Shinkarenko, N.

English

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Shinkarenko N.National Mining UniversityPLANNING A SUCCESSFUL EXHIBITIONSpring and summer are traditionally peak season for business-to-businessexhibitions, trade shows and regional business showcase events. And whether youhave already booked your stand space, or you are still thinking about it here are afew tips and ideas on how to get the best out of an exhibition.A good exhibition creates something akin to a retail environment, which formany companies working in the business-to-business arena, and especially forservice sector firms, is unique. The beauty of an exhibition is that it is a neutralenvironment in which to do business. The visitor feels, and to some extent is, incontrol and therefore is more at ease and less pressured. Which is a good attitudefor them to have when you open up a business dialogue with them.Exhibitions give you a substantial opportunity to meet new prospects andsometimes even close a few sales. In most instances of course you will only be atstage one of the buying process – which is all about getting to know your prospect,and them getting to know you and your products, it’s about finding out what theyneed, what kind of problems they have and need to solve, getting an idea ofwhether they have money to spend and who else they are talking to – and notnecessarily the time to go in for the kill.Event based marketing gives you an opportunity to make a high impactimpression on clients and prospects because you have the opportunity to attack allof their senses and they can engage interactively with you and potentially withyour products, through demonstrations and trials.As an added bonus, through exhibitions you can do some hands on research,see and talk to: competitors, potential suppliers, sector lead bodies and of coursetalk informally to potential customers themselves. For many businesses with newideas in the pipeline exhibitions can be a great opportunity to find out what yourmarket is ‘thinking’ at a moment in time.OK – so now you’re convinced that exhibiting might be a good thing. Whatnext?The key to success, as you’ll often see me write in Practical Marketing, isthorough planning.PurposeWhat is your primary reason for exhibiting? Your objectives might include: to raise awareness of your business in a given geographic location orindustry sector to collect leads to follow up or to generate a mailing list to make direct sales to launch or promote a new product or service to meet and/or entertain existing customers to meet potential suppliers/partners/agents/distributorsWhatever your objectives, the important thing is to quantify. How manyvisitors do you want to be exposed to overall? How many visitors do you expect onyour stand? How many will take your literature, or leave their business card?Think about the budget you are prepared to spend to achieve these objectives.Think through how you can best achieve your objectives and make sure you havethe practical tools there on the day to help you achieve them – so if you want tobuild a mailing list is it enough just to collect business cards or do you want anintelligent database that gives you a little bit more information so that you cantarget any mailings to specific needs. A soft approach is often very effective – asktheir permission to keep them informed about changes to your product range,special offers or send them useful information. If people have a genuine need theyare likely to want such information, if they are time wasters you don’t want themon your prospect list or database anyway. Remember it’s not just a numbers game– the quality of lead is also really important.PresenceNow you know whether you are focusing on leads, awareness, prospects orexisting customers you can decide the type of physical presence you want at theevent. And it will be quite different depending on your objectives. For a productlaunch for example you may have a far more dramatic stand and plan hi-impact,media appealing activities around the stand. The people manning the stand mightbe from your PR team, to handle media enquiries, or technicians if you arelaunching to a technically well informed audience.In contrast, if your main purpose is to generate leads you need to think moreabout the type of lead you want, presumably you need leads to be as well qualifiedas possible. What does that mean for your business? Should the individual be thebudget holder or main decision maker, looking to buy in the next few months,willing to agree to a sales appointment, leave a business card, fill out an enquiryform, take or request a brochure? As you can imagine there will be varying degreesof interest and commitment amongst these different categories of visitor. It’s worththinking through how you will follow up leads and therefore what type ofinformation you need to gather. Make sure you collect sufficient details to make ameaningful follow up – they may visit and speak to a dozen other suppliers – makesure you have made an impression and that when you call them you can use asimple reminder which enables you to start from where you left off. For example‘When we met at the Midlands Database Exhibition you mentioned to me howdifficult it was to find a customer database system that was cost effective, easy touse and could be shared by 4 salesmen. I wanted to come and see you to explainsomething we have that I think does all of that and more.’ If you haven’t had afairly detailed and client centred conversation you won’t have found out abouttheir needs and will be approaching them with a product rather than a solution. Sospend time wisely and collect and record valuable information with a view tofollow up.ImpactWhen designing the stand make sure it passes the 30 second test – 30 secondsis roughly how long people will look at your stand before they decide to visit orwalk on. So the message must be loud and clear. Don’t be tempted to cover toomuch on the stand itself, but do make sure there’s a reason to stop and talk to youor pick up literature. And if you are handing out literature on the stand, thinkseriously about what you give out and what you want readers to do next. Thedanger of giving out standard product or corporate literature is that it gets put in theobligatory plastic bag that all exhibition visitors seems to acquire as soon as theywalk through the door, and if it finds it’s way out it gets a 10 second skim through.So think about having literature produced specifically for the event, with messagestargeted to the type of visitors you expect and maybe even special offers orexclusive deals. That way visitors are more likely to read, and more likely torespond.

PLANNING A SUCCESSFUL EXHIBITION

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PLANNING A SUCCESSFUL EXHIBITION

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