How to participate in an exhibition: 5 steps
Entering a new market is always a challenge for every company. Perfect solution to make it easier and faster is participation in an exhibition.
The purposes of exhibitions are to provide a fruitful environment for the development of companies and attract the target audience. As a result, it is a tool for promoting your products or services and increasing sales. A few figures: about 46% of exhibition participants buy the products and services presented.
But how to do it? Here are the most important five steps to participate in an exhibition.
First step: choose an exhibition
First of all, you should decide on the choice of the exhibition, taking into account the direction of your business. The main question that this stage answers is: what benefits will participation in the exhibition bring to the company, how much will the level of sales increase (and this is still the fundamental goal of each participant).
To pre-evaluate the effectiveness of the exhibition, we advise you:
- 1. If you plan to participate in the exhibition for more than a year, go to the exhibition beforehand as a visitor.
- 2. Look at the exhibition company’s website for the list of participants of last year’s exhibition.
- 3. Pay attention to whether there are any competitors among the exhibiting companies, what is the level of participants in general.
- 4. Instruct your employees to analyze publications in the media. Were there any articles on the results of the event, how was it evaluated?
- 5. Read the releases published on the exhibition website. If the materials are written uninterestingly, briefly, or not at all, this indicates a disdainful attitude of the organizers both to the event and to the participants of the exhibition.
- 6. Look for references on the Internet.
- 7. The most effective way is to call the participants of last year’s exhibition and try to talk openly with them: how do they assess the overall organizational level, how many visitors were there.
Second step: prepare for participation in the exhibition.
After you have selected an exhibition and defined the purpose of participation, you can assign employees to prepare for the event.
- 1. You need to ask yourself and your Director of Marketing, Advertising and PR the following questions:
- 2. What is the level of participation in this exhibition of the company’s competitors?
- 3. Do we clearly present a portrait of a potential client?
- 4. What is the expected flow of visitors? (A preliminary assessment is necessary to determine the number of handouts.)
- 5. Is it possible to distribute expensive materials (leaflets, booklets, etc.) to random visitors (appeal to non-target groups)?
- 6. Have BTL promotions been developed?
At this stage, you should assign those responsible for the specific stages of preparation for participation in the exhibition, determine the budget for participation and start discussing the details. At the same stage, you need to start working closely with the exhibition management.
Third step: solve all technical problems
Then you will have to solve a number of technical issues related to the preparation of the exhibition space. Namely: the location of the future stand (the choice of the most favorable location, in terms of attendance), the development of a general concept, the approval of the size of the stand used for the manufacture of materials, etc.
In addition, one of the important positions is the mandatory staff training/training of the company’s employees participating in the event.
Forth step: realizing a project
- 1. Employees working at the exhibition must solve the following tasks:
- 2. Registration of visitors.
- 3. Distribution of information materials at the stand and at the exhibition as a whole.
- 4. Promotions.
- 5. Attending business and scientific events.
- 6. Collecting information about competitors.
- 7. Creating a portrait of a potential client.
- 8. Conclusion of preliminary agreements-up to the signing of contracts (if such a task is set).
Fifth step: summing up the results
With the last day of the exhibition, the work of the participants does not end. If contacts were received, then they should be processed within a week at most, and it is advisable to write words of gratitude to those who left their coordinates. In the wake of the publication of materials in the media, you can advertise participation well, create materials for articles on the site, in social networks.
Participation in the exhibition should not be spontaneous. Presentation of the company/product/service-should be a well-thought-out and well-executed project, then it will really be useful and beneficial for the company.