You should start by choosing the best exhibition strategy to match your company’s sales, marketing, branding, or other objectives. It can be a challenge, however, since there are about 30,000 business-to-business exhibitions held worldwide each year.
Here are some thoughts to help your selection process:
- Focus on those global exhibitions offered in your industry sectors.
- Evaluate these exhibitions according to their importance within the sector, as well as their local, national, or international appeal.
- If your competition is exhibiting at these events, it may be a good indicator that you should consider exhibiting.
- Carefully review the audience demographics (the published metrics or data about the visitors, exhibitors, press, VIPs, etc.). The exhibition visitor profile should offer your company a good potential for making sales or gathering sales leads. Do your customers attend the exhibition?
- If your focus is on company branding, these visitor metrics should help you determine if there is an opportunity to achieve this.
- Be sure that the company producing the exhibition has a good financial reputation.
- The total geographical area served by the exhibition should match your marketing needs.
- The facility where the exhibition will be held should be evaluated.
- Evaluate the city where the exhibition will be held – are there good hotels nearby? What about entertainment opportunities for meeting with your current customers?
- Consider accessibility to an exhibition by air, rail, and car, since this will affect attendance. Are there other transportation options available?
- Evaluate the support services offered at the exhibition. For example, translation services.
- Finally, the time of year the exhibition will be held and political considerations can be important factors.
The JMS Exhibition Strategy offer™
It is a sad truth that 71% of exhibiting companies do not set objectives or plan strategies for their participation. Even worse, only half of these companies with objectives ever follow through on their stand. However, those companies that establish and measure objectives consistently achieve great success.
As with any other marketing activity, planning is vital. Objectives provide direction for every aspect of your company’s exhibition participation: your marketing strategies, branding plans, budgets, exhibit architecture, graphics, products, literature, IT support, and the necessary staff.
Call us now to find out more about how we can help you make your mark in your marketplace with a world-class exhibition strategy.
Glossary: ACORN, AIDA Marketing Communications Model, Branding, Demographic Segmentation, Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), Equality Act, Geographic Segmentation, Segmentation, Trust