What a tyranny our email inbox exerts over us! We decide there are people we need to meet, events we need to attend, products we need to see, and at the last minute we cancel them in preference to sitting in the office answering hundreds of little electronic messages.
Yet we all know that the best way to do business is to meet people, and the best way to select products and services is to see how they work in the outside world. The Internet is a great resource for drawing up a shortlist but when it comes to investing the company’s money, we’d better be confident of making the right choice.
It’s my view that an hour at an exhibition is worth a day of surfing the web. It remains the only forum which uses all the senses; you can see the products in reality, touch them, listen to expert advice, smell the atmosphere and the coffee, ask as many questions as you want and get the answers there and then.
In 2004, for the first time in several years, we saw an industry becoming disillusioned with solitary surfing and falling in love again with exhibitions. The National Direct Marketing Show, held in September 2004, attracted 14 per cent more visitors than in 2003.
If you speak to any visitor leaving an exhibition they’ll almost invariably tell you the same thing: it was fantastic; they’ve seen dozens of new ideas, they’ve updated themselves on the latest industry and supplier information, met up with old friends and contacts, and made new ones.
So why, until now, has attendance been falling?
The reality is that no one intends not to go to an exhibition, since visitor registrations have increased year-on-year while conversely, actual visitor attendance has decreased. The registration is made well in advance, the admission badge received, the date marked in the diary. And then sheer pressure of work and the need to deal with the latest crisis makes it so much easier to stay in the office.
The marketing industry is arguably more susceptible than most to fluctuations in the economy. When times are tough it’s often the marketing agency that gets cut first, followed by the marketing department itself. Almost any company director would agree that marketing is the engine that drives the business forward, but compared with cutting production costs, premises, or God forbid company cars, the marketing budget presents an easy target.
Despite the doom, gloom and recession that has surrounded the marketing industry in recent years (and there’s no doubt that 9/11 also had a serious impact on overseas visitor attendance), marketing exhibitions have, by-and-large, held up well.
It’s important to stress though, that exhibiting at an event, or even attending one, is not purely a passive experience. To get the best from an exhibition either as an exhibitor or visitor, you need to put in some effort.
It never fails to amaze me that exhibitors spend thousands of pounds on innovative and exciting stand designs, probably as much again on marketing literature and give-aways, and then fail to train the people who will staff the stand. During a quick walk around any exhibition you’ll see a significant percentage of on-stand staff who are either: speaking on their mobiles, sending texts/playing games, talking to each other or worst of all using their laptop. This latter activity is my number one Stand Sin, since no visitor likes to disturb someone who is so clearly at work, and the upright laptop screen effectively provides a do not pass barrier.
Stand staff need to be trained in how to be approachable, friendly and informative without being pushy. It’s not a job for the new office junior! On the contrary, an exhibition offers a great opportunity for senior managers to meet their potential customers and learn about the market. A day on a stand is often worth any number of customer surveys and telesales calls. Most importantly, when those key potential customers arrive, there’s someone there who can talk to them on their level, and knows more about the products and services than anyone else.
The marketing opportunities around shows are particularly important, yet few exhibitors take full advantage of them. Exhibitions provide an opportunity to contact all those target customers and invite them along, where they’ll see you at your best with all your products and services to hand.
Good shows will offer a PR service, too, and to get the best out of this you need to be planning at least three months in advance and letting the PR people know what you’ll be showing, and any news on launches.
Talking to visitors as they leave an exhibition, as I often do, their usual cry is that they didn’t have time to see everything. If it’s worth going to an exhibition in the first place then it’s worth deciding what you want to get out of it. Perhaps you intend to see several companies to source a new supplier; you might want to attend some of the seminars; you will probably want to meet friends or contacts at lunchtime; you will certainly want to hear about new ideas and developments in your industry.
Having decided what you want from the show, it’s time to plan. Can it all be done in one day? If not, then can you spare two days or at least travel the night before so you have an early start? Which elements of the show are real priorities, and which are things you’d merely like to do? Who do you want to meet there, and can you arrange a time and location in advance?
A good exhibition will help you to plan ahead by providing a meetings service, a timetabled seminar programme, and methods of locating the products and services which interest you.
The benefits of trade events have never really been in doubt. There is no substitute for the information, contacts, updating opportunities and the sheer injection of enthusiasm that comes from visiting your industry’s leading trade show.
So decide where you want to go in 2005. Register now. And when the date comes around, forget your inbox and get out more!
The International Direct Marketing Fair (IDMF) is organised by Reed Exhibitions, and is taking place between 22-24 of February at Earls Court 2.
