The value of exhibitions
Apr 30 2008
Going to an exhibition can be a good idea for certain types of businesses as long as they have planned a strategy for capturing leads and making the most of them after the exhibition. I would recommend that before you make a decision to attend an exhibition that you visit as a customer beforehand and do some research.
Have a look at the types of businesses who are exhibiting there, observe the type of customers the exhibition attracts, talk to some of the exhibitors about how well it works for them and how much business it ends up generating for them. You need to work backwards from the price of your stand and promotional collateral and work out how much business you need to generate in order to break even and cover the cost of the event.
The exhibition absolutely must target and attract the people that are likely to be good customers of yours otherwise it would or could be a waste of time, money and effort.
If you do the exhibition you will need to plan a strategy for attracting enquiries, getting interested parties details and then following up and closing the work afterwards. This is vital if you are going to do it.
Returns from exhibitions are not great if you don’t do this, it won’t happen if you don’t really think about how you are going to maximise the return you get on your investment.