of the most significant benefits of an exhibition is that it allows you to invite your customers to your stand instead of searching for them. This opportunity can only be availed if you are ready and have partners and a process in place.
Panache presents 7 tips on how to make your next exhibition booth a success. These tips have been distilled from our 10+ years of experience, serving 1000+ clients on 100+ venues.
Your company may not have in-house booth design expertise, and this should not stop you from creating an attractive exhibition booth at a high-stake exhibition. Hiring an experienced and competent booth designer and stall-making company can help you focus on business development while taking care of all the booth designing work. Look for a service provider with a proven competence of creating stalls for the exhibition of your interest and players in your niche.
Your booth is your biggest advertisement in the exhibition, and your staff members are your brand ambassadors. Deploy your best staff members for dealing with your visitors. Measure them on product knowledge, communication skills, patience, and empathy. Have product managers to gather feedback, marketing managers to sell the ideas and build relationships, and general managers for dealing with B2B clients.
Having your screens displaying your product features and testimonials from your clients and your company can reduce pressure on your staff and leave an indelible mark on your visitors. Additionally, it can help your visitors spend more time in and around your stall (also, it can attract visitors who would have otherwise passed by). A high-definition imagery and pleasant music can help set the tone of your stall.
With a purpose in mind, you can measure your success or ROI based on the number of visitors, the number of relevant email ids collected, the number and quality of B2B contacts, and so on. Put the processes in place and put your staff members accountable for measuring various parameters. You can measure your success if and only if you know what success means in this case.
You can decide to focus on visitors one by one or in a group. You can design a visitor experience in terms of greeting them, giving them a tour, sharing your material, taking their contact details, and setting up a meeting (if that works). The key is to design an experience and a process before you welcome your first visitor. Don’t forget to go an extra step for your visitor even if they are not the potential buyers. The marketing world is full of customer stories wherein the manager was helpful to them and garnered a positive image for the company (don’t do things for that only, be genuinely helpful).
Gifts and Giveaways can help you attract friends of your visitors, and that is a good bargain any day (a visitor coming for a purpose is a good visitor). You can either give away gifts to your B2B customers and/or ask your B2C customers to visit your website and avail of a gift. You can also consider running contests to engage your visitors. These contests can help you set a positive experience around your stall, but don’t over do it. Afterall you want to be known for your product and services rather than the lucky draw you hosted.
Once the exhibition is over, your relationship with your visitors must not be over. You can explore avenues to keep in touch with them and deliver value throughout the year. This can help you foster a relationship and an army of cheerleaders for your next exhibition appearance.
You can send them a thank you note, invite them to join your newsletter, host webinars for them, invite the prominent partners for sessions, and much more.