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2nd October, 2018
Whether it’s your first or your fiftieth time exhibiting, there’s plenty to learn after each event. We mentioned earlier in the series that it’s a good idea to set targets for the show and have a daily debrief to see how each day of the event has gone. Once the exhibition is over, it’s a great idea to have a full show debrief to go through every aspect of your exhibition and identify what worked, what didn’t and how you can do better next time.
Here’s our handy checklist to go through to get right into all the aspects of your show and see where there’s room for improvement:
1. Compare your set targets before the show with your actual results. Did you beat your targets or not quite get there? Why, and what could you change to do even better next time? How many leads did you get, and how many customers did you close from those leads? How much business did you bring in from the exhibition, compared to the cost involved?
2. Were there any problems or successes with organising everything and making sure all of your items and your stand arrived on time? What could you do better?
3. How did your marketing materials perform? Did you get leads from the information you gave away? How many? How can you improve your design and your copy for the next event?
4. How did you do with your giveaway items? Did you carefully target who you were handing them out to and focus on the people who were more likely to buy? How could you improve what you giveaway? Are there any design aspects that could be improved? Could you source a better price and quality for your items?
5. How did your staff perform on the stand? Who was the best performing team member and what did they do that was different? Check your staff training and see where you can improve on that to get better results.
6. What results did you get from your social media and blogging efforts around the exhibition? How much did you increase your followers and your website traffic? Did you get any leads directly from these efforts and what did you do that made that happen? How can you do more of what worked to get better results next time?
7. How well did you collate all of the feedback and questions you gained from talking to people at the exhibition, and how can you put that to use now? Are there any ways you could improve how you collect and collate that information to make it easier for your staff on the day, and for you to implement afterwards?
8. What did your competitors do well or badly? How did they market themselves before and during the exhibition? What could you learn from their stand and their marketing materials? What could you do better?
9. What ideas do you have for your next exhibition after collecting all of your feedback, results and inspiration from the event?
One final tip – If you can afford to do it, book early for next year. Event organisers love this because they get money in towards the cost of running the next event, and they can boast about how quickly the event is filling up for next year in their advertising. And you get to save money with an early bird discount!
So, the exhibition’s all over, you’ve done your debrief and picked up on all the lessons to be learned, and now you’re ready to do it all over again from the top. Just follow our handy Ultimate Exhibition Guide through again from part one, and you’ve got a great checklist to take you through every stage.
Or, if what you’ve learned is that exhibiting is a lot of work, and you’d rather hand some of it over to a highly-experienced and professional team, then get in touch with Focal Exhibitions on +44 (0)1663 744066 and let us lighten the load.
