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Ideas to help bring your stand to life

7/6/2015

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Bringing your stand to life at an exhibition can be tough, but essential if you are to succeed.  A lifeless stand can quickly become dead space and visitors will not even notice it within the theatre around you. 

Demonstrations and samples are a big draw at any type of exhibition.  If you have an interesting product that you think visitors will be interested in, one of the best ways to have the wow factor on your stand is to demonstrate how it will improve the visitors’ lives and businesses.


People like to see products and when they do and they understand how it will help them, you may be able to sell some items there and then (or at least collect orders and add people to a waiting list).

Putting on an attraction will definitely give your stand the edge.  Think about things you can hire to use on your stand to create a buzz.  Previously, exhibitors at our events have hired a candyfloss machine or a popcorn machine.  We’ve even had exhibitors with game consoles, racing car tracks and giant board games. Visitors love playing games and winning prizes – it helps make the event more fun for everyone involved and interactive attractions allows you to build relationships with delegates in an informal way.

Competitions are another great incentive to attract audiences to your stand.  Whether you’re giving away an experience day or a special hamper, make sure that you’re shouting about your competition and that everyone walking by your stand knows that the competitions exists and how they can enter.

You can also bring your stand to life by introducing fancy dress.  In the past we’ve had exhibitors that have dressed up as Sherlock Holmes and another exhibitor once came in an owl costume. Dressing up is an easy way to stand out and help create an energy within your space that other exhibitors will find hard to compete with.  Visitors also love getting pictures with people that are dressed up at an exhibition and they’ll often share the images on social media – so it’s a really powerful and creative way to benefit from all the additional exposure that you may get.

When exhibiting remember your end goal and your objective for being at the event.  Don’t fall into the trap of organising an attraction that doesn’t mean anything to your business or industry – it has to make sense.  Be original, but not random.  The best exhibition stands are the ones that breathe life into a booth by putting their message at the heart of everything they do.


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Use goals to increase your return on investment from exhibiting

6/22/2015

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If you’re exhibiting at a business exhibition or tradeshow, one of the ways to guarantee a return on your investment is to set a series of goals and objectives that you’d like to achieve.

Many exhibitors forget to give themselves goals, which means they have nothing to use as a tool to determine if exhibiting was worthwhile.  Without setting goals before the event, you will not be able to measure the success of the stand, and figure out properly whether or not you should re-book for the next event.

Sitting down before you exhibit at an exhibition to set your goals is good practice, and we encourage all exhibitors to do it. 

Start by deciding on why you have chosen to exhibit in the first place. What was the driving force behind the decision to exhibit? Perhaps you’re looking at generating enquiries, raise brand awareness or collect a certain amount of business cards to add to your company database… it doesn’t really matter what your own goal is, but make sure you’re aware of the reason you booked initially.

Then you need to make your goal smart.  You need to make sure your goal is specific, measurable, achievable and realistic, and can be achieved within the amount of time you have.

For example, if your goal is to generate enquiries, to make it specific your goal should read something along the lines of… ‘To generate five enquiries for our online cloud service on the day of the exhibition’.  This is specific because we’ve determined how many enquiries we want to generate and what type of enquiry we want.

The next step is to check that the goal can be measured.  We know it can be measured easily because at the event you can record who is interested simply by using a notepad and pen.  It really is as easy as that. And of course, we can count to make sure the target of five enquiries was achieved.

The final three elements is to ensure your goal is achievable and realistic.  If you’re exhibiting at one of our events, for instance, and you’re exhibiting as part of a small team, you’d easily be able to generate five enquiries if you’re working your stand properly!  Talk to the organisers of the event you’re exhibiting at beforehand to make sure your goal can be achieved. 

You also need to make sure that you can achieve your goal in the time frame given.  You may wish to change the time element in your goal so that you give yourself enough time.  Don’t limit your goal to expire on the day of the event though, as most business actually happens after the event has finished.

By setting yourself a goal, you’ll be able to see if the event helped you achieve that.  If you managed to secure those five enquiries for the online cloud service, for example, you’d recognise that exhibiting worked and you’d be more confident in re-booking for the next events.

Many people don’t see a return from their investment in a stand at a business show, simply because they didn’t really understand what they were working towards.  With a clear and smart goal, you can make sure everything you do at the event is working towards achieving your goals and objectives.


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The secrets of exhibiting successfully

6/15/2015

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There aren’t many things that you need to do when you exhibit at an event to do it really well.  In fact there are just four key elements that all successful exhibitors share in common.  None of the secrets are actually secret, but you’ll be surprised at how many companies still forget to use these tools to maximise their presence at an exhibition.

The first secret is to have a clean and effective stand design.  When it comes to displaying your exhibition space go with the fact that less is more.  If you try cramming loads of displays, units, graphics, props and anything else you think of to help create a buzz, you’ll end up doing the complete opposite.  Visitors are always put off by cluttered stands that look like they belong at a bring-n-buy sale, rather than at a professional business expo. 

The second best advice to exhibiting success is to pick two or three things to promote.  Again, don’t confuse visitors by telling them everything that you do.  Choose a few of your products and services that most of the visitors will benefit from and then promote those as much as you can.  Tell people you’re the best company for web design and you’ll attract loads of the right people.  Tell everyone that you can provide this, that and that and you’ll put them off.  Niche yourself and be confident in what you do really well.

Thirdly, you need to have a special offer.  Forget having a competition that simply helps you to collect business cards, instead invite people to take up on your exclusive deal that’s only available to people at the event.  Include a deadline that lasts up to two weeks after the event to give you enough time to follow up with people.  It also allows people to think about buying from you, instead of forcing them to make a decision quickly.

Lastly, don’t slip up on a lack of follow up.  Exhibiting only works if you follow up with people after the event.  If you promise someone that you’ll email over a proposal, make sure you do.  If somebody said they are interested in your service, pick up the phone and arrange a 1-2-1 appointment with them.  Remember to connect with them on LinkedIn and follow them on Twitter.  This will help keep you in the front of their minds.

You don’t always win business directly from exhibiting at events, but it’s not just about the people you meet directly at the show.  Ask for referrals, because you don’t know who they know…

Exhibiting really is a fun and relaxed way to generate sales for your business and if you follow those four secrets you can’t go wrong.

If you’d like the chance to put these top tips into practice, contact us to find out how you can exhibit at our next local business show


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How to create a buzz on your exhibition stand

3/16/2015

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When exhibiting at a business expo, making sure your exhibition stand attracts the right visitors is a challenging commission, especially for exhibitor virgins who are new to trade shows and business events.

One of the first things you need to consider as an exhibitor is the look and feel of your stand.  Your stand is your shop window and it needs to reflect your brand personality.  It is vital to make sure you achieve your aims and objectives for the event – whether it be lead generation, marketing, local awareness or a database building exercise.

At our previous events different exhibitors have brought their stands to life using different techniques including live demonstrations, food samples, staff in fancy dress outfits, popcorn and candyfloss machines and interactive games for the visitors to get involved with.  


But these activities weren’t just for the sake of it, instead the exhibitors thought about their products and services and decided what to do to attract an audience.

For example, Richardson Eyres who exhibited at our Southampton Business Show wanted to showcase their online and cloud services and used a candyfloss machine to attract the visitors to their stand.  Visitors walked away with a bag of Richardson Eyres branded candyfloss, whilst also learning a bit more about the services they provided.

Another great example was One2create who previously used live art illustrations on their purpose built stand to pull in the punters.  It was a great promotional activity which boosted their awareness – there was a constant buzz around their stand throughout the event.

Believe it or not, you can actually achieve great things without ridiculous investment – as long as you are original in your planning and your stand stands out from your competitors and fellow exhibitors – you can safely say that visitors will stop and look – so always remember when designing your exhibition stand it’s important to have big ideas and not necessarily deep pockets.

And when visitors do ‘stop and look’ that is your opportunity to start conversations and forge new relationships with potential clients.  There is no benefit to investing in your exhibition stand, pulling your hair out to come up with the best and innovative idea for your space, unless you fully utilise the opportunity to interact with delegates.

All exhibitors, at all events, face the same challenge in coming up with fresh ideas on how they can best showcase their brand.  Just remember that business events are live and it’s all about people – so try and use the senses to draw delegates in – including sound, touch, taste, sight and smell.  These will naturally create buzz around your stand, making it a little more unique and attracting visitors like bees to honey.


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Registered Address: Memo Events, Devonshire Business Centre, Aviary Court, Hampshire, RG24 8PE 
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