"The 7 Steps to Exhibition Success"

"The 7 Simple Steps That Will Help You Deliver Successful Exhibiting"

Having A Written Plan (1-2 Pages)

Over 65% of Companies will go to an Exhibition without a plan. Not having a plan will make exhibiting more stressful and limit your chances and opportunities for success. The key reason why companies do this is they feel making a plan is too complicated. The key point is to keep it simple. The plan should be 1-2 pages and focus on the 3 key areas of Sales, Marketing and Operations. What do you need to achieve or do in these areas?

Knowing Your Why (Setting 3 Key Objectives)

We work with lot of companies who tell us they only have 1 objective - to get lots of sales. This is great because they are ambitious, however this is a very dreamy approach as its not measurable and how will you know if you have succeeded? It also falls down in another area and that is, that there are lots of other things you can achieve besides sales...New distributors, market research, finding staff, demonstrations, getting appointments to mention just a few. The reason we set THREE key objectives is because it enables us to really focus on the key things that we can achieve. If you just set one objective and don`t meet it...The exhibition will be seen as a disaster. Is this really true? The key metric for any business success is achieving lots of things...not just one.

The Right Team (TEAM = Together Everyone Achieves More)

Exhibiting is all about building strong Face 2 Face relationships with visitors so having the right people who can really engage your audience is critical. They don`t necessarily have to be the best sales people in the company(although this can help!) It`s about having people who are really engaged in the success and have the real energy for standing on their feet for long hours and long days at Exhibitions.

Great Targetted Pre-Show Marketing (On and Offline)

In this digital age its all too easy to forget about offline channels but when marketing your company pre-show, you should be looking at all the channels both on and offline that will deliver visitor numbers. Targetting the right buyers in the channels that work for them not you!! This involves, direct phone calls to your top clients, posted invitations, social media, email marketing and promotion through any channels that your intended buyer will see you. My rule of thumb is that you should be doing a 70/30 split in favour of online marketing for the show.

Practical Stand Design (60% of Your Floorspace Free)

When a visitor walks down the aisle of a show they will decide within 4 seconds if they are going to stop so that is the 4 seconds to make an impression at an exhibition...Make your stand design Eye Catching(Lots of colour) Important(Using key readable message) and Welcoming(keep 60% of the floorspace free for visitor access) and ensure your team are standing, smiling and really engaging so as visitors need to and want to stop!

Creating a "WOW" - Selling at Exhibitions (TED Approach)

Selling at Exhibitions is different in that its reactive as you have no idea who is or may walk onto the stand. As sales people we also need to remember that people come to Exhibitions to buy not be sold. How we broach that initial question is really important...Nice easy open questions to get your visitor talking. I always recommend the TED approach to questions as they are nice easy encouraging questions that get your visitors talking.

T - "Tell Me about....." E - "Explain to me how...." D - "Describe to me..."

A word of warning - A lot of exhibitors ask the dreaded "Can I help you" question and its deadly as invariably the visitor will say no and then you have nowhere to go....!!! Simply put the word "How" in front of it and it will totally change the dynamic of it!

The All Important Follow Up (6 Days)

One of the biggest mistakes companies make when Exhibiting is that they do the show and upon getting back to the office begin to firefight what happened while they were away. They shelve following up the leads until tomorrow...The tomorrow becomes another tomorrow and another and then the leads just dont seem as valuable. 81% of leads from shows are never followed up...Fact. It`s akin to buying a fantaatic new pair of jeans but then putting them in your wardrobe and never wearing them! Don`t fall into this trap!!!!

Exhibitions are a fantastic way of building relationships and business but they are only as good as the people who are doing them. We train a couple of thousand Exhibitors per year and the issues are always the same....We hope these 7 little tips from our "7 Steps to Exhibition Success Masterclass" are of help but please do get in touch if you need any more help. We have recently launched the "7 Steps to Exhibition Success Masterclass ONLINE Course" and if you really want to maximise your potential from exhibiting its worth looking at here...

Happy Exhibiting - Stephan Murtagh, The Exhibition Guy

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