How to attract visitors to your exhibition stand
2 June 2023
Exhibiting at events can be a fantastic way to showcase your legal services to your target audience. It provides an opportunity to engage directly with potential customers, network with industry professionals, and build brand awareness. However, you first need to consider how to attract visitors to your exhibition stand.
This article provides a checklist to follow when considering how to attract visitors to your exhibition stand.
What you should do before you book to exhibit at an event
Exhibiting at events takes a lot of time and money, so it’s important that you know how to attract visitors to your exhibition stand. You need to have this in mind right from the ideas phase. It’s therefore important that you consider the following:
1. Set clear goals
You need to determine what you want to achieve by exhibiting at the event. It could be generating new enquiries, building new business development relationships, developing brand recognition, or building your team’s individual profiles.
Setting specific goals will help you plan your exhibition strategy to attract delegates to your stand.
2. Choose the right size exhibition space
The way an exhibition stand looks is paramount when you’re considering how to attract visitors to your exhibition stand. The first thing to consider is the size of the space available.
Some larger events have exhibition spaces in various sizes. To ensure you choose a correctly sized exhibition space, you need to plan what you’ll have in the space. Many people simply book one of the exhibition spaces without a plan in place. Unfortunately, this can cause issues down the line. There are several factors to consider when choosing the right size exhibition space.
- Consider the goal: If your goal is to speak to delegates about their issues and generate new enquires, you’ll need space to speak to them in confidence. If the exhibition space isn’t big enough to cut off a private area for this, this service may not be utilised, and your goal won’t be successfully achieved.
- Consider furniture and equipment: If you’re going to be taking a lot of merchandise, you’ll need a large table. If you’re going to be showing a video, you’ll need a screen. Having these elements within an exhibition space may cause difficulty for your team if they don’t have enough space manoeuvre.
- Consider your team: You should consider how many team members you plan to send to the event. They’ll need room to manoeuvre round the exhibition space and talk to delegates. So, if you’re sending several team members, you may need one of the larger available spaces.
- Consider what you’re not going to have: If you’re not going to need much furniture or equipment, and only a couple of team members are attending, having a large space may look odd, cold and uninviting. So, if that’s the case, opt for a smaller exhibition space.
Building a strategy of how to attract people to your exhibition stand
Once your event is booked, you can build your strategy on how to attract visitors to your exhibition stand. This is where marketing can play a significant role. There are various points to consider.
1. Plan your delegate offerings
You need to know how to get visitors to your exhibition stand and successfully achieve your goals. To do this you should brainstorm offers that you could make. For example:
- If your goal is to capture emails for your newsletter, could you have a prize draw or give aways?
- If your goal is generate new enquiries, could you provide 15 minutes of free legal advice to delegates?
It’s often a good idea to get the team around the table to discuss their ideas. Having the team collaborating to find new and innovative ways to achieve your goals can be significantly helpful.
2. Plan your branded exhibition space
According to Forbes, 90% of the information we process is visual. The way your stand looks is therefore extremely important. When considering how to attract visitors to your exhibition stand, one thing that’s key is the visual aspect of the stand itself.
You should ensure that you have a stand designed which is appealing, attracts attention and reflects your brand image. Use eye-catching signage, banners, and graphics to communicate your message clearly. Have the delegates in mind when designing your stand and consider what they’ll want to see, rather than what you do.
If the exhibition space you book has tech equipment, you could create a branded video to play on repeat. This can attract visitors to your stand and engage them.
3. Plan your valuable content
Almost every exhibition stand will have literature and merchandise. When considering how to attract visitors to your exhibition stand, you should also be aware of the competition.
For example, if there are two personal injury law firms exhibiting at a brain injury event, and delegates get literature from each, which are they going to keep? The simple answer is, the one which speaks directly to them in a language they use, is visually appealing, and contains high-quality, helpful information.
So, ensure you have brochures and literature designed for the event, that satisfies the delegates’ needs.
4. Train your team
Ensure your team is well-prepared and knowledgeable about your services and the company. Train them on how to approach and engage with visitors, answer questions, and handle objections. A friendly, enthusiastic, and knowledgeable team can have a significantly positive impact on visitor perception.
If your event stands are difficult to erect, ensure you provide training on what the team should do before the event.
It’s also extremely important that they all know what the goals are before they attend the event, so they’re actually aware of what they’re trying to achieve.
5. Build a social media plan
Build a social media plan of promotional material that should go out before, during and after the event.
For social media posts that due to be published during and after the event, check what the photography rules are with the event organisers.
We would also suggest speaking to your compliance officer about putting your own rules in place. For example, there may have been a disclaimer on the booking form confirming that if delegates book, they agree to their photographs being taken by the organisers and third-party exhibitors. However, there still may be a risk. For example, if you’re offering free divorce advice, and your photographs on social media show someone receiving ‘confidential’ advice. Posting such photographs on social media won’t look good and could damage your brand’s reputation.
Once you have your social media plan in place, provide your team with full instructions.
Things to do when exhibiting at an event
The preparation undertaken before you attend the event should have given you enough insight into how to get visitors to your exhibition stand. Obviously, what you do will depend on your goals and your strategy. However, there are additional things that you should remember to do.
1. Prepare an attractive exhibition space
Visitors will be attracted to your exhibition stand if they like the way it looks.
When you arrive and are setting up, make sure the space looks professionally dressed by considering the following:
- Event stand: Make sure your event stand is erected correctly. If you have a rather complicated stand, team members should be given a demonstration prior to attending the event.
- Table cloth: If you have a table cloth, make sure it’s straight, is tucked in correctly, and has been ironed beforehand. If a table cloth is extremely creased and not on straight, it can really impact the appeal of the whole exhibition space.
- Literature and merchandise: Your brochures, leaflets and give aways shouldn’t just be piled on a table. You should consider your goals and the impact their placement in the space will have on those goals. Everything should be easy to see – particularly brochures, so visitors can see their titles.
- Empty boxes: When your materials have been unpacked, its important that the empty boxes can’t be seen by delegates. Empty boxes can usually be hidden under the table, if it has a table cloth, or behind the event stand. However, sometimes neither is possible. In these situations, you should speak to the event organiser and ask if the empty boxes can be stored elsewhere until you’re ready to pack away.
2. Promote your participation
Maximise your event exposure by promoting your participation. Utilise social media in line with your social media plan and the rules you’ve put in place. Announce your attendance, create a buzz, and invite visitors to your stand. Use event-specific hashtags and engage with event organisers and attendees on social media.
3. Take notes of what's working and what isn't
Whenever something goes wrong, or something goes right, make a note.
Events can be extremely busy so its easy to quickly forget some of the important aspects of what’s happened. However, having notes to refer back to when you’re evaluating the performance of the event can be really useful.
4. Scope out the competition
If your competitors are also exhibiting, visit their stand. Take a look at their stand, their literature and their merchandise. Listen to their conversations and how they’re approaching delegates.
You’ll no doubt recognise areas where you’re not doing as well, and areas where you’re performing better. Its also good to see the interaction with delegates from the other side of the stand, which may give you ideas for future events.
What you should do following an event exhibition
Exhibiting at an event doesn’t stop when the delegates have left and your stand is packed away. The way you interact with delegates following the event can help attract them, and people they tell, to your exhibition stands in the future. There are a couple of important tasks which must be done following the event:
1. Follow up with contacts
After the exhibition, follow up on enquiries and with contacts you made during the event, and do this promptly.
You may wish to send personalised emails, make phone calls, or schedule meetings in order to nurture those relationships. Whatever communication you make, a good conversion tool is to send a bespoke digital brochure to them. The bespoke brochure should be directly linked to helping you achieve your goals.
2. Evaluation report
Events can cost a lot of time, money and resources. It’s therefore important to know whether it was worthwhile, and whether it’s worth considering exhibiting at the event in the future.
There are several elements to consider, including:
- Delegates: Were the delegates your target audience? Were there enough delegates there?
- Event organisers: Was the event organised well? Were there any issues with the exhibition space you booked?
- The team: How did your team perform? Are there any team members who could do with more training?
- Content: Did delegates take the brochures / literature? Did delegates ask for any brochures / literature that you didn’t have?
- Successes: What went well? What worked from the strategy on how to attract visitors to your exhibition stand?
- Failures: Was there anything that didn’t got well? What can you learn from that?
- Competition: Did you learn anything from your competition?
Once you’ve followed up with enquiries and contacts, you should also review the return on investment (ROI). To do this, add a value to any successes, for example, qualified enquiries, clients or any sign-ups. Then, review this against the overall cost of the event, including exhibition cost, literature and merchandise, travel and billable hours missed.
All this information should be compiled into an evaluation report. A decision can then be made as to whether or not to exhibit at that event in the future.
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If you’re planning on attending any events, and you need branded materials including brochures and literature, simply contact us today for a no obligation conversation.
All content in this article was correct at the time of publication.
