Why is it Important to Find out About your Competitors Before a Trade Show?

Why is it Important to Find out About your Competitors Before a Trade Show?

In any industry no matter how big or small, there are going to be other companies that you’ll be competing with for awareness, customers and market share.

Competitor research should form a key part of your marketing strategy, alongside your own market research.

This shouldn’t be any different when it comes to exhibitions and tradeshows.

What is a Competitor Analysis?

This is a structural analysis of the competing companies in your industry on a similar level to you. This will help you understand what their strengths and weaknesses are to help benefit your own business.

Identifying these areas, especially their weaknesses, opens the door to opportunities for your business to effectively try and perform well in the areas that they perhaps don’t as much.

Analysing other companies identifies their unique selling point (USP), and how this compares to your own business.

In effect, competition analysis provides you with business development ideas, allowing you to fill the gaps in your marketing and brand visibility.

What Should you Include in your Analysis?

In order to conduct an effective survey, there are a few prime areas to focus on, and these are relatively easy to assess. Here are some of the key areas for analysis:

  • Products and services – How are these different to what your company offer, and do the company have any specialities or best-selling products? An important area to consider is pricing and how this relates to your pricing strategy.
  • Marketing – What are their marketing and advertising methods? This will help you identify if they’re up to date with the latest marketing trends and whether they have any strengths or weaknesses.
  • Customers – Who are their target audience, and is this the same as yours? If they’re aiming their services towards a slightly different demographic, this gives room for opportunity for your company.
  • Location – Where is the company based, and are they close to you? If they’re located close to you, this could prove more of a challenge as you’re effectively competing for a similar group of prospects and clients. If you have a physical store, this is particularly crucial as you want to draw in customers to your shop, over others.
  • Unique selling point – What makes the company stand out in the crowd? Every brand has a focused area of branding or marketing that’s different to everyone else, so finding this out will show their company strength.

How Can this Help Before an Exhibition?

Having an exhibition stand is all about visually representing what your brand is about, expressing why you’re different from other companies, and why visitors should choose to invest in you.

Your competitors will have similar concepts in mind, in terms of their stand and promotion, so this will help you come to a decision of how you’re going to set up your stand for success and what you’re going to promote to draw attendees to the stand.

Whether you’re intending on having a stand at an event or going along as a visitor, you’ll be able to talk directly with competitors and asked questions based on what you’ve found in your analysis.

Are you going to run competitions? Or maybe you’re looking to offer limited-time offers and discounts for the event only. These are just a couple of the promotional strategies that will make visitors want to come to your stand, over the many others.

Goals and Objectives

It’s important to set goals and achievements that are going to be achieved realistically.

Instead of trying to transform all your weaknesses in one day, at one exhibition, create a strategy in your team of what can be accomplished the best through exhibitions and events.

When comparing your company to others in the industry, highlight your key weaknesses and work on these first.

Segment your strategy into stages to help breakdown how you’re going to best achieve your goals. Your objectives will all be achievable on a different timescale, so determine the time frame for each area and when you’d like to start seeing improvements by.

Considering the geographical aspects of your goals is important as the location of customers, potential marketing events and product manufacturing will all contribute to the outcome.

A financial structure should also be laid out to discuss what effect your strategy is going to have on your budget and how much this is going to increase.

 

Are you looking to ensure your exhibition stand is one step above the rest? 200m2 would be happy to help! You can contact our team of our experts here.

 

 

 

 

Why Should You Consider Using a Flight Case for Your Stand?

Why Should You Consider Using a Flight Case for Your Stand?

When managing your exhibition stand, there are many factors to consider when planning and setting up your space. Getting to the exhibition is more often than not, one of the last things that we all arrange, but what if this could cause damage to your stand?

Hiring flight cases to transport your exhibition stand is an easy way to make sure your goods are protected and compact for easy transportation.

Convenience

Whatever exhibition stand you choose to use for the big day, whether it’s one of our smaller models or it contains some of the more advanced and additional features, it’s going to be a relatively large and heavy selection of equipment.

Hiring flight cases for your stand makes it easy to carry your equipment to and from your event. The bulky edges on our exclusive cases provide high-impact strength to ensure that your equipment can be transported with ease.

One of their main benefits is their easy handling which is particularly helpful in transporting the flight cases. The handles and wheels make this easy to do, along with their relatively light-weight structure, in comparison to some of the other transport case alternatives.

Due to the wide range of different exhibition stands, flight cases are available to hire as ready to use models or in the form of an ‘easy to assemble’ kit, considering convenience and ease when setting up your stand.

Customisation

Available in a range of sizes, flight cases can ensure that you’re creating an efficient use of your space when transporting your goods, rather than having an oversized case, taking up more room than is required.

Another benefit in hiring a custom-sized flight case is that you’re only spending as much as you need to store your stand, designed to be compact and light-weight.

At 200m2, our flight cases can be created in a range of colours. Both the panel and durable edges can be customised on request to match your unique branding and coordinate successfully with the rest of your stand.

Price

Being an accessory to your exhibition stand and marketing, it is understandable that you are not going to want to make a huge investment in storing and transporting your equipment. This is why flight cases are a low-priced alternative to some of the other storage options available.

Most importantly, this will allow you to focus your budget on more important aspects of your exhibition space like marketing, equipment and staff.

 

For more information on the convenience flight cases could bring for your exhibition stand or if you want to find out about what flight cases we have to offer, you can get in touch with us at 200m2 at sales@200m2.co.uk.

Getting Your Staff Ready for Exhibition Day

Getting Your Staff Ready for Exhibition Day

You’ve got your exhibition set-up ready to go and you’ve employed your staff to champion your company, but where do you go from here? Below is a guide to success on how you can get your event staff prepared to a quality and professional standard, ready for exhibition day! 

The face of your company is what drives people’s interest to your business, on the day of your exhibition. When finding out about what your company has to offer, potential prospects want a friendly face to interact with and face to face marketing is the most powerful and friendly way to communicate with your audience and generate sales.  

Your event-staff team are the most valuable aspect of your exhibition and their prime job is to educate your audience about your business and convince them that your services and offerings are above and beyond everyone else’s. No staff means no success! To achieve maximum sales and interaction, read on to see the different ways and methods that you can get your team prepared… 

First Impressions 

Your crew member’s face is the first thing your audience will see, and a friendly face is key to driving your customers to engage with your event and to invest their time into learning about your company background and ideals. A polite and friendly welcome adds a personal touch and flatters prospects, making their initial experience with your brand welcoming and personalised. A good first impression already begins to build a positive relationship with a customer and gain customer loyalty, making them want to invest their time into your company instead of feeling like they have to. 

Small gestures alone like saying “please” and “thank you” go a long way with your audience, making them feel respected. A good combination of polite qualities doesn’t go unnoticed by the client and makes them feel prioritised by your company.  

Patience is Key! 

Try not to ramble on too much about the company and instead, really take the time to find out about the client and engage with them personally. A method to overcome this could be to prepare a list of questions for your staff, to help them engage with potential prospects. This will help them identify sale needs. This will allow you to personalise your sales approach and work out the best ways to present them with what you can offer them. Your staff may be there to sell your business aspects but the last thing your audience wants is yet another salesperson pestering them about things they’re not interested in. Your event staff are there to make them interested!  

Instead of focusing on quick sales and diving straight into what you want from the audience, slowly get to know them and ease them into taking an interest, leaving them wanting to find out more. Let your audience lead the way and move at their pace. A top tip is not force-feeding your clients with information but gradually telling them what they want to hear and when they want to hear it. A patient approach is a successful approach! 

Knowledge Exchange 

How can you depend on your exhibition increasing sales if your staff aren’t clued up on your company? Your customers are bound to ask various questions, so they are aware of what they’re about to invest in, so getting the answer they’re looking for is a necessity! 

A preparation technique for all your exhibition staff is to make sure they’re thoroughly educated on what you do, how you do it and why you’re better than everyone else. Writing a brief script covering the key areas of your business sets your staff up for all the questions that they’ll be asked and allow them to give the satisfactory answers that the audience are looking for. A professional and educated response will be encouraging for your customers and will convince them that your services are the ones they’re looking for. 

However, we advise that your employees revise the script and don’t fully rely on this when communicating with prospects as the conversation should be natural and convincing.  

Maximum Engagement 

We’re aware that interacting with strangers can be daunting, especially when you’re trying to find out new information. In order to make your audience feel comfortable, your staff will need to have a confident attitude so that the customer doesn’t feel like they’re making all the effort. Standing back and waiting for people to approach you is going to affect the amount of sales you make, so staff members will need to engage with exhibition members but in a way that is friendly and polite 

Whilst approaching your prospects is a must, this will need to be carried out in a casual and less overwhelming manner, showing dedication to your customer interaction. A proven method to a successful sales process is enthusiasm towards the client. Avoid making the conversation dull and repetitive and instead make it enthusiastic yet professional at the same time. It is important to personalise your tone when proposing sales to your audience, as some will take to more of a professional tone and others perhaps a more friendly one. 

 

With these top tips, your exhibition team will send sales through the roof for your business, with their friendly face and top notch enthusiasm about why your company is worth investing in! 

How to Effectively Use Your Exhibition Space

How to Effectively Use Your Exhibition Space

Sometimes, your exhibition space isn’t ideal – you’re left with only a small amount of space and can’t do everything you wanted with your stand. You might think at first that this will have a negative impact on your marketing efforts and your results. However, there are ways and means to make the most out of your space to help you get the best results.

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The Technical Elements of an Exhibition You’ll Want to Plan For

The Technical Elements of an Exhibition You’ll Want to Plan For

You might think you have everything sorted for your exhibition, you’ve written your list and checked it twice, but what if there is something you haven’t planned for?

The nightmare arises when you arrive to the exhibition venue and there’s no WiFi, or they don’t have any plug sockets! What are you supposed to do now?

Fear not, we’ve put together a list of some of the technical elements you might need to consider before ticking that last mark off your list next time.

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