Exhibition / Conference Ideas
Discussion
We are exhibiting at a B2B conference in April, we have a 3m x 2m space with simple banner stands and curved 3m (w) x 2m (h) display. Other than that just 4 people to man the stand.
Our target market are the handful of people (of the 4000 delegates) that are actually MD's of FD's of large SME's or the bigger group of people that know our ultimate customer to get referrals.
We're on the edge of the coffee / meeting space and also at a pinch point where delgates will be streaming in / out of the various seminars.
So what can we do to stand out / make the most of the 2 days.
(Note to Insurance_jon: it's the same exhibition you had a wall of pick & mix at last year)
Open to ideas.....it's my first ever time actually being an exhibitor not an attendee.
Our target market are the handful of people (of the 4000 delegates) that are actually MD's of FD's of large SME's or the bigger group of people that know our ultimate customer to get referrals.
We're on the edge of the coffee / meeting space and also at a pinch point where delgates will be streaming in / out of the various seminars.
So what can we do to stand out / make the most of the 2 days.
(Note to Insurance_jon: it's the same exhibition you had a wall of pick & mix at last year)
Open to ideas.....it's my first ever time actually being an exhibitor not an attendee.
A technique that I always found effective is to stand away from the stand so it looks like its unmanned. People tend to wander up and start reading stuff as they think they'll not get approached at which point, you adopt the preverbal Mr Ben and appear out of nowhere and engage them in discussion.
The problem with the pinch point is that you stand a chance of getting overwhelmed by the 'got to get to the bog / coffee before the next seminar' brigade and everyone will stream straight past.
Can I suggest that you target your audience and try to get them, if you like, pre-booked / qualified to your stall?
My thought would be to:
1. contact your prospects by your usual means, offer them free (or small cost) coffee and cakes, at a pre-booked time. so they can come out of their chosen seminar and head straight to your stand rather than queueing up with all the other seminar delegates. They must RSVP for you to get numbers.
2. Find out who are catering the event, offer to look at their overheads in exchange for a back door deal on the cakes. So your staff don't have to queue up with the rest of the crowds and maybe although it's not important get a trade price on the food.
3. Use a business card or postcard with a number on it that you send out to your prospects that have RSVP'ed, they come to your stand with their number and pre-order, you have their order ready when they come out. They keep your card with your contact details on.
4. Finally you now have a captive audience, who are pre-qualified to your message and you have a live example (the caterers) to show to them.
I have no feel if the above will work, only you can know your prospects but you've got to do something to stand out from the crowd and this might be fairly cheap to implement, you just need to be quick as April is fast approaching.
Can I suggest that you target your audience and try to get them, if you like, pre-booked / qualified to your stall?
My thought would be to:
1. contact your prospects by your usual means, offer them free (or small cost) coffee and cakes, at a pre-booked time. so they can come out of their chosen seminar and head straight to your stand rather than queueing up with all the other seminar delegates. They must RSVP for you to get numbers.
2. Find out who are catering the event, offer to look at their overheads in exchange for a back door deal on the cakes. So your staff don't have to queue up with the rest of the crowds and maybe although it's not important get a trade price on the food.
3. Use a business card or postcard with a number on it that you send out to your prospects that have RSVP'ed, they come to your stand with their number and pre-order, you have their order ready when they come out. They keep your card with your contact details on.
4. Finally you now have a captive audience, who are pre-qualified to your message and you have a live example (the caterers) to show to them.
I have no feel if the above will work, only you can know your prospects but you've got to do something to stand out from the crowd and this might be fairly cheap to implement, you just need to be quick as April is fast approaching.
951TSE said:
Good stuff
Some good nuggets of ideas in there. Will explore what we can do around that.We're not right at the main seminar entrance, a few stands away in a more open area, so it's where people will be lingering while waiting for seminar doors to open beforehand.
Yes it is right next door to the coffee/sandwich spot, so we could get peoples sandwiches for them at lunch if we think they're interesting and they can collect from our stand, gives us a second chance to speak to them.
Conference is back end of April.
One of our clients is Haribo, so was thinking a big "wall" of Haribo sweets that people can choose from.
We always found that a good video helped to attract people and provided a starting point for a natter. Just standing behind a table with a pile of paper on it isn't attractive. People will look at your stand for about two seconds before walking on - somehow they have to see something in that two seconds that makes them interested. Get some nice graphics too.
How you get out of the rut of 'We can save you money on your phone bill' though is something I can't help with...
ETA - yep, free sweets, defo go for that. I think it's legal to lure adults with sweets!
How you get out of the rut of 'We can save you money on your phone bill' though is something I can't help with...
ETA - yep, free sweets, defo go for that. I think it's legal to lure adults with sweets!
ReaderScars said:
Could someone lend you a highly polished premium sports car?
You could display it on the stand with a backdrop stating:
'Last year we saved XX number of companies enough money to buy this car XX times over - would you like to sit inside and discuss how we can do this for you?'
Brilliant - do you know of any expensive cars that are smaller than 3m x 2m?You could display it on the stand with a backdrop stating:
'Last year we saved XX number of companies enough money to buy this car XX times over - would you like to sit inside and discuss how we can do this for you?'
Aston Marton Cygnet (Toyota IQ to you and me) is 3.1m x 1.7m for example.
Maybe I need a kids version.....and adapt the backdrop wording slightly.
I've binned off all exhibition activity. It's just not worth it, you're basically paying the attendees way and I've never got enough back in return to make it worthwhile
The best we've done is to sponsor a part of something else, like the dinner, the coffee, the beers...whatever. If you're determined to do it, give away an iPad. People at C level quite happy to hand over their business cards for a chance to win an iPad
The best we've done is to sponsor a part of something else, like the dinner, the coffee, the beers...whatever. If you're determined to do it, give away an iPad. People at C level quite happy to hand over their business cards for a chance to win an iPad
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