Exhibiting at a trade show or any other form of live event is a great way to connect with your customers, attract new business, inform people about new services, launch new products and conduct market research. It’s also a good way of expanding your recruitment activity and striking up partnerships. In short, exhibitions remain central to many business plans.
All of these benefits of trade shows and exhibitions are recognized ways to spur growth and become better at what you do.
Of course, live events are only worthwhile if you are willing to build on them and react to the leads, information and opportunities that come from them, but that’s not what this particular article is about. This article is all about how to make sure you are spending your money wisely when you get exhibition contractors involved.
Here are a few tips that should help you put on a stunning performance at every live event in your business calendar.
Know your limits
It’s good to have a grasp of what you can reasonable handle in terms of your live event marketing in-house. There are bound to be some things that you can manage on your own, but exhibition contractors are often able to undertake tasks in planning, design, logistics, storage, and so on, with much less fuss purely because they are the professionals. Be involved but don’t bite off more than you can chew.
Call the experts
When you contact a team of professional exhibition designers you need to know that they’ll deliver. You can ask around to get an idea of who to trust and who to avoid. If you see a setup that you admire, inquire as to where it originated. Otherwise, look on company websites and read testimonials or look at the portfolios of teams like Finesse Group.
Identify your goals
Everything you do as a business is about setting goals and then trying to achieve them. Live marketing is no different. Think about what you would like to get out of your campaign. Do you want to increase business or simply raise awareness? Do you want to network or attract new talent? Do you want to inform or gather information? Often you’ll be aiming for a mixture of these things, but you have to know what you’re hoping to achieve if you are to devise a proper brief with your contractors.
Be realistic and open
Communication is vital when it comes to discussing ideas with exhibition designers. Remember that they are experts in their field and they’ll have plenty of suggestions for you. Don’t reject anything out of hand. You may have a clear idea of how you want things to look, but the specialists have first-hand experience of the way certain practical and stylistic flourishes impact performance on the day.
Concentrate on design
Design is incredibly influential and the work you do at live events can be enhanced by the colours, patterns and layouts used in your exhibition display. Obviously this is something to talk with your exhibition contractors about, but always bear in mind how your image affects your audience.
Continuity, continuity, continuity
You’re using your exhibition stands to make an impression, to get inside the heads of the people who see them. That means you have to keep pushing your logo and your company philosophy and colours. Make sure there’s a sense of continuity about everything to reinforce your ideas and to hammer the message home. You can incorporate the same messages into the scripts you use on the day.
