Engaging People at Exhibitions

For many companies, trade exhibitions are part and parcel of business life, and form an integral part of the organisation’s marketing strategy. Having a presence at these events can help in terms of industry exposure and is an excellent opportunity for companies to reach potential clientele with their key messages. However, with all your competitors vying for attention there too, the real challenge is to differentiate yourself.

Make an exhibition of yourself
It’s quite simple really – to stand out from the crowd, you have to make an exhibition of yourself. When you consider the expense involved when exhibiting at trade shows, it’s essential that you get a suitable return for your investment.

Companies not only have to pay for space at the exhibition they also need to consider the materials that they will need to take with them. Additional costs include paying for travel and subsistence and allowing for staff to attend the event to staff the stand. For smaller companies, the time away from desks and usual tasks also has to be taken into account.

Simply turning up with a stand is a waste of money if nobody really notices you

Stand out from the crowd
The problem with exhibiting at trade shows is that you only have a short time to get your key messages across. With hundreds, or sometimes thousands, of companies exhibiting at any one event, anyone wanting to be sure of not only attracting visitors to their stand but also retaining their attention need to make sure that they stand out from the crowd. Companies may well have just one chance to entice visitors onto their stand, which means their exhibition space and message has to be memorable.

It’s important to bear in mind that the aim should not just be about getting people to come to your stand, but rather keeping them there. Having something good to give away might mean people come to your stand, but it doesn’t make them stay, and it doesn’t get your main selling points across either.

Fire their imagination
In order to reap optimum benefit from the opportunity, companies should ensure that they are using effective methods and media to delivery their key messages. Exhibitors should ensure that they have something eye catching and memorable and consider carrying out pre-show publicity to ensure visitors to the exhibition are aware that they can be found at the exhibition; for those with smaller stands this would help to ensure that the stand was not overlooked simply because it of its location.

Although PowerPoint presentations or DVDs played on plasma screens may look nice, they usually won’t draw people in, nor make them linger at your stand. Instead, you have to fire their imagination, and this is where a little creativity can come in handy.

The Magic
We have successfully used magic as part of our client’s presentations at a variety of industry events, of all types and sizes over the last 20 years, including optical, housing, legal, health and safety, training, fishing, tourism and oil and gas, as far afield as Norway, Italy, America and Mexico.

Using magic to attract the attention of attendees will help work wonders with the recall of your company or product name, and it can also generate valuable publicity both during the exhibition and post-exhibition periods. It is an effective way of enticing more people to a stand and thereby increasing the potential number of sales leads that can be generated through attendance at the exhibition.

Trade show magician
A good trade show magician will spend time finding out about your objectives and then develop a tailored presentation that gets your key messages across to clients – who otherwise may just walk past your stand!

The presentations then allow for your sales team to get along side potential clients, and provides a great conversation opener.
The whole point of exhibiting is to create interest in your products and services, and that’s why making an unforgettable impression is vital. To really stand out, you need to do something that creates a buzz and gets people talking. You want the attendees to be saying to each other, ‘have you seen what Company X is doing yet?’, and enticing people to come and find out for themselves. This has certainly been our experience.

By using entertainment to engage with your target audience, you’ll have a much better chance of promoting your company positively, and getting your key messages across. Magic is a great way to grab people’s attention and make the event an enjoyable – and therefore memorable – experience for them. You also have the added bonus of the fact it means they are spending less time at your competitors’ stalls!

Contact us to find out how we can help you get the most from your exhibition presence