Follow It Up!

Yesterday, we considered how – as a consequence of reduced recessionary rates – exhibitions are increasingly becoming part of the overall marketing mix. As discussed, exhibitions provide a unique platform from which to raise brand awareness of your company formation, if planned strategically. However, like all marketing activity it must be quantifiable. In today’s post we give you practical guidance on how to make the most of your stand and crucially, how to follow up the leads you generated.

You are your brand

As we have explained previously, the culture of consumerism is changing – customers and clients alike are no longer motivated merely by price, they look for brands that offer reassurance and with whom they relate to on a personal level.

Exhibitions offer companies the opportunity to develop a personal relationship with their customers. Below are our top three tips on how to interact on your stand:

– Look and be approachable.

– Be passionate and excited about your brand but don’t attempt ‘hard sell’ strategies

– Offer enticing giveaways, for example chocolate or water branded with your company logo. These will attract people to your stand and also function as walking advertisements for your stand around the rest of the exhibition.

Make the most of your stand

Despite the fact that exhibitions are currently offering reduced rates, they are still costly and therefore you must ensure that every square foot you are paying for is working for your brand.

Regardless of the fact that, if you followed yesterday’s post, you will have planned and executed an effective pre-exhibition promotional strategy, it is still vital you maximise footfall to your stand for the people your promotion may have missed.

The best way of doing this is to carry out large scale off stand promotion. Send staff in branded outfits around the rest of the exhibition handing out giveaways, devise a prize draw to win a free trial of your product, if visitors to your stand give their business cards. But crucially, keep all promotional emphasis on your products and services.

Conversion and follow up
The fundamental objective of any exhibition is the generation of leads and converting these leads into clients or customers. You and your team must never lose sight of this.

One of the best ways of doing this is to record each visitors contact details, brief explanation of interest and suggested follow up tactic. Once you get back to office, create a database of all the leads you generated, send out a mass email, thanking them for their interest and a brief, generic explanation of how you found the exhibition. Then, review your database and begin to market to your leads on a more bespoke basis, i.e. if a visitor expressed a certain interest in one particular product give them a 5% discount voucher.

The quicker all of these leads can be actioned the better.