There are companies who choose not to exhibit at business exhibitions, as part of their marketing mix. Are they missing a trick? Approached in the right way, can exhibitions present enormous opportunities if you concentrate your marketing and business activities?
“For lead generation, building relationships, and generating sales, exhibitions provide a unique opportunity,” observes Mubarak Chati of 1 Events Media, specialists in business events, networking and helping businesses grow.
Mubarak’s company hosts the successful E3 Business Expo each year in the North West, and regularly organises popular 1EM Networking business events and the prestigious, annual E3 Business Awards across the region.
Making Contact
Business is about people and in the digital age, the opportunities for face to face contact and building personal relationships can get lost, or ignored.
“You might think that because of the scale involved, exhibitions aren’t good for forming relationships, but in fact they’re the ideal platform,” Mubarak explains. “You’re encountering like-minded people in a focused space, people who want to connect and who want to do business.”
“Doing research and being prepared are essential to success at business exhibitions”, continues Mubarak. “Like other marketing activity, presenting your business effectively in this context requires knowing who your target audience is, and knowing who your fellow exhibitors are.”
“Don’t just turn up at a business exhibition and expect things to happen”, Mubarak explains. “Treat it as a strategic marketing exercise. At the same time, be open to dialogue, and build relationships”
Maximise Your Presence
A business exhibition is a focused opportunity to sell your brand and to communicate its values. As such, it is a storefront and showcase and, like a traditional shopkeeper, you take the opportunity to engage with potential customers on a personal level.
“For businesses in the professional sector, finance and legal, for example, an exhibition is a chance for them to get their personality across and to present their unique selling proposition”
Exhibitions work across a wide range of sectors and, in fact, the more variation, the more success there can be in terms of building relationships and contacts.
“Many of our exhibitors have generated impressive sales from prospects and contacts that they did not know that they could have. It is a genuine business melting-pot.”
Mubarak also points out that while an expo can fulfil certain aims and objectives, it should be regarded as the start of something rather than the conclusion.
“The key to success is in the follow-up. You must build your relationships, and nurture them. The business expo is like the first date. What comes after is about delivering on the promise of your first contact,” Mubarak concludes.
To discover more about the sales opportunities for your company through business exhibitions, please contact 1 Events Media by phone on 01254 790786 or visit e3businessexpo.co.uk
Alternatively, please view highlights of 2016’s E3 Business Expo.
