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Contents:     Dont go to the toilet! - how to calculate stand visitors

                     Event marketing tops the list of strategies integral to marketing plans

                     Renewable giveaways

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Dont go to the toilet! - Many exhibitors assume that because the exhibition organisers are expecting 6000 visitors, they can also expect 6000 visitors to their stand. If that were true, they would need a stand the size of a football field and 127 stand staff, to accommodate them!!

Here is a suprising little calculation for calculating stand traffic:

3 day show x 8 open hours per day = 24 selling hours x 15 minutes per sales pitch =

96 prospects per salesman, per show

assuming that they dont eat or go to the toilet! The secret is to find your 96 red hot prospects from the 6000 expected show visitors. Dont waste a second at the show, talking to anyone who does not have the potential to buy your product. Pre-show promotions allows you to carefully select your best prospects and give them a compelling reason to visit your stand.

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PROMO Magazine (US) have just reported that event marketing opportunities topped the list of strategies integral to marketing plans, in a recent survey. Marketers spent a total of $132.3 billion on event marketing and budgets are expected to rise 15 - 20% this year.

Measuring return on investment is the top priority of those using events to market their products, according to the survey. The Promotion Marketing Association's Event Council, for example, is currently working on a number of initiatives and guidelines to help marketers measure the impact of events on branding.

Currently, the most common methods for measuring ROI at an event are: counting heads (67%) sales (49%) and the number of samples or literature distributed (35%)

79% of those that use event marketing, do so to boost sales, followed by raising brand awareness (74%) and capturing market share (64%)

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Renewable giveaways - the idea is to distribute a giveaway that you renew regularly, or which the client has to ask you to renew (also called continuity programmes). Either way, it creates a pretext for you to interact with a current or potential customer and makes them less likely to avoid your call.

Diary refills, fruit-of-the-month club with variations of coffee, book, tea, pasta, cheesecake, pie, cheese, beer, pizza or wine-of-the-month - in fact, any item that needs to be replenished

Article from: Exhibitor Magazine - January 2004

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The purpose of this newsletter is to help you achieve maximum results from trade exhibitions. There will be regular free tips and advice that will pep up your performance and help you gain the best return on your exhibition investment. If you have specific questions on exhibiting, please e-mail them to: joy@donovan.co.za or phone 011-792-9958. More free help and advice is available at www.exhibitor.co.za Please feel free to pass this newsletter onto friends and colleagues, who can arrange their own free subscription at joy@donovan.co.za

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The workshops and this e-mail are presented by Joy Donovan M.D. of South Africa’s first Trade Show Training company. Joy’s 30 + years in the exhibition industry, mainly as an exhition organiser, well equipped her to identify the need in the exhibition market and produce training that significantly improves exhibitor's results. Joy is also driving the exhibition industry's skills development initiative, producing qualifications for every sector from organisers to exhibitors. If you require information on in-house exhibitor training, coaching or mentoring, please e-mail joy@donovan.co.za  phone 011-792-9958 fax 011-792-7597. 

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