No matter what reason for exhibiting, every business at a show has one thing in common; the desire to use the most powerful of weapons: stand engagement visitors face-to-face.
The do’s and don’ts of stand engagement
For some, an exhibition is vital to obtain leads or sales, for others it provides an opportunity to conduct research or host product demonstrations to the perfect target audience.
But how, in a crowded exhibition hall where attention spans and time are both in short supply, do you maximise the potential to attract visitors onto your stand? How do you retain their interest enough to engage in a memorable conversation?
We’ve compiled the following points on visitor stand engagement. They outline why and how you can use engaging content, tools and technology. By considering and implementing them you can increase the amount of people you talk to, improve conversation quality and ensure you’re seeing a return for your investment when exhibiting.
Do use engagement tools to:
- Attract visitors onto your stand
- Help your team to break the ice and create a conversation point
- Excite, entertain and create a theatrical feel to your stand
- Make your proposition or exhibition campaign understood
- Facilitate competitions and incentivise your audience
- Enhance lead and data capture
- Make complex content quick, fun to explore or easy to digest
- Provide easily accessible information personalised and relevant to the individual
- Generally, be remembered in a positive way
Don't use engagement tools:
- We can’t think of a single reason why you wouldn’t consider using engagement on your exhibition stand. No matter what your objective is, there is always a form of engagement that will help you achieve and measure it…
Things to remember:
Engagement ideas come in many forms to suit different budgets. Don’t immediately buy into the ‘flashiest’ tech or the latest ‘fad game’ if it costs too much and doesn’t deliver the necessary ROI
Tools should reinforce your brand image rather than undermine it
Your chosen form of engagement should have an easy way to track and measure its uptake with your audience. Decide which metrics will support your results and how and what data will be captured
The aim of engagement tools is to help encourage greater involvement with the audience, not to make them feel uncomfortable
Engagement content and technology doesn’t necessarily need to be relevant to your proposition but it should help you deliver on your event goals
Don’t lose the opportunity of integrating your engagement ideas with your wider marketing campaign. Tease your audience through your pre-show marketing, communicate live from the show, or share a piece of engaging content after the show in your follow ups with the contacts you made on stand
Include specific data capture fields within your engagement to aid your follow up
Above all, your stand team need to believe in the value of your engagement tools and should be trained to use and deliver the engagement correctly so seamless and successful visitor interaction can take place