Attending a trade show exhibit can deliver a wide range of potential benefits to any participating company. While the prospective return on investment is unquestionable, achieving success requires careful planning and strategy. All too often, companies attend trade show displays and simply perform by rote. They set up their booths and bannerstands only to half-heartedly go through the motions of how they’ve always done things at these events, or merely mirror the way their competition executes without carefully considering how to yield optimal returns on their time and financial investment.
Freshen Up Your Stale Trade Show Exhibit Techniques
If you’re a business owner or marketing director that feels your company just isn’t maximizing its efforts at every trade show exhibit, your team may be in dire need of a strategic execution overhaul. Revamping and refreshing your implementation technique can help deliver the results you’re looking for and ensure that you’re not allowing the competition to walk away with the market share that you deserve. Consider the following approaches before the next event:
#1: Set Trade Show Exhibit Goals: All too often, entrepreneurs feel like they already know what their goals are at trade show displays and fail to write them down. Or, they made their goal list when they first began exhibiting and never revisited them again. Always take the time before every event to sit with your team and outline goals specific to the upcoming function. Having them written down will help keep them fresh in everyone’s mind and ensure that your team knows what is expected of them. Plus, you just may be surprised how different your goals are for various events throughout the year.
#2: Find A New Convention Mix: If you feel like your company is stuck in a rut attending the same conventions again and again and again, it’s because you probably are. There are an endless number of industry relevant conventions that you may be missing out on simply because you haven’t done the research yet. Even sprinkling in a few new shows a year can help your organization reach an entirely new demographic and broaden your corporate brand exposure.
#3: Help Your Staff Hone Their Pitch Skills: Providing sales training that specifically sharpens skills needed at trade show displays is an excellent way to help your company stand out from the surrounding competition. Whether you hold the sessions in-house or solicit the assistance of a professional provider, having your team ready to perform at the top of their game and handle the many ad hoc situations that may arise can prove a critical business differentiator and help your team not only close deals, but also have the tools needed to unearth leads in entirely new ways.
#4: Make Some Minor Booth Updates: When was the last time you gave the convention crowd something new and fresh to visually feast upon? If it’s been awhile, it’s time to reconnect with your exhibit design partner and start dreaming up some innovative booth tweaks and updates. Remember, the changes don’t have to be major and financially prohibitive. A few simple modifications and updates can prove reasonably affordable and can still wow the masses who think that they’ve seen it all with your business.
