Love them or hate them, exhibitions are an integral part of corporate life. We love exhibitions and will be making the most of Advanced Engineering, which is fast approaching. As we are in the midst of getting ourselves ‘exhibition ready’, it has got us thinking yet again about some of the often forgotten but important basics of having a successful show.
So, if you are exhibiting at Advanced Engineering or any other shows in the coming months, here are our top three ‘back to basics’ to remember:
Behaviour
Ever walked past a well-designed stand only to see one person huddled over their laptop, or a team clutching brochures and prowling the edges? Neither behaviour encourages stopping. So, what does? Well, think of your exhibition stand as a shop front and your team as the discreet, yet on hand sales staff ready to help with potential customer enquiries. And:
- Plan to have sufficient staffing for each day to cover the peaks and troughs and ensure that there is a spread of seniority throughout, so that any level of question can be answered by visitors as needed.
- If non-exhibition work needs to be done, minimise the number of people on their phones or laptops on your stand and have others ready to answer any visitor questions.
- Avoid looking bored – if your team look bored, that won’t encourage enquiries. However, there is a fine balance between looking bored and over-zealous, after all, no one likes a desperate sales pitch!
Information capture
These days capturing information at an exhibition couldn’t be easier. Long gone is the stapled business card. With the arrival of scanners a whole world of quick data capture has opened up, however, it is worth thinking about the type of data you want:
- Alongside basic contact details for follow up, remember to create a simple measurement tool that the team can grade to give an idea of how interested the contact is in doing business with you.
- As well as lead scoring, it is important to make a note of the timeline of their need. Ie. immediate, next year, speculative etc.
- Finally create a way to capture some nuggets of business or personal information that will give you an ‘in’ with the person when contacting them via email after the show.
Follow up
That last point leads us on nicely to follow up. After a show, when faced with a wealth of contact information, what is the best way to follow up?
- The key is to respond as quickly as possible post-show, so that the contact feels valued.
- This first communication should be a personal email that contains a ‘thank you for coming’ and gives answers to any specific questions raised on stand.
- Save the blanket email for a few weeks later and then follow up again with a more personalised one after that. CRM is a valuable tool but after a busy show, it can easily go on the back burner while other more pressing business matters take over.
Well, none of the above is rocket science but it can be easily forgotten at a busy show. As Oprah’ says: “Every day, you're only as good as your last show”…. So, let’s make the next one a good one!
