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Exhibiting Strategies For Leaner Times

Trade shows have shown strong growth since 2002. The trade show and event industry has enjoyed positive growth, driven by strong corporate profits, convention center expansion, low airfares, healthy corporate travel budgets, the need for training and education, historically low interest rates, and the continued embrace of event marketing to reach buyers (Tradeshow Week Executive Outlook 2007).

However, 2007 ended with relatively flat growth (+1.6%), and 2008 has become a year of uncertainty and questioning of what will happen next.

Exhibiting Facing Current Uncertainty

Many of us in the exhibiting industry are faced with no growth budgets, but, even worse, marketing & Tradeshow Budgets have been either cut or reduced in order to protect the corporate bottom line or for other seemingly more effective marketing communications. marketing managers and owners are concerned with the economic impact of the fall presidential election: Will a change in administration mean a change in the business climate? But, the biggest issue for us as exhibit professionals is what to say or do when your management says, Lets get out of trade shows or Lets reduce our budgets or Lets reduce our participation in trade events.

The Enduring Value of Trade Shows

Your reply is and should be that trade shows are alive and well and we need to continue our participation. Although the growth statistics are falling off, trade shows and events still fill a need. Exhibitors want the medium, and quality attendees are coming to the shows. The total number of attendees may be declining, but high quality audiences are still available to exhibitors. Trade shows and events are the only way you can get face-to-face with prospects and customers other than a direct sales call. You can accomplish more in a day visiting with show attendees than you can in a month of calls in the field.

Exhibiting Works!

It works because of the value of being able to meet face-to-face. It provides us an opportunity to accelerate the selling cycle by matching attendee needs with your ability to fill their needs. It works because adults are visual learners and exhibiting is a visual medium. The exhibit, your products, the graphics, collateral materials and promotional products are visual. Lastly, buyers are experiential. You can provide them an experience through the dynamics of the exhibiting process interactive visual aids, challenges, and hands-on demonstrations.

Below are 16 tactics that will drive a successful exhibiting strategy. Each tactical element is discussed in detail in the Successful Exhibiting Strategies in Uncertain Times White Paper along with suggestions on how to make it work in your world.

• Don’t Stop Going to Shows, Go Smarter
• Make Trade Shows a Part of Your Integrated Marketing Communications Plan
• Exhibit for the Right Reasons
• Proactively Evaluate the Shows in Which You Participate
• Evaluate the Space You Occupy Versus Your Objectives
• Focus on the Objective: Reducing Your Cost of Ownership
• Invest in Graphics
• Its the Quality of the Audience, Not the Quantity
• Focus on Your Targeted Audience
• Don’t Rely on Traditional Selling Techniques
• Invest in a Motivated Staff
• Recruit Management as Part of Your Exhibiting Team
• Exhibiting is Not Just Collecting Names or Swiping Badges
• Create a Follow-up TEAM
• What is Your Measure of Success? Measure the Results
• Plan to Work the Show Every Moment the Show is Open
• Think Bigger Think Beyond the Trade Show Floor

How to survive this cyclical downturn is not to avoid exhibiting altogether, but instead to exhibit smarter. Smarter exhibiting includes using integrated marketing communications, choosing to exhibit at shows that meet important, measurable objectives and picking exhibits and spaces that are sized right for your opportunities. You will see greater results when you target high-quality audiences, bring a motivated staff, gain top-level involvement, follow up on your leads, measure your results, and work the trade show beyond the trade show floor.

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27 Exhibiting Do’s and Don’ts

1.  Do:             

Research a show carefully before you decide to exhibit.  Does this show attract a large number of people from your target audience? Tradeshow participation takes a lot of time, energy and resources.  You don’t want to spend them on folks who are unlikely ever to do business with you.

2.  Don’t:

Be afraid to ask questions.  Show organizers have all kinds of information that new exhibitors would benefit from knowing.  Ask about attendee demographics, exhibitor’s requirements, and what assistance you can expect from the show’s staff.

3.  Do:

Start planning early.  Regular tradeshow exhibitors routinely start planning their appearances twelve to eighteen months in advance.

4.  Don’t:         

Pass up the chance to visit other industry events before you exhibit for the first time.  Make note of what exhibitors worked for you and what turned you off.  What did you find to be effective?  Can you incorporate those items into your own exhibit?

5.  Do:

Make a list of goals and objectives for the show.  This list should be very specific.  Do you want to generate $X in new sales, start a certain number of new business relationships, or spread the word about a new service offering you’re introducing to the market?

6.  Don’t: 

Get sidetracked by what everyone else is doing - or by what people tell you you ‘have’ to do at a tradeshow.  You’re at the show to reinforce your expert identity and achieve your goals and objectives.  Anything else is off-target.

7.  Do:

Be open to creative and new ways of presenting your services. Tradeshow attendees see hundreds of exhibits in the course of one day.  You need to be unique and engaging for your display to be memorable.

8.  Don’t:         

Be afraid to be enthusiastic about your services.  If you’re genuinely jazzed up about what you do, attendees will sense that.  Enthusiasm is contagious — and more importantly, it sells!

9.  Do:

Learn the 80/20 rule and take it to heart.  The best exhibitors are those who listen 80% of the time and talk 20%.  Focusing on attendees’ wants and needs is a surefire route to success.

10. Don’t:

“Throw Up” on attendees.  This very common practice occurs when nervous exhibitors can’t stop talking, and keep up a constant barrage of facts, figures, and sales spiel.  Attendees are quickly turned off by this, and your chance to form a profitable new business relationship walks away.

11. Do:

Remember you’re on display.  What you’re selling at a tradeshow is, primarily, first impressions. Be professional, well-dressed, and mannerly at all times.  You never know who’s watching.

12. Don’t:

Eat, drink, or chat on your cell phone on the show floor. When you need refreshment or a break, leave your exhibit booth.  Remember, the eyes of the public are on you at all times, so you’ll want to conduct yourself well.

13. Do:

Be realistic.  Tradeshows are long events.  You’re on the floor for anywhere from ten to twelve hours at a go, often several days in a row.  This is a lot for any one person to do on their own, and most Nichepreneuers are solo operations.  Ask for help.  Recruit friends to work the show with you.  If nothing else, they can spell you while you grab a quick bite to eat.

14. Don’t:

Forget!  If you have friends help you at the tradeshow, it behooves you to provide them with some training.  Make sure they understand what your services are, how you’re different from your peers, and what the marketing message is.  Also, have a plan in place to cover what they should do when they run into a question they don’t know the answer to.

15. Do:

Ask qualifying questions.  You want to know who you’re talking to, who they work for, and in what capacity.  This will help you determine if the attendee is a prospective customer or not.

16. Don’t:         

Be afraid to encourage people to move along if they’re not interested in your services.  Some of the people who attend tradeshows are ‘tire-kickers’ — they like to discuss everything, but buy nothing.  You don’t want to waste your time with them.

17. Do:

Take notes.  Take time before the show to create a lead-card system, in which you’ll record pertinent information to facilitate post-show follow-up. 

18. Don’t:

Depend on your memory — no matter how good you are, a few words scrawled on the back of a business card won’t be enough after the show’s over and you’ve met with literally hundreds of people.

19. Do:

Be polite and nice to everyone.  The junior executive today can be a senior executive tomorrow.

20. Don’t:

Forget to read the Exhibitor’s Service manual.  This is the thick packet of materials you received when you registered for the show.  Inside, you’ll find everything you need to know about exhibiting at that particular show — and discover important deadlines for ordering services.  Don’t miss those deadlines or you’ll pay more for everything!

21. Do: 

Reach out to the media.  Have a press kit available in the media room. Be open to interviews — reporters and freelancers often walk the floor looking for stories. If you have something truly newsworthy to announce, schedule a press conference at the show.

22. Don’t:

Forget to advertise your tradeshow participation.  Make sure your target audience knows they can see you at the show, where you’ll be, and what they can expect when they visit you.

23. Do:                           

Follow Up!  The most important part of any tradeshow takes place after you leave the building.  You see that big pile of leads you’ve gathered? Send them all thank you notes for coming to see you — and follow up with them the most promising prospects quickly.  You’ll be glad you did.

24. Don’t:

Hesitate to include hands-on, interactive demonstrations into your exhibit whenever possible.  People love to participate.  They love to try new things.  Most of all, they love to have fun.  If you can integrate fun into your exhibit, you’ll have more attendees than you know what to do with.

25. Do:                           

Use giveaway items that enhance your expert identity.  You want items that your attendees will use regularly and reinforce their impression of you as the expert.

26. Don’t:

Get caught up in trendy giveaway items pushed by promotional salespeople.  You want to stand out from the crowd, not merge with it.

27.  Do:

Give your tradeshow participation a fair chance to work.  Results may not be immediate.  Rome wasn’t built in a day.  But the business relationships you start at tradeshows today can steadily blossom into profitable partnerships tomorrow.

Written by Susan A. Friedmann,CSP, The Tradeshow Coach, Lake Placid, NY, author: “Meeting & Event Planning for Dummies,” working with companies to improve their meeting and event success through coaching, consulting and tradeshow training.  For a free copy of  “10 Common Mistakes Exhibitors Make”, e-mail: article4@thetradeshowcoach.com; website: www.thetradeshowcoach.com

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When staffing your exhibit space, keep in mind body language and what it may communicate to booth visitors. Your body language instantly sends a message, and speaks more loudly than any words. The following ideas are ways to ensure that your body language speaks positively:

Good posture makes a strong impression because people notice it from across the room. To make a great impression, stand and walk tall.Make sure your facial expression matches your words. If a client or anyone for that matter asks how you are and you answer “great” but your face looks angry or tired, you send a mixed signal.

Smile! When someone smiles at you, it’s hard not to return the smile. A smile has a magical quality that is almost impossible to ignore. There is something inside us that responds instinctively to a warm, sincere smile. Without eye contact communication is almost impossible. Try talking to someone without looking at them. Do you feel any connection? That’s why parents often say to children, “Look at me when I talk to you.” When you speak directly to someone, holding eye contact, you make them feel heard and taken seriously.

Nervousness often shows in your hands through rubbing or wringing them together, or clasping and unclasping them. To appear calm and relaxed, avoid excessive fidgeting, or rapid exaggerated gestures.

Good communicators naturally mirror people’s body language. We all use different tones of voice and language when communicating in business from when we talk to close friends or family members. In the same way, you can tone down or ramp up your energy level, rate of speech, and tone to make the other person feel comfortable.

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Welcome to http://www.chicagotradeshowdisplays.com/! We are in the early launch stages of our site and will be updating the Blog with even more pertinet information for your tradeshow questions. We have already begun to post tradeshow tips, product information, tradeshow resources and news for the exhibitor large and small.

Notice a hot topic not in here ? Let me know by shooting an email to ant@ttskyline.com or to caf@ttskyline.com

Thanks again for visiting, come back soon.

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