How to Ensure Successful Exhibition Booth?

During The FEEL: Future of Event Experience & Learning podcast we posted this question to our guest Lee Ali

He broke his answers into several parts which form the TEO - Tradeshow Engagement Optimization methodology. This article is based on Lee’s take together with Linkedin posts that dive deeper into each topic and short videos.

Triggering Emotion

When we trigger audience emotion through their 5 senses, it becomes much easier to build personal connection with them. How do we make them feel something positive about us?  This is also why we name our podcast The FEEL: Future of Event Experience & Learning =D

Here is how Lee triggers emotion.

5 Pillars of Trade Engagement Optimization

#1 Exhibitor Strategy

Lee’s inspiration for TEO actually comes from SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Similarly, his focus is on helping exhibitors strategize how to attract, engage, & convert booth traffic into quality leads & insights. This requires having a Clear Why to ensure our exhibition strategy is aligned to business growth strategy.

Unfortunately many B2B brands are still exhibiting for the wrong reasons. Make sure you don’t repeat these same mistakes.

#2 Booth Visitor Journey

Just like a customer journey which prospects need to go through before deciding a purchase, there is also a booth visitor journey.

It is a series of stages that visitors go through before sharing their intent and wanting to continue engagement with us afterwards.

Lee breaks down the stages by asking these How-To questions.

#3 Booth Success = The Staffs

The key recipe always boils down to the people.

Lee shared that 85% of booth success Is significantly influenced by how well staffs interact with visitors based on CEIR - Center for Exhibition Industry Research & some other stats.

After all, when we take out the exhibition hall, booth, tech, what is left is our staffs, how proactive & engaging are they? People buy from people they trust. Just like when you are reading this post because you have formed a certain level of trust in my views =)

Yes although it is important to design our booth with creatives and technology, the top value of in-person exhibition is genuine connection.

Questions to evaluate our staffs.

#4 Measuring Booth Success

'When we can measure, we will understand it better' said Lord Kelvin, a Legendary Scottish mathematician & physicist.

Similarly applies to our booth activation: 'How do we measure its success?'

And when we have a few cross-dept stakeholders (eg marketing, sales, customer success), those measurements need to be aligned. You might have the ever-present argument when marketing said they had passed on leads, whereas sales felt that it would be a waste of time to follow them up?

Lee's practical measurement tips.

#5 Last Missing Piece of Exhibition Strategy

After we have designed an (1) Exhibition Strategy and (2) Attendee Journey for visitors, assigned (3) Team Members & their (4) KPI Metrics to achieve our business objectives, the last missing piece is:

FOLLOW UP

Yes, sounds simple and interestingly based on my polls of 30 people this is the least challenge they face when exhibiting!

Whereas Lee shared that actually 50-60% of exhibitors forget about the follow up process altogether (source data: 1st poll & 2nd poll)

Scanning badges are fine, but we have to plan our follow up process as well based on type of leads (eg MQL, SQL) for customers / partners (eg supplier, distributor), and their priority level (eg hot, warm, cold).

Lee explained how should we follow up with his experience meeting a CRM company at an exhibition in Manchester.

#6 How Important is Booth Design Design?

Once we have all the 5 pillars, we need to align them to form a seamless journey. The other part that is still missing is booth design, which consist of:

1) Physical Design: How it looks from a distance?

2) Creative & Copy: What passer-by sees at a glance?

How should we integrate it seamlessly into TEO? Lee explained this with a dating analogy.

Challenges

We then dive deeper on what exhibitors tend to overlook at each pillar:

#1 Why The Lack of Exhibition Strategy & Unclear Goals?

Instead of having clarity on the WHY to succeed in exhibition, the strategy task is often handed down from one position to another, especially to marketing, sales or even the MD personal assistant!

Thus the context becomes unclear and the focus is simply on doing the same thing again & again. Lee summed this up beautifully:

"You don’t know what don’t know, so you end up doing what you do know. And sometimes what you do know is not the right thing. (But) it has been passed down from generation to generation.”

Now the question is: 'Who should set the goal, then articulate it clearly, & ensure it is achieved?'

Lee explained who should be involved and questions to ask before exhibiting

Should Organizers Help Exhibitors with Visitors Engagement?

Lee shared the analogy of handing car keys to a buyer in a showroom. In this case, the buyer knows how to drive, whereas an exhibitor might not know how to effectively notify, attract, & engage visitors. Then how to get the most out of their booth investment?

Both of us feel the organizers have a big responsibility to help exhibitors. Furthermore, this will help them attract, retain, & upsell sponsorships.

When exhibition organizer does it, push back & ask how can they support you

#2 What is Often Missing in Booth Visitor Journey?

Is the visitor journey designed without clear understanding of our goals & audience? We talked about this on our last post

Or there is no engagement strategy and just let things simply flow?

Lee highlighted the misalignment between exhibitor and visitor. Exhibitor is usually in the mindset of selling. Interestingly CEIR - Center for Exhibition Industry Research study found out 89% of visitors want to learn. Yes they want to learn about the latest best practices, technology, product, or even about the industry, but not to make immediate purchase.

Then how to strike a win-win balance between what exhibitor & visitor want?

#3 Common Mistakes in Booth Staffing

Having the right booth staff is crucial because people buy from people. Do we have a clear process to decide who to staff our booth?

CEIR - Center for Exhibition Industry Research stats reported that visitors are put off by staff who does not show the right body language such as folding their arms, chatting with colleagues, or being busy behind the screen.

Why does this happen and what can we do about it?

#4 How to Measure Booth Success?

Some exhibitors don't set any KPIs/metrics, whereas others use the number of business cards collected, or just a general feel of the exhibition eg 'I had great conversations with visitors who seem interested', which is subjective.

The key is to focus on the ratio or conversation rate from one touchpoint to another along the visitor journey. This helps us assess the performance of each booth staff based on their roles & responsibilities.

Lee dived deeper on how to set KPIs for different touch points.

#5 What’s Missing in Post Booth-Visit Follow Up?

Lee feels it is the ability to seamlessly join the dots between the last booth conversation and the follow up message.

Why does this happen? Well I feel there are several reasons:

1) No clear idea on what info to collect during booth conversation

This usually leads to not collecting anything, or capturing the whole convo, but later having difficulty on how to utilize it?

2) What tools are used to capture the convo?

They can be with pen and paper, voice recording, or AI note taking with automated summary & to-do list. Try to avoid the person having the convo to take note manually. Seldom our staff is well-trained to hold a convo while taking notes like a journalist?

3) This last reason you might have never thought about it

3 Key Lessons on Exhibitor Success

Summarizing all of the insights above, we asked Lee for 3 key lessons.

Here are the questions we should ask before exhibiting:

#1 WHY are we exhibiting?

Even if we are exhibiting for the 100th time, refining our SMART goal is crucial to ensure contribution to business growth.

#2 WHO is our target audience, WHAT are their pain points & aspirations, and HOW can we help them?

This helps us plan the booth journey, and how to attract & engage visitors effectively?

#3 Please don’t skip this one with Lee's explanation

What's Next?

We plan to have our next The FEEL: Future of Event Experience & Learning podcast with Subhanjan Sarkar on Thu, Feb 27. Follow our newsletter & podcast to be updated.

If you need FREE consultation for your upcoming exhibition, just drop a comment or DM me. Me & Lee Ali plan to have a workshop in Singapore, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh & Kuala Lumpur in June.

#ExhibitionStrategy #VisitorJourney #BoothStaff #BoothMetrics #VisitorFollowUp #BoothDesign #ExhibitorChallenges #ExhibitorSuccess #StrategicEvent #ExperienceDesign