How to make a event work for your company

The art of making your events successful

As the conference and events schedules heat up for the summer season, our fine Design team at D&F have been busy bringing our client’s brands to life for exhibition halls across Europe and beyond. Which got me thinking about what tips would I suggest to a company planning to take their business on the road.

Whether you’re a global corporate or local start-up, the event scene can pack a punch in both cost and awareness terms. To get the most out of your event and get your brand, product, and team in front of the target audience, have a look through our tips.

Happy exhibiting!

Simple booth messaging

Whether you’ve planning to do a bespoke split-level booth build, or a 1m x 3m shell scheme, the message you want to convey needs to be simple and snappy. The booth design can be bold, colourful and showcase your technology, but don’t lose the key message. Write it across your space for all to see!

Attendees will have so much messaging, video and demonstrations to absorb that you’ll be lucky to have 30 seconds for the visitor to see your booth and assess if it is worth going in for a chat. Keep it simple. Use a key headline that lets everyone know what you do, it’ll save time pitching to someone that’s not in the market.

Always have the stand (wo)manned

It always hits a bum note when you visit a booth and there is no one there! You are literally wasting your marketing budget as the minutes pass by. You don't need to take everyone from the business, but at least two people, to cover each other at lunch and break times.

If you are promoting a techie product it would be wise to have someone to answer those more advanced questions. If that’s not possible, ensure the team has a Product guide, FAQs and other assets to read up on before the show!

Demo, video, showcase

Whether you are launching the next big thing in vacuum cleaning, or the latest software solution, a demo can bring your idea to life. The more traditional, tangible products you can showcase in the booth, as can the latest SaaS solutions (with the help of a screen, laptop and a mouse!).

Let the customers have a go, let your product sell itself. This can be a really great place to test new features or collect the next round of product requirements.

Capture the data

There are many ways to capture the data of your audience, the larger shows offer a barcode and scanner mechanic, often pricey but does make your business look professional, additionally the data capture gets done while at the stand and you can often send promo materials to the prospects in real time, so they can have a look at your info on the trip home. But be warmed, this method can be pricey, especially if you need multiple handsets.

The quick and dirty approach is the business card collecting, swapping details and following up when you back in the office with an email and a few links to the info you are talking about. More manual but maybe more effective in capturing real interested prospects.

If you are playing a numbers game, offering a ‘freebee’ promotional gift or a competition might get you the levels of data you are looking for.

Take to the stage

You can often get a speaking slot at the bigger shows, either paid for with the package, or be invited as a guest for the show. Often the larger shows have themes and stages to cater to a certain visitor type or topic (think AI, Management, Start-up, innovation etc), if you fit in to the theme you have more chances of being selected to get on the agendas.

If not, there’s likely an opportunity to advertise in the show guide / website, sponsor breakout rooms or other materials for the delegates, it just depends on what your objective is!

The wine and dine

So you know the speakers and exhibitors that are going to be attending, you might even know your competition who are planning to go, and you may have the data of delegates going… now for the personal invite, after parties, dinners, networking sessions and other add-on events can make you stand out of the crowd and get you some one-to-one time to pitch.

Go get 'em!

The event calendar is vast, there are conferences and exhibitions catering to every industry, market, technology and persona. As long as you have objectives and a plan going into the show you can achieve great things from the time spent at these events.

If you need help planning your events strategy, designing your next eye catching booth, or creative demo, get in touch!