A successful fair, post-covid

How to be unique at a fair

Being at a fair is no longer the same as before the covid time. There may be fewer visitors at the moment, but luckily the number of visitors is slowly increasing again. The regulations have been adjusted and you now also have to seriously consider whether you want a physical, online or hybrid exhibition stand. Especially if the competitors are already making full use of it.

Due to covid and the reconsideration of organizing a trade fair, the importance of sales and lead recruitment may have become even more important than before. In this blog, we would like to share our insights about organizing a successful trade show, with which you can distinguish your stand from that of the competition and boost lead conversions.

Manage the customer experience

Because it is not immediately obvious at this time how a trade fair will take place - physical, online, or hybrid - and what the visitor to a trade fair can or cannot do on the basis of corona measures, it is necessary to communicate well in advance what a visitor can do. to expect. In this way you remove the barrier for the visitor to have to find out everything themselves, you give them a feeling of safety and at the same time, you can make the visitor enthusiastic with cool promotional material.

A fair as part of your strategy

Many companies use fairs in the traditional way, with less attention being paid to the purpose of the fair, why they participate in it and which KPIs must be achieved. The trade fair is then an end in itself. “If you integrate a trade show into your all-around marketing strategy, you use the trade fair as a smart tool at the right time in the customer journey. It becomes part of the entire marketing process,” says Ton Kuper, founder and managing director of C4Real. “A trade fair is successful if you have integrated it well into your overall marketing strategy and sales strategy and when it represents a role of value and ultimately achieves the objective you have set.”

Set your goals

Specific exhibition objectives provide focus

So first think about the objectives: why are you on the fair and what are the KPIs? How many leads do you want to attract or convert in the marketing funnel? It is therefore important to consider how you get the target group to your exhibition stand and how you follow up the leads that come from the exhibition. For example, provide trade show personas, advertise with a cool teaser as an invitation and make sure that you add a number of questions in the registration form, for example, with which you find out what the expectations and needs of that specific person are. Then you can respond well to that. You can then not only personalize the marketing activities in the run-up to the fair (tailoring to the person), but also during the visit itself. The account manager who is present at the fair can therefore prepare well for the interview.

After all, he knows where the visitor's interest and request for help lie. This significantly increases the chance that the lead will end up in the next step of the sales funnel. Also think about the choice of a physical, online, or hybrid exhibition. Sometimes it is simply smarter to organize an online event, because it often makes a difference in budget planning. But that also depends on the goals you want to achieve. It is never just about a product or service. An exhibition is all about the solutions you offer (products and services portfolio), relationship management of existing customers, demonstrating innovative strength, or strengthening your branding compared to your competition.

Design and visual content

Based on the strategy, you determine the design and subsequently the required visual content (resources) for the exhibition stand to ensure that the experience and experience are fully aligned throughout the entire customer journey. The flow in which a visitor moves through the fair is already a customer journey in itself. That's why it's important to put something in multiple places that make people want to leave their contact details or make a purchase, each with a different teaser to interest the target group. The purpose of collecting that contact information is of course to allow leads to end up in your sales and marketing automation system.”

Stimulate the visual experience of your viewers

Visual experience tools

Many exhibition stands are basically the same. This can make it difficult to distinguish yourself and to interest and surprise visitors. Therefore, focus on the visual experience you want to create for the visitor: how do you attract attention and keep it? Companies do this by, for example, organizing a spectacular show in light, image and sound on the stand to reveal a new product launch. Innovative technological means such as holographic, interactive touchscreens, moving screens in special shapes with spectacular animations and films or projection mapping (projections on 3D-printed objects) are also used to show products or services.

Context and recognizability

Many companies only show the products at an exhibition: "This is our beautiful product and this does it". However, it is often forgotten to add some context and to take the potential customer along in a situation that is recognizable to the customer and for which the product or service offers the perfect solution. Some of these products are not visible to the eye or are too big to take to the fair, such as machines. It can also concern services or technological solutions that cannot be demonstrated at the fair. How should you show what you solve?

A virtual showroom

Our Virtual Showroom can accomplish that. The potential customer virtually steps into a world in which the products and services are placed in a market context, and it is therefore quickly clear which solution it offers. Augmented Reality (AR) shows products in reality in an innovative way, so that you do not have to drag all your products – such as large, heavy machines – or other valuable products to the fair or to a customer. The product is shown with AR as a visual layer over reality. This is also used by IKEA, for example, to see how furniture will look in your home.

Need help creating visual impact or a distinctive exhibition strategy?

C4Real is always full of creative ideas and strategic knowledge. We have been making impressive visual experiences for years. We do not only deliver visual content, but we also think about the entire marketing strategy and which content is needed where.

We are happy to be your sparring partner for concept development, designing and producing visual and virtual content, interactive events and a complete marketing strategy. Are you ready to envision your most fantastic exhibition stand ever?