Compared to the plethora of marketing tools and strategies available, an exhibition stand creates a physical symbol of your business’ potential and branding, including more intimate assets such as values and beliefs. This creates a tangible manifestation to further consumer relationships.
In a digitally advancing landscape with virtual interfaces, why is it essential to invest time and resources in representing your brand at relevant industry exhibitions and events?
Recent studies show 70% of businesses generated new leads and brand awareness from exhibitions in 2022, with 65% of businesses believing that in-person trade shows were an invaluable part of their marketing strategy.
From a broader perspective, elements of brand positioning, building relationships, networking, and competitor analysis are encompassed within an exhibition experience. These 10 reasons will explain the imperative part that an exhibition stand can have in moulding the strategic success of your brand’s growth.
1. Build your branding.
Exhibition stands really define who you are as a company.
A thought-through design can highlight your unique selling points, value propositions and competitive advantages. It should reflect your brand, USPs and products, allowing attendees to position your brand against competitors.
Picking the right show is also important. Showcasing alongside industry leaders can subconsciously elevate and associate their branding with yours, typically trustworthiness. In turn, attendees are more likely to consider your brand over competitors.
2. Engage and Learn from your Target Audience.
Exhibitions offer a unique opportunity for personal interaction with your target market. This face-to-face engagement can create new business opportunities and foster relationships with new or existing clients. There’s nothing quite like a warm handshake and an engaging conversation to strengthen a business relationship.
It also gives you a unique opportunity to learn more about your audience, which is the essence of primary research. Create conversations to discover their pain points, what they love, and what they would expect from your brand.
Listening to your consumers is essential for the longevity of brand success, so holding one-to-one meetings, talks, and demonstrations will help you capture quality leads and result in long-lasting and profitable relationships.
3. Return on Investment.
Many companies hesitate to plan a presence at an exhibition as it is costly in terms of money and resources. However, it is critical to consider leveraging layered marketing strategies for your brand, which can produce invariable results for your teams.
For instance, another recent study explains that business presence at exhibitions can enhance interest in encouraging memorability and fostering new relationships.
This demonstrates the potential of exhibition stands to promote your brand identity, create solid leads, conduct market research, launch new products, learn about competitors, and utilise social platforms to boost your presence. With strategic planning, these results can outlive linear marketing tools.
4. Networking Opportunities.
Take exhibitions as microcosms of your industry in one place. The environment provides a great platform to boost strategic collaborations and partnerships, including those of journalists, business owners, and professional peers.
Additionally, engaging with competitors could offer a unique perspective on their strategies, providing an opportunity to reflect on, refine, and innovate your business strategies.
So, ensure your exhibition strategy focuses on more than just your customers. Think about how you can maintain professional relationships post-event. Make your exhibition stand up to par with the relationships you want to build. Using your stand as a magnet can secure valuable takeaways from the event.
Additionally, exhibitions often feature expert-led seminars, presentations, and workshops, which allow your company’s representatives to expand their knowledge, stay abreast of industry advancements, and enhance their skill sets.
It allows for robust networking and strategic growth opportunities, making it an integral investment in your company’s future.
5. Direct Sales Opportunity.
Exhibitions provide the perfect place to find opportunities for direct sales by engaging them with irresistible product displays, friendly staff, live demos, and exclusive show offers to swiftly turn visitors into valued customers.
Through attentive positioning and compelling advertisements to amplify your USP, you can inspire spontaneous purchases and foster lasting connections. Plan your exhibition stand design from the attendees’ perspective and try to anticipate what questions they may ask about your products in preparation.
6. Branding Awareness.
Exhibition stands provide an essential opportunity to define your brand through visibility and recognition. You must give the marketplace the essence of your brand and its uniqueness amongst an increasingly crowded exhibition floor.
Utilising your design to encourage good traffic flow around your stand, with stand-out design, exciting promotions, visible logos, and clearly articulated messaging, can leave an impression on attendees and build brand recall, catalysing your brand recognition journey. You must ensure your stand design reflects your company’s values, ethos and products to effectively beat the noise your competitors create.
7. Live Product Demonstrations.
Live product demos allow prospective customers to use and understand your offerings. Hence, they can create excitement about your branding, which is unique to exhibitions. It’s hard to achieve this online or through conventional marketing channels. Additionally, they have an element of igniting trust in the brand.
Hand out free samples and leaflets, including product display shelves and informative graphics, to fully utilise your exhibition stand and promote exciting products. Your stand should be a discovery place where attendees can learn more about your brand.
8. Immediate Feedback.
You can gain immediate insight through direct interaction with your market, which becomes invaluable for influencing your informed data-driven decisions to drive business growth.
An authentic understanding, including the strengths and weaknesses of consumer preferences, can be overlooked during the production of traditional market research.
A great example includes Hilton, who created a stand with us with the essence of their hotel lobby. They can collect consumer data effectively by providing attendees with a familiar aspect of hotels. It demonstrates the power of exhibitions as a platform for gathering direct feedback and shaping more informed and user-centric product decisions.
9. Stay updated with industry trends.
Through the unification of industry professionals, unique and diverse ideas, innovation, and technology come together and are explored within the relevant industry. You can quickly analyse trends and disruptions encompassing your business macro-environment.
Additionally, your team can attend relevant talks and projects through indirect interaction, mostly in exhibitions. This is a prime opportunity to adjust your strategies, branding and competitiveness through first-hand experience.
10. Showcase your company culture.
As discussed, exhibition stands really define who you are as a company. Hence, you must demonstrate your company’s culture, ethos, and values. Branding your culture is a part of your business, so incorporate it into your stand!
You can make your branding more appealing to prospective clients or employees by demonstrating what it is like to work with you. You can be an invaluable tool in building relationships and rapport with visitors.
With more than two decades of experience, Skyline Whitespace understands the importance of exhibition success. We provide our clients with a full-service solution with in-house delivery that maximises event presence. Contact us for a free, no obligation design.
