Page 220 - International Marketing

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222 International Marketing BRILLIANT'S

To make an appropriate decision as to whether to participate or not in
a particular event, it would be desirable to have information about the fair
on the following points:
1. Statistics on exhibitions and audience over a number of years.
This will reveal whether the level of participation in increasing
over the years.
2. Quality of the audience/visitors how many of them were busi-
ness visitors? The factor is crucial, because what important is
not the number of visitors but whether the right people, namely,
the potential buyers and decision-makers are visiting the stalls.
3. Importance of the firms exhibiting in the past and the countries
to which they belonged. Try to obtain a catalouge of exhibitions.
4. Charges and expenses involved and what are the services in-
cluded in the charges,
5. Support, particularly publicity support, given to the exhibitors.
6. Ask important buyers about their opinion on the fair.
7. If you intend to participate in a particular fair, try to go to the fair
earlier and talk to the exibitors and buyers.
In addition, the following question should be asked and an answer
sought:
1. What are the company objectives in the market where the fair/
exhibition is going to be held?
2. Could participation in this fair, either as a main activity or supple-
mentary to other promotional activities, assist in the achieve-
ment of these objectives?
3. Could the time, effort and cost involved in such participation,
achieve more through the form of activity? What are the other
alternative forms of promotion available to the company?
4. Have the products to be displayed a potentially substantial mar-
ket which presently is not fully exploited but could be done
through participation in the event?
5. Does the local agent enthusiatically support the idea of partici-
pation?
6. Would the anticipated cost of participation be commesurate with
the anticipated results?
If the answers to these questions are in the affirmative, it follows that
the company should decide to participate. But if answers are in negative
there is no case for incurring such expenditure which can more profitably
be spent on other forms of promotion.