Exhibitions and trade shows are expensive undertakings but, handled properly, they remain an excellent way to generate leads, launch products, entertain clients and raise awareness. However, they are complex events to manage and, to obtain maximum return on investment (ROI), every step in the process needs to be handled professionally.

Without proper focus, exhibitions can become budget-eating monsters that turn into nothing more than a ‘jolly’ for the sales team. Handled correctly, they represent the ultimate 3D shop window for your company.

Here is editor Nick de Cent's step-by-step guide to planning a successful exhibition. Each step is equally important and success depends on getting them all right; after all, you’re only as strong as your weakest link.

Exhibitions: choose an established event.

1. Choosing the event

So, you’ve decided that exhibiting at events is the way forward for your company when it comes to lead generation? Or perhaps you have a new product or service that actually needs demonstrating? You do have a genuine need to appear at the event, don’t you? You haven’t just been sold some cheap space without considering how to fill and work it properly?

To repeat: exhibitions are expensive undertakings. Choosing the right event is key: if you don’t get it right, you’re wasting your money. Check the list of available shows in any of the trade directories, online (try a Google search) or, for overseas events, enlist the services of your trade association or UKTI*. Where there is a selection of established and credible events, choose one that coincides with your own plans.

If not, go with the event that attracts the largest number of visitors and senior buyers from your target market. Any reputable exhibition organiser will happily supply a sales brochure, including a breakdown of audited visitorship figures. (Watch out for a declining trend.)   

2. Selecting your stand space

As with buying any other real estate – albeit that exhibitions offer an extremely short lease – the mantra ‘location, location, location’ still applies. In fact, with exhibitions, it’s even more important because volume of passing traffic is a stand’s only value.

Location, location, location: position is key.

Clearly, the best sites tend to be more expensive, so you will probably have to achieve some kind of compromise between budget and position. Consider where visitor traffic is going to be maximised – facing the main entrance or exit, adjacent to food and other hospitality outlets, possibly near the entrance to the seminar programme or conference, maybe as part of a ‘village’ with other exhibitors from your country.

Positions to avoid are at the end of a cul de sac or in an overflow hall – in fact, any out-of-the way location.

Having found your ideal space, bargain to obtain the best price possible. Success will obviously depend on how much competition there is for that particular slot.

3. Exhibition plan

It’s time now to put together a detailed project plan, working back from the end of the show: you will already have created a budget as this needs to include the cost of the exhibition space! Time spent planning now will mean less time wasted later on. Include a detailed week-by-week countdown to the event with firm deadlines for major milestones. Appoint a projector manager to drive the project to a successful conclusion; gather a team with a representative from all contributing departments – marketing, sales, corporate communications, training, maybe even production and logistics if new products need to be manufactured and delivered on time for the event.

4. Perfecting your message

It’s amazing how many times organisations find themselves with stand space on their hands and absolutely no idea what they want to do with it. The most fundamental aspect of exhibiting is perfecting the message you want put across to your audience.

A non-specific message about your company tends to be weak and is easily forgotten – trust me on this, I’m an (exhibition) doctor! The more specific you can be, within reason, the more you can focus visitors on something they can relate to and remember. Clearly, it is helpful if this message also fits within your organisation’s general marketing framework.

You need to decide on your message prior to engaging an exhibition designer, or preferably, in conjunction with the design agency if that capability is available.

Band stand: gimmicks grab attention.

5. Designing your stand

Provide a comprehensive and focused brief to the design agency or exhibition contractors – what the event is, dates, where it is, stand location, type of stand (space-only or shell scheme), what you want to achieve, key marketing messages and, of course, budget. Budget is key: know what you want to spend (assuming it is realistic) and stick to the figure.

Don’t worry about revealing your budget in advance of any quote: there are many ways to design and build a stand and the final result will inevitably depend on your budget. Being too secretive simply hampers the design process – far better for an agency to know what to rule out in advance. You can obtain comparisons to see what you’ll get for your money by asking several agencies to pitch; you can also ask agencies to design at two or three different budget levels.

Interactivity is the watchword when it comes to stand design – don’t just show your visitors; don’t just tell your visitors: engage them. Research shows that people can retain quite complex messages if they have an interesting, informative and engaging route to learning about your product or service.

First, grab their attention with an eye-catching stand design, special offer or gimmick (free drinks, giveaways, video arcade machine, juggling clowns – you decide). Secondly, engage their attention with an interactive experience for as long as you wish to keep them on the stand. Finally, send them away with something to remember you by.

6. Additional branding opportunities

Seminar programme: contribute speakers.

Alongside the exhibition stand proper, there are usually several other opportunities to communicate your message: consider putting up a speaker for the associated conference or seminar programme; investigate the possibility of using banners for additional branding in the hall, entrance or approach to the building; sponsor a reception; advertise in the exhibition guide (choose your space carefully – only the best positions like the outside back cover tend to be noticed).

7. Marketing

Your own marketing collateral needs to support the show. Don’t neglect pre-show publicity like visitor mailings.

At the event, you will have the usual supply of corporate brochures on the stand, but what about themed giveaways? Maybe best to have a selection so that you can dispose of timewasters quickly with an inexpensive item, while reserving more substantial gifts for genuine prospects and key clients. Do you have sufficient storage for these items?

Don’t neglect the media: make sure you keep the press office stocked with press packs and keep a few tucked away on the stand. Have the press material professionally written and avoid too much jargon and complexity.

Training: include contractors.

8. Training your staff

If there’s one thing that can make a difference at an event for very little cost, it’s the way your staff work the stand: there’s nothing more off-putting than seeing a couple of bored business people lolling around on chairs at the back of their booth. Proper training needs to be done and roles assigned well in advance of the event: make sure your staff (as well as contractors like ‘personality girls’) understand the products and services you are showing.

9. Working the stand

All the obvious things need to be done and done well: at its simplest, this means presenting an enthusiastic and welcoming face to the world, while collecting and recording basic contact information accurately. Distinguish between time-wasters and genuine prospects wherever possible but treat everybody courteously. Offer access to senior staff when key accounts, major prospects and journalists present themselves on the stand.

Give staff regular breaks because events are hard work, but don’t let everybody slope off to lunch together. Worse, don’t turn up with a raging hangover on the second morning of the show after having wildly overdone it at the first-night exhibitors’ party.

Make your stand doubly pay for itself by using it as a focus for a press event or product launch. Why not hold an early evening reception or lunch for your key clients?

10. Following up leads

Finally, do not neglect to follow up leads after the event; after all, this is what all the fuss was about in the first place.

Many sales teams despise this follow-up role and it’s surprising how often hard-won leads are neglected and, ultimately, wasted. View the follow-up process as a positive because, if the event has been properly organised, contacts gained on your stand have, to a certain extent, been pre-qualified and represent a major opportunity rather than a chore.

*UK Trade and Investment.

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