Five Insights All Newbies To Trade Shows Wish They’d Known Beforehand

For those in the professional world who would sometimes find themselves in situations where they get only one chance to get it right hindsight can often be a nightmare. An exhibition will be the perfect example to illustrate this, as it has the unlimited potential to be beneficial for any business that gets it right.

Unsurprisingly, success doesn’t come easy for any business that turns up at an exhibition. In fact quite to the contrary as while there will always be the businesses that attract the largest share of interest and reap the rewards, the rest might go home with empty hands. According to the leading exhibtion equipment experts, the most important thing with regard to avoiding falling in this latter group is to approach every exhibition and trade show with a comprehensive plan of action or by studying the past experiences of others in the field. First-timers are especially concerned as they will more often than not find themselves in a position where they seem to think their only option is to learn from their own mistakes, despite the option of learning from the mistakes of others.

So, with all this in mind here are a few of the things pretty much every exhibition newbie would agree they wish they’d known before attending:

1 – Location is Important

Location is not everything when it comes to exibitions but it’s only fair to say that the way your booth is placed will indeed play a major role in determining how successful you are overall. Exhibition newbies are not strangers to overlooking the importance of location or to completely misjudging things when it comes to choosing their spot. What matters for a good location will depend on the particularities of each and every exhibition but the key more often than not is foot traffic and not simply if one area of the hall is more attractive than another. Securing a good plot in the hall is a valuable piece of the puzzle so do your homework and begin your booking early.

2 – Being Proactive Pays Off

There is a very certain way to make your exhibition appearance a staggering failure and that is to remain glued to your seat throughout the whole thing. A very common mistake made by first-timers as it is somehow assumed that to leave the desk basically means to desert the ship and allow many audience members to simply slip away. In reality though, this is often quite the opposite as the more proactive attendees will always be those that reap the most rewards and successes. Stepping away and heading to the crowd are necessary to avoid stagnation and to find valuable prospects.

3 – Hardware and Banners Are Essential

Another important point to bear in mind is that apart from the stellar staff every exhibition booth needs, the only other thing you have at your disposal to show off your brand will be the contingency of display hardware and banners. It’s not difficult to graps then the importance of choosing wisely when it comes to the quality and content of your posters and hardware as these will be your beacon of professionalism.

4 – Freebies Are Winners

Seeing a rival brand scoop up all the interest and leave little left over just for the fact that they are offering something for free is basiclaly the number-one annoyance for newcomers at exhibitions. A perfect example of an instance where you can’t really stop them or beat them, so the best approach is to join them and give something away for free. If you can come up with something that is genuinely useful and relevant in the eyes of the audience, your popular appeal will basically explode in seconds.

5 – They Won’t Come Unless You Tell Them

Last but not least, one of the truly potentially fatal and devastating mistakes a newbie to exhibitions can make is to simply never even bother to send out the word that their brand is attending the event. Putting in the necessary work needed to market and promote your appearance is more than crucial and when ignored can lead to very poor final results.