Exhibiting Excellence and Optimising Attendee Engagement, by Lee Ali MD of Expo Stars Interactive Ltd
Exhibiting excellence and optimising attendee engagement
Over the past five years, the exhibition industry has faced some big challenges. From the COVID-19 pandemic which all but eradicated exhibitions, to the current cost of living crisis which has seen 9 in 10 adults in Great Britain report their cost of living has increased.
But where does this leave us?
How exactly do we deliver exhibitions to the best of our ability and maximise attendee engagement?
In this blog, we want to share with you a holistic approach to exhibiting, to guarantee you are engaging your attendees ably.
The Trade Show Engagement Optimisation (TEO) Framework
TEO stands for ‘Tradeshow Engagement Optimisation’ and runs very similar to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Your stand acts as your website and your active audience are the tradeshow attendees. You have to make sure your booth is visible to your attendees and give them a compelling reason to come to your booth.
The TEO framework is built up of five key elements: –
- Your Strategy
- Your Attendee Journey
- Your Booth Staff
- Your KPI Measurement
- Your Follow-up
You have all your ingredients and are ready to follow your instructions to get your desired end results. This strategy is no different and when these elements work in harmony, you can guarantee your exhibition will be a success.
How to get the most out of your next exhibition
When looking at your exhibiting strategy, you need to ensure you have all the bases covered. If there are flaws within it, you could be setting yourself up for a fall before your event has even started. Since 2007, we’ve attended over 3000 exhibitions and engagement projects and we want to share with you some of the best practices we’ve learned.
Effectively measuring your key performance indicators (KPIs)
Picture this scenario.
Your business needs to generate £100,000 worth of new business next year. This may seem like a lot of money but if we scratch beneath the surface and say, for example, your average customer value is £10,000 – this equates to 10 new customers.
If we say the ratio in converting a new lead is one in four (25%) meaning you need to make 40 engagements at your exhibition. Of those 40 presentations, you only get a 50% closure rate which means at an exhibition you need to make 80 qualified leads. If you have 4 booth staff creating 80 leads per day that is 320 leads.
Therefore, you will have to do a lot of engagements and demonstrations.
You must plan out all of these activities to ensure you get the best results from your exhibition, so you know how many people you need to engage with and how many you have engaged with throughout your exhibition.
The show must go on… unless it’s the wrong one!
In the exhibition world, some organisers may approach businesses to offer a 50% discount for a space at their upcoming event in a couple of weeks to a months’ time. Many fall foul to seeing this as a great opportunity to exhibit but you need to understand, trying to deliver a full-scale strategy in two weeks is unattainable.
Therefore, choosing the right show for your business is key to maximise your ROI. Once the purpose of your exhibition is confirmed and you have your target goals and measures in place, you can then narrow down options, (depending on specific criteria) such as budget, location, date, number and demographics of attendees, reputation, booth space availability, and marketing opportunities.
When you have a shortlist, ask yourself the following questions:
- Does this show deliver our ideal business prospects?
- Does it reach a large volume of our target audience?
- Will it offer excellent trade show lead generation?
- Will it enable us to meet the goals we’ve set for each of our objectives?
By following this formula to forecast a profitable trade show, you’ll guarantee the success of every new exhibition. You’ll also be able to set your team targets and KPIs to ensure ROI is on track throughout the show.
Tailor-make your follow-up plans to specific audiences
Post-exhibition, it’s important to have a standardised letter to send out to all your leads, thanking them for visiting your stand, and that a representative of your team will contact them in due course. We recommend including a timescale too, so your potential leads know when to expect your call, email, or the invite that you promised to your next VIP event.
We recommend that ‘hot’ leads should be followed up personally within at least 72 hours of the event to prevent your competitors from getting a head start on you in the race to win the prospect’s business.
Your Booth Staff would have built a good rapport with your ‘hot’ leads at the show and uncovered their pain points or aspirations, so this gives you a great starting point to turn a hot lead into a valuable sale.
The tip of the iceberg
We’ve only shared with you a glimpse into the world of exhibiting but hopefully, you’re taking something away for when you exhibit next.
We have a wealth of knowledge that you can tap into on our blog page and as always, if you have any burning questions that you have today, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.
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