As we know, successful trade fair participation consists of three important parts: planning, implementation and follow up. These are placed logically before, during and after the fair, and the importance of none of those should be underestimated. Here are some exhibition tips to get the most out of your next trade show.
BEFORE
- Plan your presence: what do you want to get out of it? Leads, contacts, requests for offers? If you make your goals and objectives clear, everything will be easier when the show goes on.
- Promote your presence prior to the event and invite your prospects to visit your stand.
- Be active in social media: tell everyone you’re attending this event, and never forget to post on your blog about it!
- Try to book meetings in advance. Keep in mind that over 80% of trade fair visitors plan their visit beforehand.
- Train your staff, set personal goals, and do your best to get a good mix of employees at your stand.
DURING
- Be active and interact with your visitors.
- Try to speak to as many prospects as possible, and remember to collect their contact information.
- Focus on the visitors. If you hide behind your laptop or smartphone, nobody will approach you and your stand, and that’s when you’re wasting money! See our post about 7 Common Trade Show Mistakes.
- Mid-event promotion: Be active in social media, maybe have someone just to take care of this (they could even be back at the office). Always remember to include the official hashtag of the event.
- Take pictures! These are useful when posting something on social channels (also after) and when planning future participation.
AFTER
- Debrief your onsite team. Lessons learned? Any competitive insights? What worked, what didn’t?
- Evaluate and measure your show: what did you achieve? How many contacts, leads, and prospects? Store all the information you got in your CRM system and make a report of everything – This helps when planning your next event participation.
- Contact your new contacts as soon as possible (while they still remember you!) and send connection requests LinkedIn.
- Post photos on your company page and/or social media
- Blog and/or post a video summary about your experience
Update by Elizabeth Toney. Originally posted by Sari Venäläinen 2015.