Exhibiting at a large venue can give your business great exposure and
be beneficial for brand awareness for your business.
But, as with every new business venture there are risks involved, so you must ensure you’re well prepared to cope with the hurdles you may need to overcome at a larger venue.
Exhibitions are
known to be a fantastic place to expand your lead numbers and to forge great
new business connections.
Booking your place and putting up your stand can help
attract visitors to your brand, but there are some secret benefits you’ll find
once you attend as a visitor rather than an exhibitor. We’re here to spill all
of the exhibition secrets…
You’re only
as strong as your marketing plan – it’s the difference between where you are
now and where you want to be in a year’s time.
Everything
you want to achieve can be outlined in
your marketing plan – the exhibitions you want to attend, and the marketing
lead up to this, themes for your social media planning and the amount of
business you want to see increase.
So how do
you go about building a marketing plan, and why is it so crucial?
Assess your Situation
The
first step and key benefit of a marketing plan is
that it allows you to take a step back and assess the way your marketing is
currently performing.
In
doing so, you’re able to pinpoint marketing areas that need improvement, and identify strategies that seem
to be working for you as they are.
The
overall view of your marketing will really
help you see how you’re performing as a whole too,
and will help you with the next stage of the plan…
Determine your Goals and Measurement
Without
knowing what’s currently an issue within your business, you won’t know what
needs changing, or how to measure that you’re achieving these.
Once you’ve
assessed the areas in your marketing strategy that need to improve, you can
outline the main things you want to achieve from this.
For example,
if you know your exhibition posts don’t get a lot of engagement on social
media, your goal could be ‘double the engagement on exhibition posts on
Twitter and Facebook by December 2019’.
You
would then aim to measure this by noting how much increased engagement you gain
per week or month and set your strategy (to be discussed shortly) to meet these
goals.
Focus
on no more than 3-5 goals to avoid overwhelming yourself and diffusing your
energy away from the main aim of revenue growth, and make sure you have
research to back up the validity and possibility of your goals.
Set your Strategy
If
we use the goal outlined above as an example, some strategies you could use
would be
Running
a competition on Facebook monthly and announcing this and the results on
Facebook.
Conduct
A/B testing on your exhibition ads to see which perform better for which
audiences.
Encourage
people at exhibitions to engage with you on social media or generate a hashtag
to share photos and discussions related to this.
When you
have a comprehensive marketing plan, everyone’s next steps are clear. This could be in the form of announcing your
presence at a more suitable exhibition for your brand.
Don’t Feel too Contained
It
is incredibly important to remember this plan is an outline and isn’t set in stone. It’s a roadmap guiding you,
but there’s still always the possibility that you’ve taken a wrong turn or will
reach and obstacle.
As
long as you keep researching and measuring your goals and results, you will be
able to evolve your marketing plan when necessary, be this mid-year, quarterly,
or just in time for the next exhibition if you decide a different strategy
would produce better results.
You
want to make sure your marketing plan is driving results. If you don’t see this
being the case, it’s time for a refresh.
Why is it so important?
Whether your
business is big or small, your purpose should be revenue growth, and without customers you will never see this. Your
marketing and in turn your marketing plan are the key components to attracting
and retaining these customers.
The
strategic and time constrained nature of
a marketing plan really will help you notice whether you’re seeing results with
the strategies you use in the time you require.
2019 produces plenty of opportunities to revamp your
strategies when it comes to exhibiting in the coming year. We recently
published a blog post with some of the upcoming trends for 2019 in the
exhibition circle, and a lot of these involved social media.
Given that this is such a huge element of marketing and
exhibiting (sharing your attendance on multiple platforms in advance, running
competitions etc) it could never be a bad idea to run through some of the 2019
social media trends that you can incorporate into your exhibition plans this
year.
Personal Branding
Every business should know the importance of presenting
their brand, particularly over social media. Giving your business a cohesive
brand helps immensely in making your business recognisable and can only help
further at exhibitions.
Passers-by will automatically form a perception of your
company based on your visual identity. If this is recognisable in connection
with your social media identity, you have expanded your personal brand to your
exhibition.
This can be a huge attraction for some businesses, often
people will visit a stand purely on the impression from a business’s social
media, but it’s the continuation of the brand throughout the stand and those
manning it that encourages people to stay and converse.
Video Content
Video has proven itself over and over to be one of, if not
the, most popular and engaging pieces of content. According to Forbes, 64% of
customers are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video about
it.
This goes to show that video content has a huge impact in
how people will receive you and your business. Incorporating videos of product
demonstrations for example, into the display of your stand could be a great
persuasive feature to encourage people to request more information or indeed
make a purchase.
Of course, sharing these videos on social media beforehand
will also help create a buzz for your product, potentially encouraging people
to visit in person come exhibition day.
Podcasts and Live Streaming
Another video-based element that could work wonders and is
set to hold its popularity in 2019 is live content. Podcasts and live streaming
saw a huge increase in popularity in 2018 and were harnessed by several
businesses.
Live streaming a competition win or Q&A from your
exhibition stand could pull in a lot of visitors both online and in person due
to the intrigue this creates. When coupled with hashtags related to the
exhibition, this could catch the attention of exhibition attendees that
previously wouldn’t have visited your stand, but now are due to this
association.
Instagram and Facebook stories are also a good way to
promote the ‘in the moment’ action focused part of an exhibition.
This could produce a great amount of traffic for you both
on site and online.
Focus on UGC
UGC, or user generated content, is content produced or
posted by users of online platforms. It’s already a popular form of content
generation for a lot of businesses in their social media plans and can be
harnessed for use during an exhibition too.
It can be as simple as displaying a slideshow of Tweeted
reviews, or as complex as inviting users to become part of your stand or
exhibit through programs reminiscent of the Christmas “Elf Yourself”
phenomenon, or by creating something to display on your exhibition stand.
UGC is great because it really emphasises an engagement
between brand and customer, rather than just customer to brand.
These interactions harness social media strategies to use
in coming exhibitions and help promote a brand as customer friendly.
Influencer Marketing
A tried and tested technique proven to give results,
influencer marketing is great since the collaboration can help intrigue a
completely new audience and invite them to interact with your company.
This does not just have to be done online – bringing an
influencer you work with to an exhibition could have a great effect on
attracting a new audience on the day, leading to more visits from previously
disengaged attendees, and therefore more opportunities to sell.
The integrity of influencer marketing could be saved by
this – whilst fake accounts are an issue for the trustworthiness of influencer
marketing currently, you cannot turn down or dispute an in-person appearance
If you need help designing a stand or strategy to help
align with these social media trends and make 2019 your best exhibition year
yet, please get in touch with 200m2 today!
OUR EXHIBITION STANDS
Easy to build and extremely lightweight. The most portable exhibition stand system.
"4 Cancer Group is a cancer respite charity with a sporting focus. Consequently, we have a wide range of exhibition and event needs across a large number of different sports. 200m2 has helped us to obtain value in an area where we were being overcharged in the past. With an an adaptable stand and replaceable graphics, our events are now easy to manage."
Andrew Hayward, Trustee, 4 Cancer Group
"We have worked with 200m² Exhibitions on a number of occasions and always found them to be very helpful, professional and great value for money. At our Volunteer conference in Oxford the guys loaned us some fantastic banner display stands that really set off the conference. As well as providing the stands and banners they also gave up their free time to assist with the build and breakdown. Great work, thank you!"
Communications Co-ordinator, Make-A-Wish
"FIS is the world’s largest global provider of banking and payments technologies. Consequently, global exhibitions and conferences are a major part of our marketing strategy. We contacted 200m2 to assist us with an exhibition in the Middle East. It was clear to us that these guys knew what we were looking for. Since the show in the Middle East, 200m2 has taken responsibility for our other exhibitions around the world. As exhibition stand contractors, we have found 200m2′s service, products, customer care and value for money to be of the highest order"
Richard Cooper, VP International Marketing Strategy, FIS
"From project scope to final design outcome, the process could not have been more professional. At many events we are a ‘platinum sponsor’ where the level of expectation from the event organiser is exceptionally high. On each occasion the stand has been in use, we have received very positive feedback and requests to re-exhibit at future events. From our perspective, we have nothing but praise for 200m2 and look forward to many more successful exhibitions."
Richard Mose, Managing Director, Interact Medical
"As part of a conference at Canary Wharf in London, 200m2 delivered a full blown stage and seven separate exhibition stands where various OEM’s could display their products. 200m² Exhibitions played a critical role working with us to develop a solution and handled the ever changing dynamics with true professionalism. I would estimate that we had over 30 different layouts which were all drawn up and laid out in CAD for approval. Great job 200m² – we will be using you again!"
Peter Jackson, Commercial Director, Red e2
"Portrait Photography is highly competitive. It is vital for us to show our products in the best possible light. The CROSSwire system definitely meets our requirements and together we managed to develop a bespoke hanging system for our portfolio. This was a challenging objective which could not be met by a straightforward off the shelf product. All in all I am very satisfied with the product but also the professional approach of 200m² Exhibitions."
Lionel Cherruault, Director, Nousha Photography
“when searching for a highly versatile solution that would lift our brand at shows and events we came across the X10 CROSSWIRE from 200m2. The versatility of the units, their weight, ease of set up and multiple arrangements was just what we needed. Having bought a 6 panel configuration we have given ourselves the opportunity to have a large single display or even break it down to 3 x 2 panels displays. Having costed other options the X10 CROSSWIRE with its flight case is very competitive. Highly recommended”
Conor Swift - RYA Membership Development Manager
“At Upgrade Bikes Ltd we attend two or three major exhibitions a year where we use the X10 CROSSwire system as the framework for our self-built stand designs.
We love the fact that its easy to store and transport, fast to build and breakdown and looks professional every time. Combined with high quality printed banners, X10 CROSSwire allows us new designs each time and affords enormous savings over contracted stand builds. We regularly recommend 200m2 Exhibition Ltd to others and are very happy to do so here too.”
Rory Hitchens - Senior Marketing Manager.
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