Top 10 Trade Show Tips to Plan Into Your Next Expo!
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As the UK's biggest food and drink industry trade show opens its doors today, here are our top 10 expo strategy planning tips that many marketing teams at the 2024 IFE - International Food & Drink Event , HRC and The Pub Show are now wishing they had thought of, in advance!
10. Add An Ice-Breaker Game
Persuading customers to stop and engage with your stand at a trade show can be hard work, if all you are offering is a hard sales pitch to everyone who passes by. Make your initial introduction easy and encourage people to lower their guard with a fun challenge.
Activities like target throwing, buzz wire, touch screen, speed test or target shooting are all low cost to brand up to align with your products. To add in a competitive edge, include a visual Top Gear style leader board to champion top scoring players too.
9. Offer A Killer Show Deal
With so many brands and products on show, most eventgoers become overwhelmed with decision fatigue. To overcome the noise you need to have a simple, easy to understand 'no-brainer' of a show deal that offers a fantastic deal that is just too good not to take up!?
A 'loss leader' is an offer that is so strong it hooks in new customers at an initial discount. You reap the benefits from the long term value of the business relationship. This can pique customers' interest, entice them to buy on the spot or sign them up for a post show sales deal.
8. Dedicated Data Capture Staff
Coming away with hundreds of sales deals and hot leads should be the primary goal for your expo. However, the vital task of collecting valuable customer contact data and recording the specifics of their needs falls by the wayside when the front-line team are too busy serving the next customer on a busy stand.
For all opportunities to be properly recorded and logged, you need dedicated data capture staff who are focused on this specific task. It is essential they are free to not be distracted with everything else that needs to be done on a busy stand. They can be equipped with barcode zappers, digital tablets or good old pen and paper for a guaranteed glitch-free solution!
7. Logistics & Build Support
Let's be honest. Do you really want to be loading trucks, moving heavy kit and balancing up ladders to set up graphics!? Are you or your team trained for heavy lifting or certified for public catering? Is your time really best spent sat waiting in line, in the long queues to get your van unloaded at the supersized exhibition centres?
Event riggers are the like the rock concert roadies for exhibitions. They are professional teams who move kit, build it and take it away once you're done.That leaves you free to line up more meetings before the event, respond to new contacts directly after it, pick up the kids from school or whatever else normal life dictates!?
6. Mouth-Watering Food Displays
Hint: When attending a Food Show, you should SHOW YOUR FOOD! Not just in a closed-up box on the back shelf or in a glass display case. Your stand should be a sensory feast!?
The human brain is hard-wired to start salivating through unconscious triggers such as the sight and smell of tasty food. Think of your stand as a section on a five-star hotel buffet. Eyes should be greeted with colourful displays of abundant produce. Let people follow their noses to you, enticed by the aromas of cooking coming from your stand.
5. Live Chef Demonstrations
Hint: It is a SHOW, so give them a show! Visual theatre on your event stand creates a dynamic, engaging spectacle that converts passers-by into new customers. Live demonstrations educate, inspire and open up opportunities.?
They're also practical too. Rather than being limited to handing out just one type of simple sample, a live chef on your stand can create a wider range of tasters to show off your products in the best possible light.
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4. Space Only VS Shell Scheme
Shell scheme stands are a cheap and simple way for the less experienced to create a cheap and simple expo display. Unfortunately, their limited scope might also make your brand look cheap and simple!
Selecting a 'space-only' stand gives you more creative freedom; and often with lower cost site fees too! You can then use custom back walls, fixed shelving displays, TV screens and tall-height graphics. You can even wheel in a funky food truck on to it or whatever else you can dream of, to bring your brand to life.
3. Keep Branding ABOVE Eye Level
Ensuring your brand and key messaging are seen is one of the most important aspects of any expo stand, so plan for what will be visible when it gets busy. What looks good on a graphic designer's computer screen does not always look as good once people are stood in front of it.
Any logos, messaging or graphics that are below waist height quickly become invisible when blocked by customers. Position your key assets above head height, so they can be easily seen and read at all times.
2. Hand Out Branded Merch
What if there was a way to get expo eventgoers to advertise your brand throughout the entire show? What can you give to them to encourage them to promote your stand, in a way that entices new customers to approach your event area?
Branded merchandise, such as eye-catching goody bags acts as mobile billboards for your brand. Give each customer a quality branded bag filled with your samples and they not only walk away with your material, but act as unpaid ambassadors for your brand too!
1. Get Off Your Phone, Your Laptop & Your Arse!
POP QUIZ: It is show time and you need this to work. You've paid out thousands in site fees, travel, hotels, displays, and logistics and it all boils down to this moment. PING! PING! The relentless grind of regular client calls and emails keeps coming. What do you do???
It is both shocking and sad to see so many people on expo stands on their phones, laptops and sat on their arses at trade shows. IT IS SHOW TIME PEOPLE! Put your phones away, close your laptop, get on your feet and engage everyone with a friendly smile and warm invite.
If you and your team are too busy, too tired, or just not cut out for engaging every single person who passes by your stand; it is time to enlist the support of an event team who can.
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