We’re now almost at the end of January and, as such, many businesses are in full swing with marketing and advertising plans for the year ahead. In addition, final marketing budgets for the tax year are being released and plans are being put in place for how to best see a return on this investment. One such marketing approach which never fails to lose any level of popularity is trade show advertising and, as far as many are concerned, there’s still a whole host of leads to be generated from such shows, as well as opportunities to network and build an overall increased level of brand awareness.
Of course, when it comes to exhibiting at a trade show, however, your stand (and the people on it) is the key to success and, as such, we’ve teamed up with Zoom Display (who offer a fantastic range of modular exhbition stands) to take a look at not only the importance of getting your stand right but the best approach to ensure you do so.
First things first, it’s important that you understand the section of your target market who are going to be attending the show. Once you know the demographics of the show, you’ll be in a much better position to plan your stand. Ask yourself questions surrounding what would appeal to the demographics of show visitors and you’ll be some way to coming up with a great stand concept. Do you need something contemporary which, in it’s simple design, allows the emphasis of what you do come across naturally or do you need to go all out and put together an intense, visual stand which really screams out ‘look at us.’ It all, of course, depends on firstly who your target market is and secondly, who you are. You need to ensure, above all, that your stand represents you and what you offer and ultimately, visually speaks your language. As far as we’re concerned, the best option for putting together your stand is to team up with a specialist exhibition stand design agency who know what works and what doesn’t and, above all else, what can be done within your budget.
Having planned a great stand (and hopefully sourced a great range of promotional gifts and other exciting giveaways for attendees) you need to ensure that your stand is staffed with the right people. Whilst you can certainly go ahead and hire promotional staff from a number of agencies, we’d recommend against doing that simply as they won’t have enough in-depth product or service knowledge to really do you justice; unless you’re running a stand for a household name brand such as Red Bull, that is. As a general rule, you need to ensure you’re using staff who are both ‘people people’ as well as knowledgeable about your offerings. Getting a fine balance is the key, however if you need to sway either way, it’s important to ensure that those on your stand can talk the talk and impress people.
Trade show exhibiting is still a big deal for many businesses and brands and, as far as we’re concerned, either on a local or national scale, is an advertising approach which all businesses need to be carrying out as and when suitable shows crop up. For a full list of shows happening in the UK, why not take a look at exhibitions.co.uk?