Today’s marketing is based on ‚Integrated Communication’,but combining all instruments plus omnipresent online contacts still leave a gap to create reliability and confidence.
Successful Trade Fair participations fill the gap by adding a new task. More than ever they have to combine Marketing and Sales in a new manner. Parallel to a convincing design they focus on a professionally prepared and educated team on the booth, who’s task it is to build-up trust by using the right arguments and by its personalized engagement.
Professionally planned trade fair participations will definitely increase revenues of the exhibitor or will support the final breakthrough of the start-up. But those ones who still think the job can quasi be done along the way, will surely experience a break-in instead of a breakthrough. Because at the end the exhibitor has spent a lot of money just to be present – but that’s not enough today. We want to sharpen the awareness for a special Exhibition Know-how. “Don’t invest in Stand-Design and Construction only – invest in the professionalism of the conversations held by your sales-force. It will pay off in many ways and the costs involved are only a minimum compared to the rest of the budget.” says Karla Juegel, Marketing & Exhibition Expert.
One of the keys to success is the quality of the conversation held within the extraordinary environment of Trade Fairs. Design, program and the exhibits of the booth are responsible to be clearly identified within the hall and differentiated from the competitors. Nowhere else this is more important than in exhibition halls, where the competitors show their novelties just next door and where the aim of the visitor is just to compare everything with everyone to make up his mind who is the right business partner and where to place the order after the show. And exactly here starts the new task of the sales crew and the point is to create an interface between the booth and the personal encounter in order to embed the visitor in a customer-oriented conversation before he just walks away to the next booth, to the next competitor.
Again and again I come across ‘Selling Professionals’’ on fairs. They know everything about their products and about selling those products. But unfortunately sales-contracts are not anymore concluded on the booth. This happens during the follow-up, which today is much easier than in the past. Decision-planning is the key-word and it is the number two target of visitors after finding novelties on fairs. That means today’s conversations have another focus than years ago. It is not to gain sales but to emphasis the unique benefit for the customer / visitor and to place an anchor for memory.
This of course requires a different attitude of the sales-crew and an additional know-how to adjust the wording of the conversation. Those ones who are not prepared might lose the direction and the contact. Don’t leave the quality of the conversation to chance. Educate your crew and establish a professional training as one of the key-factors for your next trade fair participation.And here we close the circle back to Marketing. In times of increasing competition, product similarity and a growing number of marketing and online media channels quality face-to-face contacts become the key for your ROI – but that’s another story.
Karla Juegel, CEO of Messe | Marketing is an experienced Exhibition and Marketing Expert with over 30 years of praxis in the international exhibition industry. As a consultant, coach and trainer she combines strategical marketing with operative exhibition know how and offers tailor-made solutions for the exhibition industry worldwide.
