We went to Venturefest East Midlands 2015, last week! We’re sharing a series of blog posts with advice on how you can prepare for going to an exhibition with your company.
Standing Out from the Crowd
In order to promote your brand and services to their full-potential, you can’t just arrive at the event and stand there looking pretty, while just hoping that someone will buy your services. You need to sell it to them and make it eye-catching.
One of the ways of doing this at an exhibition is by using signs and banners to make your stand look interesting. You don’t want people to walk straight past it and go to your competitors.
A good idea would be to use pull-up banners on your stand so people can identify who you are. These don’t need to be overly wordy, but it is a good idea to put key information and links on them so that people can check out your brand online while they’re at the event.
If they’re visually appealing and clear, people who attend the event should notice them, and be able to grasp an idea of what your brand does. All you need to do is make it clear that you’re approachable, friendly, and that people can ask you anything about your company or services. They aren’t overly expensive to produce, and can be created in a few days. It’s important make sure you don’t over-do it as you don’t want your stand to look to cluttered and draw attention away from your main focus, people won’t know where to look if your stand is too busy, so make sure that you only have one or two banners that highlight key points in the message you want to communicate.
Making an Impact
What’s going to happen once you’ve spoken to potential clients at the stand? You don’t want them to just walk away and never be in contact with you ever again, otherwise it would be a waste of time. This is where printed materials come in, such as flyers or business cards, maybe even both.
If they’re consistent with the branding used on the stand, there won’t be any confusion about where the printed material will have come from. It is fairly essential to have printed materials with you when you run a stand at an exhibition. It will give the attendees something to go away with. It is important because they’re most-likely going to see a lot of different businesses, all with different ideas, and maybe even some that are similar to you. Exhibitions are busy and can get confusing. It would be easy to walk away and not remember anything about what you were just talking about, regardless of whether the person was extremely interested in your business. You need to hand out those printed materials in order to jog the memories of these potential clients.
Endless Information
A TV screen on the stand is also something you could be able to use to demonstrate your products to the visitors at the event, whether they’re walking past or talking to someone on the stand, it’s something which can be used to your company’s advantage. If there is an on-going presentation, references to appropriate links or contacts or something of the like, things that people can use to remember you; then it’s always going to be helpful. Remember: you want people to become more aware of your services and how to get in touch after the event. Using a TV or a screen at one of these events in the right way, is essentially like having a personal billboard on your stand.
Take into consideration that something like a screen presentation, videos, or any interactive technology may not be paid much attention to. This depends entirely on the style of the event, and the type of people there. If you’re at an event where there are a lot of busy people who want to see everything and not stop — these might not be of much help. Although, they could be really useful at other, similar events if there are more people who want to stand around and chat to everyone, or there are less delegates at the event overall.
It is also a good idea to research the event you’re planning on attending, if there’s the opportunity to get involved with any presentations or talk sessions at the event, make sure you put your company forward! Everything helps in situations like these, and it will give you the opportunity to sell your brand in a different way.
If you want to find out more about what to take with you to an exhibition event, make sure you take a look at the previous post in this series about giveaways.