10 Tips to Maximise your Exhibition Investment

Are you looking to exhibit for the first time or 100th time?

It doesn’t matter whether you are a newbie to the exhibition world or a seasoned professional. Showcasing your company at an Exhibition can be a costly investment, so it’s important to consider how to fully maximise every dollar you put towards your exhibition activation.

At Moreton Hire, we speak to thousands of exhibitors every year. Time and time again, we hear the challenges our clients are faced with; extend our reach but personalise the approach and do it faster than ever before.

To make sure your exhibition investment is effective, Moreton Hire have put together 10 tips to maximising your exhibition investment; pre, during and post the show.

Before the Exhibition Opens:

1. Notify your customers ASAP – have you told your existing and prospective customers that you will be exhibiting at the show? We all know how quickly diaries can fill up. So be sure to give a few weeks’ notice!

2. Give a sneak peak – get your customers excited! What is unique about your exhibition booth? Will you be launching a new product? Are you providing live demonstrations? Hosting an event? Exhibition visitors want to know what they’re in for, so give them some insight in to your exhibition and why they should visit your booth.

3. Don’t forget YOUR teams – If your marketing team are organising the exhibition, don’t forget to brief the rest of your business! Allows your sales team the chance to communicate to your target audience and encourage them to come to see, touch or talk to your teams at the show.

4. Join Qantas Business Rewards – ok ok… this is very unique to Moreton Hire, but we’re talking about getting greater return on your exhibition investment! What better way to get some Qantas points return on your exhibition spend. There’s literally nothing to lose, only points to gain. Register your company with Qantas Business Rewards and get points on your next exhibition.

During the Exhibition:

5. Continuously socialise – The obvious social media channels must be in overdrive throughout the show. We know the drill with insta-stories, insta-profiles, Facebook video, facebook posts, linkedin news, tweets. But take into consideration the different content you put in each channel. Have you tagged the exhibition hashtag? In additional to your content marketing strategy, an exhibition is a great way to network amongst your industry. Make an effort to attend any functions organised throughout the show…. And if there are no networking functions organised, then why not organise one yourself! Most Exhibitors are interested to meet people in the industry just as much as meeting their customers. So make sure you take advantage of the opportunity to meet and network at the Exhibition.

6. Keep it personal – throughout your exhibition, go beyond “just” capturing visitors name and company. Take note of the discussion you had with them. Why are they at the exhibition? What is the business problem they are looking to solve? What elements of your business or product that they find particularly interesting? Keep it personal and be sure to capture the information for post-show communications.

7. Get snap happy! This is an easy one… but surprisingly easy to forget! Exhibitors are so busy talking to guests, it’s often not front-of-mind to be snap happy throughout the exhibition. Whilst we highly recommend booking in some time with a professional photography (or work with Moreton Hire to arrange photography of your booth). Some of the best “hero” shots can be from the professional camera we carry in our pockets – the smart phone! Take photos of all areas of your booth – from the entire space, to the detailed product shots, ‘in action’ shots of your booth filled with visitors or simply your teams hard at work. You never know where you’ll need the photos, so get expo-snap-happy.

Post the Exhibition:

8. Genuinely follow up – It’s easy to do bulk email communications to all the trade booth visitors, and it’s certainly a first step to post-show follow up. However, we all know a personalised approach will go a lot further! Go through all the exhibition notes and customise your follow-ups with a relevant and genuine email to a potential customer. Reinforce the conversation you had at the exhibition and provide genuine solutions to their company problems.

9. Post-show debrief – executing an exhibition every year, will bring efficiencies for your business. It’s important to have a de-brief with both internal teams and supplier team to agree what worked well and areas for improvement. It means next year, the information is captured and your exhibition booth will be executed in half the time and effort – yes please!

10. Tell the world!! – Exhibitions are not only for the eyes of exhibition visitors – tell the world! Build a page on your website, upload your photo gallery, do some social posts and email your database. We all know a picture is worth a thousand words, so use all the photos you took (see Tip #7) and share.