How to choose the right construction exhibition and how to participate in it

Recommendation points

• What are the goals of building exhibitions?
• How to choose an exhibition stand and location?
• Staff to work at the stand
• Handouts for the exhibition
• At the end

In this article: what is the purpose of exhibitions; types of exhibition stands and the choice of their location; optimal stand design – modular; personnel required to participate in the exhibition; psychological training of the stand staff is required; errors unacceptable for the exhibitor’s employees; how to behave with visitors; handout exhibition materials are better souvenirs than brochures.

In the recent past, exhibitions of city, regional, republican and federal significance, the stands-pavilions of which demonstrated the products of domestic industry and agriculture, did not contain any practical goals – they were something in between a museum and a show. Modern exhibitions specialize in goods and services of a certain industry, for example, at the stands of a construction exhibition, both manufacturers of materials intended for repair and decoration and companies that carry out repair and decoration work in full will demonstrate their products. Of course, the tenants of the exhibition grounds count on the maximum profit from participation – we will figure out how effective participation in the exhibition is achieved and what are its secrets.

What are the goals of building exhibitions?

Advertising is a magical means of selling goods and services, but there have been too many of it in recent years. Media pages and TV channels, different-sized billboards and banners on the streets, obtrusively flashing banners on websites – all these means of aggressive advertising certainly work, but they also create a persistent negative reflex among the audience of potential buyers. A common disadvantage of any visual advertising is that the buyer must take her word for it and often the true characteristics of construction products differ significantly from those stated in the commercials..

Against the background of modern types of advertising, the construction exhibition has several indisputable advantages, and the first of them is that the buyer will not only see the product with his own eyes, he can pick it up, i.e. make up your own opinion, pass it on to your colleagues, partners and acquaintances. According to analysts from the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR), exhibiting products at exhibitions has a sixfold impact on sales compared to any other means of advertising, i.e. the cost of participation in a construction exhibition will pay off faster and turn into big profits for its participants. However, the greatest efficiency from exhibiting products and services is achieved under the condition of the prestige of the exhibition area, which ensures the interest of visitors to its holding..

The construction exhibition allows you to solve a number of marketing problems, including:

• product sales, advertising efficiency;
• pricing, setting competitive prices for products and services;
• product policy, determination of the range of products most in demand on the market;
• study of the product line of companies competing in this market segment;
• establishing direct contacts with wholesale buyers.

How to choose an exhibition stand and location?

Russian exhibition grounds offer exhibitors, as a rule, stands of the following types: one-sided or two-sided, i.e. located in a linear row of adjacent stands; corner, with two-sided view (from the passage between the two rows of stands and from the side passage); head or “peninsula”, access to it is open from three sides; the block stand or “island”, located independently of the rows of exhibition stands, has four-way access. Depending on the openness of the stand, the cost of renting it increases – the block stand will cost the most, but this type of exhibition will provide the greatest effect due to its visibility and openness.

The layout of the stand rows is determined by the organizers of the exhibition, while the key points will be the breakdown into thematic sections of the exhibition, the number of rows and the required width of aisles between them, the existing infrastructure, the number of exhibitors and visitors. And depending on this layout, as well as on the architectural features of the exhibition pavilion, it is possible to determine the most successful places for placing stands. These will be the sites located:

• to the right of the main entrance;
• in the center of the exhibition pavilion;
• not far from the entrance to the exhibition;
• in the main aisles;
• at the intersection of two main aisles, as well as the main with minor and two minor.

The least successful exhibitor spots:

• near emergency exits and doors for moving goods;
• not far from food points and toilets;
• next to the stands of large competing companies;
• in the immediate vicinity of places where any public events are held;
• close to and behind the columns, as well as in dead ends, poorly lit areas.

The location of the exhibition stand, issues of neighborhood with other participants of the exhibition must be agreed with its organizers in advance – ideally, a profitable place for the exposition should be ordered long before the date of the exhibition.

The construction of a stand for a construction exhibition is usually made of a modular aluminum frame, which allows you to create a structure of the required shape and size. At their low cost, frame exhibition stands have one drawback – they are not able to create a unique image of the exposition. Methods of visual design will help to compensate for the standard and boring look of such a stand – non-standard advertising, installation of multi-colored lighting devices, etc..

If there is a need for an exhibition stand more than one or two times a year, i.e. Since the company participates in several annual exhibitions, the best option would be a modular stand, consisting of several blocks, allowing you to build several options for the exposition based on the size of the exhibition area and the type of stand. Such display structures are made of plastic and other lightweight materials with sufficient rigidity and strength. The design of the stand must correspond to the corporate identity of the exhibitor – it is better to entrust its development to design companies with experience in this field. Special attention should be paid to the color palette in which the stand is painted, because psychologists are sure that colorful design not only attracts attention – it forms a psychological reaction of visitors, attracting or repelling their attention.

Lighting is equally important – its intensity and the types of fixtures used play an important role in attracting visitors. In the construction of lighting, one should take into account the dimensions of the exhibition stand, the size and color palette of the exhibits on display. Lighting devices installed at the stand are divided into two groups – general lighting and special (target) lighting. If general lighting is intended to illuminate the entire area of ​​the stand, then special lighting is intended to highlight certain points and exhibits, for zoning the stand. Too bright or too dimmed general lighting is a big mistake!

Proven methods of attracting visitors to the stand: flags and masts with the exhibitor’s logo printed high above the rows of stands; rotating and luminous structures; special uniform of employees; attractive girls in miniskirts (teach them to pronounce the campaign name and its slogan correctly!), large TV screens with bright videos.

Staff to work at the stand

Employees of the exhibiting company who have the most complete knowledge of the characteristics of the products are usually involved in the work at the stand of a construction exhibition. However, knowledge of the product line alone is not enough – every employee of the company who represents its interests at the exhibition site must have knowledge in the field of psychology. And therefore, conducting trainings with the involvement of expert psychologists is extremely necessary – participation in the exhibition should bring profit to the exhibitor, otherwise what is the point?

The team of employees of the company participating in the construction exhibition is divided into three groups: informational, distributing brochures within the exhibition pavilion and outside it in order to attract as many visitors as possible; technical, which includes experienced specialists who have complete information about the company’s products, working with visitors at the stand; leadership (group of managers), which includes employees with authority in the field of entering into contractual relations.

The effectiveness of the information group’s work is related to the layout of the exhibition complex – the base points of this group’s employees are most easily determined based on last year’s experience of exposing at the same exhibition site. It is necessary to consider the following points: routes of movement of visitors; location of the company’s stand; visitor attraction techniques used by exhibitors in the vicinity of your stand. During the entire period of participation in the exhibition, the bases of the information group must be changed based on the current situation and the behavior of competitors.

If the exhibitor does not plan to use an information group in the exhibition, he will have to spend more money on advertising..

The number of employees in the second group is related to the variety of products displayed at the stand and the number of visitors. If an exhibiting company produces several dozen products, then each and every employee is not capable of possessing complete information on their characteristics and competently answering any question of a visitor without revealing trade secrets – he simply does not have enough knowledge. Therefore, the constant presence of at least one specialist for each product segment is required, i.e. it is required to prepare several people for this role, so that they can periodically replace each other and strengthen the team when the influx of visitors. Psychological preparation for members of this group is especially important – they must correctly orient themselves among visitors and separate potential customers from loiters, focusing on the first and delegating the second to junior staff.

Each employee of the exhibiting company, representing it at the stand, is obliged to dress cleanly and neatly, to be friendly with visitors, regardless of the degree of fatigue, to allow the visitor to view the displayed products, to give them to hold in their hands, if possible.

The members of the first two groups, regardless of the current situation, should not behave as follows:

• pretend to be a “guard at the post”, with a corresponding stone expression on his face and a blank look;
• to gather in interest groups and actively communicate with each other, ignoring visitors;
• read a book or newspaper;
• avoid communicating with visitors for some reason;
• attack visitors with routine phrases like “to show you something?”, “are you interested in something?”, as well as “I don’t know, ask someone else” that cause negative reactions from visitors;
• demonstrate indifference to exhibited product samples.

The third group – leaders – is responsible for the activities of each group. In this group, managers of marketing and sales departments, who are responsible for the work of each of the two groups separately, or one representative of the company’s management, carrying out the operational management of both groups at the same time. The leader must correctly assess the situation at any time period of participation at the exhibition, changing the current task for employees of both groups, based on the current situation. Among the priority tasks for the solution of which he is responsible is the presence at the stand of a sufficient number of employees to pay attention to visitors, regardless of their number and without delays, even short-term.

It is impossible to calculate with absolute accuracy the potential number of visitors to the stand – their number will increase and decrease during each exhibition day. With a significant increase in the number of visitors, the head needs to strengthen the stand group with employees from the management and information groups (members of the latter are involved in the absence of reserves from the technical and management groups). The advertising and informational video, constantly played on the big screen at the entrance to the stand, will help to partially fill the lack of employees at the stand.

Based on the results of the first day of the exhibition, it is possible to draw conclusions on the frequency of the influx of visitors, determine the average number of visits per unit of time, plan the work of employees and the need for handouts.

The manager controls the keeping of a log of the stand visitors, which is obliged to be kept by his staff – the information entered into it will help to expand the circle of clients. The pages of the journal are divided into the following columns (columns): №№; FULL NAME; the name of the company (in the sense of the visitor’s place of work); visitor position; contact information (phone, e-mail, website); topic of negotiations; Additional Information. It will be useful to keep a journal of visitors’ reviews, who enter their opinion about the exhibition stand in it..

Handouts for the exhibition

In order to popularize his company and its products, the exhibitor equips the stand with handouts, such as booklets and souvenirs. However, a significant number of these brochures will be discarded by visitors as soon as they leave the exhibition area. For this reason, the main emphasis when preparing handouts for the bulk of visitors should be placed not on booklets, but on inexpensive souvenirs – pens, key chains, folders and notebooks – with the exhibitor’s logo printed on them. For the entire time of their use, which is at least three months, the logo will unobtrusively remind of the company that owns it.

Paper sources of information about the exhibitor, i.e. brochures, product catalogs, brochures and leaflets with advertisements, price lists and business cards (stand employees and corporate ones), of course, are necessary, but you cannot distribute them to just anyone – this will not bring the expected effect. The reason is simple – following the exhibition complex from stand to stand, the visitor is gradually loaded with assorted paper advertisements, which ultimately will seriously complicate movement and part of the “waste paper” will inevitably be thrown away. Much more sense is achieved by direct mailing of advertising materials by mail – invite the interested visitor to send the necessary information to his postal or e-mail address at the end of the exhibition, explaining that the abundance of paper materials from the exhibition will prevent him from exploring the exhibitors’ stands. Thus, you will show more attention to the visitor and, equally important, your marketers will have the opportunity to contact him at the end of the exhibition, and this will not be regarded by the addressee as spam.

At the end

Participation in a construction exhibition requires serious preparation, special care in selecting personnel for the stand, choosing the location and construction of the stand itself, planning the exposition, etc. It is necessary to prepare for exhibiting in advance, and the more time in stock, the better – the conditions for participation in the exhibition, the study of the architectural features of the exhibition pavilion and the surrounding area – your marketing department should carefully research and use them when building an effective strategy.