There are often thousands of attendees at a trade show or exhibition. How do you know who the serious buyers are? Well, hopefully you’ve done a bit of homework before you’ve arrived at the show. Firstly, you would have chosen a show which best caters to your specific industry so much of the work of weeding disinterested parties has already been done by the show’s organizers. Secondly, you will have sent out invitations, contacted people you know who will be going to the show, arranged times to meet with potential customers and made sure everyone you want to speak to knows where you are in the hall. Continue Reading.
Staffing
Targeting the Right People at your Exhibition or Trade Show
Posted on November 24th, 2009How to Train Your Staff for the Trade Show
Posted on May 19th, 2009
The team of staff you take to the trade show can ensure the business investment in the trade show marketing is a success, so spending some time in properly training your staff to engage customers at the trade show is well worth the effort. Your staff members need to be energetic, engaging, and upbeat with the customers and people who walk past your exhibition stand.
Trade show marketing can be an exhausting few days for your staff, so plan to train enough people to allow individuals to take sufficient breaks throughout the day. Rotating staff around and sufficient breaks means that individual staff members can maintain their energy. Tired or fatigued individuals find it extremely difficult to effectively engage with the potential customers at the trade show, which means your staff members could lose customers.
Plan a roster that allows a staff member a break every two hours, even if it is just a ten minute break. Once you have selected the staff for your exhibition stand, you need to train the staff. Ensuring your staff members know exactly what is required and expected of them during the trade show and at the exhibition stand will help your staff to effectively market your business.
Product Knowledge
Ensure your staff members know all about the products you want to display on the exhibition stand. Walk through each product and product brochure, so that individual staff members know where to find the information when a customer asks. The more your staff members know without needing to refer to the product brochures, the more professional your business appears. Test your staff members on product knowledge before you send them to the exhibition stand.
Manning Your Exhibition Stand
Posted on December 18th, 2008
Any person who is staffing an exhibition stand is the ambassador for your business. You want to be sure that the staff will be able reinforce a positive image of your company. When choosing the people who will represent your company at the trade show display, you need to consider appearance, knowledge, professionalism, and how well the staff member can relate to strangers.
Just as you will carefully plan the appearance of your display stand, with the appropriate portable displays, signage, banner stands, and exhibition style lighting, you need to carefully plan what your representatives will be wearing. Comfortable clothing is a must, especially shoes, as the staff member will be spending a long time at the exhibition stand, standing and talking to your prospective customers.
However, you also want to encourage a uniform and professional look for your staff, and something that attracts attention to your staff member and identifies them as part of your exhibition stand, even when they are away from the stand itself. This is why many companies will invest in bright coloured, printed t-shirts or caps for their staff at the exhibition stand to wear.
