A lot of people tend to underestimate the importance of mingling with your own target audience. The reason why this takes place is that they put too much value in the concept of spending too much time and money promoting their business online which is completely fine unless it makes them neglect offline marketing. Now, one of the most important aspects of this offline marketing is the concept of networking and in order to exercise it, you need to find the right opportunity, one where you are face-to-face with your target audience. Business exhibitions are the opportunity that you’re looking for. Here are several tips to make your business exhibition work strongly in your favor.
1. Compose the right team
The most important goal of your exhibition is PR, which is why you need to consider which of the members of your staff would fit this purpose the best. You see, in your organization, you have both introverts and extroverts. While introverts may be (in some cases) more skilled and knowledgeable about the field itself, the truth is that they often lack the people-skills necessary to demonstrate this proficiency verbally. What you need for this business exhibition are people with great communication abilities, as well as those who are assertive, empathetic and great active listeners. Your selection of who to bring along will decide the success of the entire venture.
2. Prepare the setting
Another thing you need is to prepare the setting at the exhibition for your arrival. First of all, you need an adequate setting. This means making your brand presence seen and felt in the area that you and your team are occupying. So, start by getting an exhibition stand. Some sellers like Display Me also have portable counters in the offer, which is a more efficient option if you don’t have much space or transportation capacities. This is also a better choice if you want to keep the number of employees attending the trade show fairly low.
Next, you might also want to put up some signs, banners, possibly even a couple of tools/pieces of equipment that you need in order to perform your duties. Your team needs to act as part of the setting, as well. So, make sure to have them all dressed in company uniforms and make them wear name tags in order to make the interaction with customers somewhat smoother.
3. Have the promotional materials ready
One more thing you should bear in mind is the importance of having adequate promotional materials printed out and ready for the distribution. The main reason why people attend these events is to get new information about the industry, which is why brochures, flyers, and leaflets should be your number one priority. Sure, you can have your staff distribute them around the place but it’s also great to take a tad more passive approach, as well. This is why you might want to get some brochure holders and place them next to your exhibition stand. This way, you’ll take a subtler approach and allow them to get the materials they need on their own.
4. Mingle outside of the exhibition
During this expedition, you’ll meet some of your biggest future clients. We’re talking about people who will work with you for years and decades and recurrently make massive orders from your company. However, these people won’t make this major decision just based on a two-minute chat with a person behind the stand.
These people require your personal attention and you might even want to take this interaction outside of the compounds of the exhibition. Due to the fact that the majority of exhibitions last for at least several days, you might want to invite them to a business dinner (while you’re in town) and address in person any issue that they may have. Naturally, you’ll be the one paying for the dinner, so make sure to leave some room in your exhibition budget for these unforeseen expenses, as well.
5. Hype up your presence
Chances are that even if your business is relatively new to the market, you may already have a formidable online presence. Why not use it to hype up your presence and attract your audience to come to the exhibition. A higher attendance will not only make you look good at the event but also earn you quite a few favors with the event’s organizers. The next time around, you might have a privileged status. These small advantages can sometimes be too big to miss out on. So use your online presence in order to build up the hype. Ideally, you could make a teaser trailer in order to hint on what you’ll be discussing without revealing too much.
6. Live streaming
The last thing you need to take into consideration is all those who cannot attend the event. You see, some see them as a missed opportunity, while others look for methods like live streaming in order to get them on board. Naturally, this is a business decision that can cause a lot of conflicting opinions. You see, by announcing that you’ll live stream, you might make some people decide not to come, seeing as how watching at the stream tends to be more convenient and less costly. Still, the truth is that this is not a particularly likely scenario. The truth is that this way, you’ll manage to generate at least some value from people who would otherwise be unable to attend.
In conclusion
The very last thing you need to keep in mind is the fact that, depending on your industry, you might have to alter your approach to this situation. You might have new products to showcase, new devices to test and even interesting competitions to host. The above-listed five methods, however, are crucial, due to the fact that they handle the organization of the event. With these couple of tips on your side, making business exhibition work for you will be a walk in the park.
