Page 62 - 100 Great Marketing Ideas (100 Great Ideas)

27 MAKING EXHIBITIONS
WORK

Most exhibitors go to exhibitions with the aim of making sales,
meeting buyers, generating leads, and so forth, and most of them
come away disappointed. The reason is simple: there are very few
buyers at exhibitions. Most visitors are there for other reasons—
research shows that many of them are there to sell to exhibitors,
or to find out what competitors are up to, or to get new ideas
(engineers and designers make up about 25 percent of exhibition
visitors), or simply to have a day out (students, retired people, office
administrators, and so forth all go to exhibitions).

Buyers in fact represent less than 10 percent of exhibition visitors (despite
what exhibition organizers might say). Even when they are there, and
are looking to buy, they will be seeing all your competitors as well.

Many exhibitors become disheartened when they find this out, and
stop exhibiting. This is a big mistake: those other visitors are useful
(even the students) because, after all, they do have an interest in
the industry.

The idea

Because there are no buyers, there is not much point in having
salespeople on the stand. Other visitors (such as engineers,
administrators and so on) might be useful sources of information—
so why not put your own engineers, etc. on the stand? Visitors
who are not buyers might be users of your products and services,
and will know who you should be talking to at their companies—
often they are quite happy to provide a name for you, and even
an introduction.

100 GREAT MARKETING IDEAS • 53