Promote your Exhibition and Events with Pre-Show Exhibition and Event Marketing Marketing

Promoting your presence at exhibitions is about developing promotional opportunities that attract business and communicate a consistent image to the market. Research shows that 76% of visitors arrive at an exhibition with a fixed agenda. That means they have planned their visit, identified who they want to see at the show and what they what to accomplish from the visit. Promoting your presence at the exhibition is about you getting onto the visitors’ agenda.

Your exhibition promotional campaign should accomplish three things:

Attract visitors to your stand

Engage the visitor and allow interaction

Get your products or services remembered – favourably!

There are many avenues to promoting your presence at an exhibition, including:

Direct mail campaigns

PR opportunities

Advertising

Sales letters, business letters and emails

On your website

Sponsorship opportunities

Take advantage of as many promotional opportunities as possible – but make sure they fit within your marketing objectives and within your budget.

Everything your company stands for is being exhibited on the show floor.
Exhibiting is a powerful tool in enhancing your brand as well as an extension of your sales and marketing function. Everything you present needs clarity of purpose, consistency and focus. When you are formulating your exhibition marketing campaign think about:

Consistency of presentation, in terms of logo, colour, strapline and typeface. Everything you develop should have the same look and feel. Consistency and repetition are vital in brand awareness. People buy from brands they know and can trust

The perception you create of your company, products or services has a major influence on the buying behaviour and brand preferences of prospective customers

Read more about pre-show promotions in our Articles and Tips section.

So you’re at the show – what next?
At-show promotions are important in keeping activity and attraction focused to your exhibition stand.

Make sure the press office have plenty of press material and information. They depend on the information given to them by the show organisers and exhibitors to form the content of their coverage of the show. Focus on benefits and what you are doing at the show. If you are using live demonstrations, have a famous personality serving coffee or some other crowd puller – tell the press and you’ll likely get a visit.

Invite key journalists to your stand and appoint a press contact who is primed and ready to answer their questions.

Creating movement on your stand is an effective method of getting visitors to stop and pay attention. This can be done as part of your exhibition stand design, by video/sound presentations or by giving a promotional item away. Using promotional items can be effective as they carry your company details but make sure you get something in return.

If you run a prize draw and collect business cards remember this is just a contact database and shouldn’t be confused with qualified show leads.

You’re back in the office and the show is over.
There is still work to be done with post-show promotions. Not all the visitors will have reached your stand so conduct more direct mail and email marketing to the registration list. Most show organisers will either supply this free of charge to exhibitors or rent it to you for a small fee.

Follow up on the press releases you sent out. Some publications will run post-show reviews. Tell them about your success at the show.

Read more about successful exhibiting in our Articles and Tips section.

Marketingesp are experts in exhibition marketing. This is our specialist area. To organise a free, no-obligation meeting to discuss your exhibiting marketing needs contact us on 05600 473060 or email.