Who doesn’t want to increase their ROI? In fact, exhibitors invest in trade shows to grow their business and revenue!
Returns Matter a lot. It’s our capital! – Abigail Johnson
This quote perfectly depicts the motive: Why do all exhibitors focus on the ROI? Certainly, it affects overall capital growth and business sustainability.
So, the question is how to maximise your ROI at your next exhibition.
Time To Double Your ROI At Your Next Exhibition
To make it more successful, let us break down this term into two parts:
investment and returns. To increase the ROI, you have to focus on decreasing the investments (without compromising quality and increasing the returns.)
Now, let us get into the strategies that will help you 2x your ROI!
Research & Craft A Successful Marketing Plan
Business is not just about managing it effectively but also being correct!
An exhibition is a unique place where you are in the same room as your competitor. Thus, you need a strong strategy to make your booth successful!
Set Goals
Before even getting started, it is important to set your goals! Try to set clear, measurable goals. These goals must be brief, with stated KPIs, such as X leads, X sales, or X visitors.
Review Old Exhibitions
Before planning ahead, try to learn from the old mistakes! Analyse all the gaps, pros, cons, strengths, and weaknesses of the last expo. Furthermore, do not forget to conduct a thorough competitive analysis.
Understand Business Values
Compare old data with the current. You need to grasp all your strengths. Think about your weaknesses and work to turn them into your strengths! For this analysis, the following business metrics can help you:
- Customer acquisition cost.
- Customers’ lifetime value.
- Cash flows.
- Profit margins.
These business values will help you a lot while allocating the budget for a successful expo. Moreover, it will also help you gain a deep understanding of the business standpoint.
Plan Ahead
Now, plan the whole expo, including your offerings, expected visitors, USPs, and the competition. Do not let go of any stone unturned on your way to huge success.
Design The Winning Exhibition Stand
Do stand out from the rest at first glance! At trade shows, you have only 3 seconds to attract a visitor. Thus, it is important for you to look good, eye-catching, and the right one.
Craft A Concept That Is User-Centric
Businesses that provoke thoughts and emotions in the audience are the really successful ones. Hence, craft an emotional story to work as a concept for your campaign. Also, ensure that your story aligns with your target market persona.
Chose The Exhibition Production And Organisers
This point is important as it can greatly help you reduce your investment in the expo. Choose the one that has years of experience and a wide range of services and equipment to hire. Sometimes, renting everything from a single exhibition production hire really helps you reduce the cost.
Market It Effectively
To meet your audience and customers at the trade show, don’t forget to pre-market your event. Plan and create an effective, user-centric marketing campaign. Boost your reach through the power of social media and other online channels.
Set Up The Shell Scheme Booth
Now is the time to bring all your thoughts into reality. Designing a shell scheme stand is an art that should be done right! Try your best to keep your brand coherence, to touch the visitor’s emotions, and precisely convey your message.
Enhance Customer Experience
You have done the research on customers’ persona in the planning section. Now is the time to cash it! Try your best to enhance user experience at your booth by creatively using the following tips:
- Train your employees for effective communication.
- Offer them a warm welcome.
- Set up an activity like selfie booths.
This will not only create a buzz about your booth but also help you enhance user experience.
Work With Your Employees Closely
Monitor all the activities closely. It is important to ensure that the whole expo goes as planned. Do not let your employees exhaustively manage to keep them enthusiastic.
Giveaways
Planning a good and thoughtful giveaway that presents your brand and is useful for the visitors is not enough! Always entice the visitors with something more, like product giveaways. This will multiply your success as the visitors will feel debted and might end up purchasing.
Follow Up And Execute Your Strategy
Last but not least, to turn all your vague numbers into sales and increase your ROI, do follow up!
Measure Success
Use all your data to measure your success! You can focus on data such as number of visitors, peak attendance hours and conversions after the expo. This data has the potential to strengthen more relations. It helps you to learn about customers, get insights into the target market, and much more.
Follow Up With The Leads
Follow and nurture your leads effectively and creatively! There is a chance that your competitors will also contact them, so it is wise to plan ahead. Marketing and sales experts advise first analysing each lead carefully and then approaching them individually as the best approach. This will definitely help you double your ROI.
Conclusion
We cannot deny the importance of strategically planning to gain success at an expo. It always starts with setting clear goals and understanding the audience’s business point. Then, marketing campaigns are crafted, and the booth is designed thoughtfully, enhancing customer experiences and following up with leads.