TRADE SHOW EXHIBITION Part II of III

How to Gain the Most from Your Presence
Part two of a three part series about deciding the benefits having a booth at a trade show and how to get the most out of your attendance.

Your company is going, so how can you make sure that your booth attracts clients and gives your company the most it can to make its presence a success? Do sales and marketing crave a junket to gain free hotel soaps? In years past maybe that was a good enough reason to book a place in Las Vegas, Frankfurt or Hong Kong, but these days we all need to make sure that any expenditures will reap rewards.

A trade show is a powerful opportunity to define your brand and in turn capture more clients. If you are going to go, you should do it right or you risk sending the wrong message. “Doing it right” does not have to mean elaborate and large, but your physical space at a show will send a message, so it’s good to ask yourself a few questions to make sure the one it sends is the one you intend.

Your presence at a show is often the only physical interaction you have on your turf and on your terms with customers. If your company has taken the time to craft advertising, websites, business cards, brochures etc, remember that your trade show booth is 3d expression of what your company and its products are about. A combination of your company’s or product’s identity along with careful thought to what you want to gain from the show can help you to achieve your goals.

So how can you get the most bang for your buck, or the most yippee for your euro? (or name the excitement and currency of your choice) Trade shows are not cheap but working out what your goals are for the particular event, before renting space and designing or modifying a booth will make your show investment more profitable and maybe give you a little extra to choose a hotel with better free shampoo and fluffier towels.

A design that is successful for your company must do two things:
It has to function to help you achieve the goals you set for the show.
It has to reflect the message you wan to send about your company and products

In order for your booth design to achieve the above goals, you and your designer should address the following questions.

• Are you introducing one new product or a line of new products?
Through wall placement, lighting and other design elements such as graphics, booth design
for to highlight one product can focus vision and traffic to a centerpiece of the stand, while
having multiple products of equal importance requires a space plan which encourages
movement to see all that is available.
• Are you there primarily to serve existing customers or make yourself known to a new
market?
Going for a new market gives you an opportunity to define yourself visually. A design focused
primarily on serving existing customers should remind them of why they have chosen you but
be careful not to limit yourself to only the same old things, as you don’t want to be perceived as
stagnant.
• Do you want visitors to linger or do you prefer a quicker traffic flow?
Wall and display stand placement controls how people access and move through the space,
decide if you may be served better by easy access and more open sides, or less open access
that may keep those who enter in the space longer.
• Do you need private or semi private meeting areas?
Can an open sales area with tables and chairs function, or do you need more secluded spaces
with the ability to close doors?
• How does your company distinguish itself from its competition?
Are you known to be innovative, environmentally friendly, provide superior service or
technologically advanced? If so, make sure that the booth design reinforces this message. A
company that prides itself on innovation could benefit from having a booth design that is
innovative in some way.
• What do you want visitors to take away from their experience at your stand?
Hopefully a receipt for an order place or plans to follow up post show. Make sure that their
experience in the stand is a food one. First that they are attracted enough by it to enter, that
there is adequate space to see and try products and talk with reps. Make sure that it is
physically comfortable and the environment is one where they enjoy being, if not they may leave
before they’ve had the chance to understand your offerings

A well planned booth design which addresses both function and message has a concrete impact on your success at a trade show.

TRADE SHOW EXHIBITION PART I of III

To Go or Not to Go, That is the Question.

Part one of a three part series about deciding the benefits having a booth at a trade show and how to get the most out of your attendance.

We know that budgets continue to be cut and it is not always easy to know where to best wield the ax. Considering costs for travel, space rental and booth design/build, trade shows can be a tempting target to lop off, but before chopping trade show presence out of the budget too quickly, consider the benefits a trade show investment can bring to your company. Merchant Circle, www.merchantcircle.com offered a summary of statistics on trade show attendance:

• 83% of the attendees have some kind of buying power.
• 85% of decision makers say attending trade shows saves their company time and money by bringing vendors together under one roof.
• 79% of the attendees say that attending shows helps them decide on what products to buy.
• 91% of attendees say that trade shows impact their buying decisions because the competition is in one place allowing for comparison shopping in real time.
• 85% of an exhibitor’s success lies in the performance of the staff.
• People to people medium where the quality of communication is critical, ineffective staffing equals ineffective exhibiting.
• Trade shows cost 38% less than sales calls.
• Trade show visitors will tell 6+ people about their experience.
• 81% testify that trade shows help attendees become aware of new products and services.
• Trade shows are the #1 business-to-business marketing spending to support sales beating out specialty publications, internet, promotions, and PR respectively.
• 91% of attendees tell us they get the most useful buying info from trade shows and events.

While trade show attendance has dropped in some fields and countries, it is not all bad news. Trade Show Week, www.tradeshowweek.com indicated a slight drop in attendance in consumer shows in the USA from 2007 to 2008 (down 1.3%) but this drop has slowed from the previous year’s drop.

If you attend more than one show, one option can be to consider cutting out smaller shows and focus your efforts on important shows. While less tangible ask yourself, if you are not available, who will they be buying from instead who is at the show?

Ultimately there are many factors to weigh when budgeting for a trade show, but having a clearer understanding of the benefits will help you to make a more valid decision.