Promoting your company at an event can be an effective way to market your product or services to a relevant and large audience. This article contains considerations for planning your exhibit.
So you have taken the decision to exhibit at an event, how can you maximise your exhibiting success? These 5 top tips from a marketing and design agency in Surrey can help you get the most out of your exhibit.
1. Effective Communication
A classic mistake made by many companies attending events is to just consider their communication needs during the actual event. A far better approach is to put into action communication initiatives before, during and after the event. This will ensure a far higher success rate of actually engaging potential clients and to generate sales enquires. For example, before the event a marketing agency could create an e-shot to raise awareness that you are exhibiting. During the event, promotional giveaways could be used to attract interest in your stand and to gather contact information, and following the event innovative direct mail could be used to secure introductory meetings with potential clients to then be nurtured by your sales force.
2. Face Time
During an event don’t just rely on customers to come to your stand. Instead, actively network the event by working in pairs. Engaging face-to-face with potential clients is probably the best way to build long lasting relationships, and those that are spoken to during this time will almost certainly be far more receptive to approaches made after the event (i.e. phone calls, emails, etc). If you can, try and give a presentation or seminar during the event which will allow you to positively reflect your company, and engage with a large group of people face to face.
3. Gain a competitive edge
Almost certainly some of your competitors will be attending the same event so use this to your advantage to stand out from the competition. A good idea is to invest in a marketing and design agency in Surrey or local to your company, to help oversee all communication literature during and around the event. This will almost certainly pay dividends as they will help to ensure that you positively stand out from the competition and that the key differences between your product and service compared to your competitors are clearly defined; whether that is in relation to performance, reliability, price or scalability. A good marketing and design agency in Surrey or anywhere else in the UK will understand how to convey this message in an attractive and effective way.
4. Staff Attendance
Think about the staff who will actually be attending the event on the company’s behalf. The temptation is to bring only sales people, but this would be a mistake. Those attending an event more often than not have buying influence and might be looking not just for a product or service which meets their companies needs but have questions which they want answering about your product or services. We would therefore recommend that a company takes a mixed team whereby those that visit your stand can talk to the member of staff that is best suited to answer their questions. By having a member of staff such as the company secretary (or someone similar) they can ensure that those who attend your stand are introduced to a colleague who will address their queries.
5. Stand Choice
Finally, careful consideration should be given to the type of stand that is purchased. A good stand purchase will see a stand being able to be reskinned by a design agency with new graphics for a future event for a competitive price. A poorly chosen stand, whilst it might have been seen as a bargain initially, might then prove costly due to the cost of having new graphics printed to fit the stand.
Liven Creative is a design and marketing agency based in Send, Surrey. If you are thinking of attending an event then we can help you with all aspects of communication before, during and after an event, including choosing and creating the graphics for an exhibition stand.
