Investigate the Event and Define Your Purpose Before You Exhibit
In the preliminary investigations, specify plenty of things for yourself because it can determine how you can plan your presence. Participating in an event as an exhibitor requires a defined program, and various factors. Following points must be considered:
What is the level of the desired event?
What is the history of the event in question? Is it held for the first time, or for several times?
How important is participating in the event to you?
What is your goal of participation in that event?
What kind of audience do you plan to communicate with by participating in the event? Are your audience exhibitors or marketers and visitors or both?
Who are your audiences and what specialties do they have? For example, what geographical areas are they from or located? What is their gender? How much is their income?
Are you going to attend a business event whose audience involve public visitors or an event whose audience includes businesses?
Investigate about exhibitors and visitors; besides the information you gained from your participation in the past years or from others, complete your research on these two groups. Suppose that you work in the fields of photography and videography, in that case, even the event organizer can be among your target audience.
One of the most important things you need to know before attending an event as an exhibitor is your purpose of participation.
All your event attendance plans depend on the goals, the type of target audience, and the schedule.
Which of the following is your company’s goal/purpose for attending the event?
Attracting customers?
Direct product sales?
Introducing new sales services or plans?
Branding and introducing your services to the participants in the event?
Taking advantage of the presence of different media in the event and the media coverage?
Examining the status of competitors and their attendance strategy at the event?
Networking and getting to know more people?
Participation in seminars and training programs of plenary sessions of the event?
By answering similar questions, determine your primary goal for attending the event as an exhibitor to define your attendance strategy, and schedule based on that. For example, if your goal is to sell, your participation strategy will be completely different. If your goal is to introduce a product or offer a discount plan to increase sales, determine your strategy based on the type of your target audience. Offering a discount without a developed plan for that will not lead to satisfying results.