Getting your exhibition strategy right calls for careful planning and a lot of hard work. Fiona Humberstone, author of Exhibit!: The SME’s guide to using Exhibitions to Grow your Business, reveals the common mistakes exhibitors make so you can avoid them
I feel a bit guilty listing all the mistakes that businesses make when they exhibit. It seems a bit mean! But I hope you’ll find that as you read some of the examples below you might recognise one or two of these mistakes and realise that there are simple things that you can change to make your next exhibition more successful.
1. They were at the wrong exhibition
It’s easy just to sign up to an exhibition because your competitors are there or you think it’s a great opportunity. I learnt that lesson myself after my first successful exhibition —where I gained 100 leads and converted 70 of those into paying clients. I’m afraid I thought I’d cracked it! And so when another exhibition came up four months later, I jumped at the chance to attend. I was disappointed to say the least at the 38 leads we gained, and even more so at the quality of the leads – we converted less than 25 per cent into paying clients. And I learned a valuable lesson: to look at the opportunity on offer before diving in with my chequebook.
2. They didn’t show the visitors how they could help them
The vast majority of visitors haven’t come to the exhibition to see your business. They probably don’t even know who you are or what you do. Which means that there is absolutely no point in throwing up a generic poster or pop-up stand. You need to refine your offering and make it relevant to the visitors at this specific exhibition.
3. They didn’t capture enough leads
There are many reasons to exhibit and the main one for me is to use exhibitions to capture leads and build my database. I’ll do the selling later. At the exhibition it’s a frantic mission to capture as many leads as possible.
4. They didn’t follow up the leads
I recently worked one-to-one with a web development company helping them plan their exhibition strategy for a new product they were launching. We started talking about the firm’s previous experience of exhibitions and I asked how many leads they’d generated in the past. “Not many” was the response. And so I asked how much business they had generated from those leads “Erm… I’m not sure” came the reply “they’re still in the shoebox from last year.”
Failure to follow up leads is an absolutely heinous crime! No wonder they didn’t win any business. Meanwhile, their competitors were busy contacting all the show visitors and potential clients went for the easy option: the company that kept in touch.
5. Their stand looked uninspiring
You cannot underestimate the importance of making sure your stand looks fabulous. Your stand is your shop window for the day. It’s how your potential clients will judge you. If your stand looks like you’ve penny-pinched and thrown it together at the last minute, what does that say about how you’re going to handle your customers?
6. Their marketing literature let them down
I once visited an exhibition where a courier was sharing a stand with an electrician. The stand was a curious mix of day-glo A4 posters from the courier, and plugs and wires on the electricians’ half. It was hard to see the link between the two businesses, and not only did the stand lack polish, the marketing literature this courier was handing out did not do justice to his professionalism and passion for customer service. Sadly he is no longer in business. Your marketing literature is all people have to remember you by. Get it wrong at your peril!
7. They didn’t have a clear objective for the event
As a small business owner I need to make sure that every piece of marketing I do generates a return on my investment, and exhibitions are no different. I go in with a clear goal to generate a specific number of leads, and we always make sure we exceed them. Last year I worked with an IT company on their exhibition stand. We set a goal of picking up more than 100 leads for this particular event and the marketing manager offered a prize for the person who generated the most leads. The result? They picked up over 140 leads.
8. They didn’t look welcoming or friendly
How many exhibitions have you been to where the staff are huddled together chatting? Or eating? Or on the phone? I could go on, but you get the picture. As a visitor, exhibition stands can be intimidating. Do we dare cross that threshold? Are the staff going to bully me into buying something I don’t want? If you want to encourage people onto your stand, don’t do anything that will put them off.
9. They didn’t have enough take-away literature
I recently caught up with a client of ours who had just had a particularly successful exhibition. She runs a jewellery company and had arranged for a hairdresser to come to the stand to demonstrate how jewellery and hair could work well together. This was a fantastic approach that generated crowds of people and doubled their sales from her last event. However, there were so many customers on the stand that there was no way the team could talk to them all and so clients were walking away empty-handed. If you can’t talk to everyone, it’s vital that you have enough literature so you can maximise the exposure you get on the day,
10. They didn’t promote their attendance at the event
When an event doesn’t quite go to plan it’s all too easy to blame the organisers. They didn’t promote the exhibition well enough or ask the right people or put on an enticing enough seminar programme. And this may be true to a certain extent. But as an exhibitor you need to get involved with marketing the event too. You need to let people know that you’re going to be there, because for some visitors, your attendance alone will be a big pull!
11. They weren’t persistent enough in their follow up
Following up on every single lead after an exhibition is hard work, believe me. When you have over 100 leads, making a commitment to speak to every single one takes weeks, if not months of dedication. Often you won’t get through straight away, and when you do your contact won’t have time to talk and you’ll need to call them back another time. But you’ve got to do it if you want to maximise on the opportunity. It will pay off.
12. They didn’t follow up for long enough
With most companies, the average buying cycle is more than a couple of days, which means that sending out one email and a letter after the event just isn’t going to cut it when it comes to winning business from your new contacts. Plan to keep in touch for more than a year and you’ll get a much, much more profitable outcome from your new contacts.
