Starting to Plan for Exhibition Season

As we are in the midst of preparing to exhibit at the Elite Business Event next week, I’ve got a few tips to help you choose the right exhibition, equipment and messages to display to help drive sales and awareness:
 

How to choose the right exhibition

Deciding which exhibition is right for your business can seem like a daunting task, but it’s important to make sure that you carefully research the exhibition before making any decisions. Consider the demographic of people that will be attending and whether that matches your typical customer that you want to engage with. If it does, then the exhibition may make it to your shortlist of ‘potential’ exhibitions to attend.

Once you have a shortlist, consider the total cost of exhibiting at that event – including costs that you may not otherwise consider at this stage including budget for travel and exhibition equipment.

Use this figure to work out how much you would need to take to break even from attending the event. If this is an unachievable amount, then it may not be the right event for you to gain a good return on investment.

What exhibition stand equipment do I need?

Once you know where you are going to exhibit, your next step will be to choose what exhibiting equipment you need to take with you. This will largely be determined by the stand space you have available and of course your budget!

If you have a low budget and a small stand space, then items such as a printed branded tablecloth and a banner stand are a great start to exhibiting, allowing you to display your items or talk to potential customers on a professional looking stand.

On the other side of the spectrum are larger, 3mx4m exhibition stand spaces which will need considerably more branded displays. This could include a complete modular kit, shell scheme graphics and pop up stands to create a printed backwall.

Accessories that can also aid sales and compliment your chosen display include literature stands and counters that can be used for any size of stand.

How to design your stand

When designing your exhibition stand, it’s important to consider what information is important to tell passersby to drive them to your stand. I’d always advise to keep your messages short and simple – less text is often more impactful when it comes to getting people’s attention. With displays, your aim should be to get their attention to drive them to your stand – it’s then your job to convert them to leads and sales.

Focus on your unique selling points to tell people why they should stop and talk to you and make sure that your logo can be seen from afar for brand awareness.