Exhibition Marketing: During the Show

If you missed our previous blog post about nailing your exhibition marketing before the event takes place, make sure to read it before you read this post in order to get the full picture.

Once you’re already at the exhibition a lot of your marketing should have already taken place and you should have a strong plan in place for your marketing on the day.

After all, the success of your stand is completely down to you making an impact and attracting customers over. If you have a constant stream of people to your stand you will be able to converse with them and find out what their problem is that you can solve.

Here are some key marketing techniques you should be using, or at least considering when it comes to your next exhibition.

Social Media Marketing

Social media is a fantastic tool to use at exhibitions and it’s likely that every attendee will have some form of social media account in order to interact and participate with your company’s stand.

Social media is instant, so anyone passing by can engage easily and instantly.

Posts and opinions can go viral or be shared within communities thanks to hashtags and tagging people, building a great brand image that can only help with your exhibition marketing.

Coupling social media with a variety of technological mediums can really enhance its effect on your stand.

Some fun ways you can integrate social media into your stand include:

  • Create a QR business card people can scan and it will take them straight to your social profiles.
  • Create a social media wall that displays any recent tweets to your company or about the event and encourage people to join the conversation.
  • Create a social media style app for your business or the event and encourage downloads, this will help connect people at the event to your business.
  • Create a featured wall or section of your stand for people to take photos with (like a flower wall or fancy dress corner) and encourage them to share and tag your company in this.

Print Marketing

A tried and tested technique that always sees results, print marketing doesn’t get enough credit when it comes to exhibitions.

How many times have you been offered a flyer at an exhibition, and felt too bad to say no? Even if this only gets shoved in your bag at first, the chances are you’ll check it upon returning home, which provides attendees with an instant reminder of your company.

Underestimating the effect of physical print marketing you can hold in your hand might be a big mistake when it comes to your marketing.

It could be a business card, a flyer, a printed offer to redeem later on, but print marketing can really have an inspiring and unique effect when people are so used to online marketing being relied on so heavily.

Word of Mouth Marketing

Attendees at an exhibition will chat about the great stands and companies they’ve seen in the queue for a coffee. Word of mouth is one marketing technique you can rely on at an exhibition if nothing else.

Tempt visitors to your stand with free trials of your products, competitions, demonstrations and live events. This will encourage people to talk about your stand and share their experience of your stand. The aim of this is to increase the footfall to your stand.

Choose fun promotions and demonstrations that immediately catch people’s eye and they will therefore want to see what the fuss is all about. Using something fun and interactive can really encourage people to take part, and there’s nothing like a good freebie to encourage passers-by to come and have a chat with the team on your stand.

It could be a competition or challenge to win a free trial/item, or an event only promotion or demonstration – the ‘limited availability’ element of this is a proven tactic to help people buy or sign up too!

Networking

It may seem obvious, but you should use networking throughout your exhibition marketing.

It’s all very easy to get swept up in all the flashy marketing techniques your competitors may be using.

Whilst it isn’t a bad idea to incorporate this into your strategy from time to time, it’s important to remember that one of your main purposes at an exhibition is to create and develop relationships with potential customers, and networking is one of the key ways to do so.

Engaging in conversations with attendees, building rapport and demonstrating your brand is one of the best ways to market your company at an exhibition.

The Golden Rule

What’s the most important thing to remember when it comes to your exhibition marketing? Value, value, value. Don’t ever forget that your customers or potential customers will want to see how your business can benefit them.

However you decide to present this to your customers and whichever marketing technique you choose to rely on, this should be the underlying goal throughout!

For more on exhibition stands and how we at 200m2 can help you make a difference, take a look at our services.