What is the single most important thing you want a visitor to your stand to remember when they walk away? They will only remember one thing.
Often planning the look and feel of the stand is put before more important things, like what you want to promote or the messages you want to communicate.

No doubt designing the stand is the fun part but our experience shows that long before you get to the fun part you need to have your homework completed.

Homework is researching and questions

What about the most basic question – why are you there? This leads to a host of others like – why is your audience there? Are they going to be there? Is there something new to promote or is it a branding exercise?

It is perfectly legitimate to use it as a branding exercise, exposure, product re-enforcement or launch but often the response is that competitors will be there. First and foremost focus on your reasons.

From homework to planning

The next phase is pre and post show activities. This is a long list starting with media exposure and special invitations, as well as who will be the face of your stand and your single top takeaway message.

All this needs to be considered prior to the design as these elements must reflect and shape the visual appearance of the stand. Your stand design must reflect your one key message.

Add Marketing Momentum to the mix

We know what questions to ask so that we can put together a succinct and tailored plan for the your next exhibition, and better still you can use it to style the one after, and the one after that.

You still decide the design and it will still be your message, what we do is ensure that it is clearly communicated to the audience and take advantage of every avenue there is to promote it.

We have designed & built many stands & worked on many exhibitions. We know what is required to deliver a professional result that enhances your companies profile and maximizes your investment.

Appreciate to communicate

Small business, sole trader or large company, you need to ensure your sales and marketing works in collaboration with your entire business.Appreciation and communication, these are the keys to your business prospects.

Sales people are the face of your business and in the background is the marketing focus that carries out planning, strategic delivery and getting your product to market.

Successful companies invest heavily in training be it sales or marketing and they know the importance of product and service knowledge as well as customer behavior.  What doesn’t happen often is training in appreciation.

Appreciate the landscape

How each department operates is different however, there should be common goals – increased sales, increased margins, increased brand awareness. Each department may use a different measuring stick but the end result
should be the same.

The question is – how to achieve appreciation across all departments.Communication.  Keep all areas informed.

Demonstration is the most successful tool. Show each the plus and minus of a designated situation, and why it is happening. If you practice this with the major deliverables you will notice a difference in output.

Effective planning needs to include all areas. If you keep people informed, you will see healthier results. As an example you are to exhibit at a trade show,here is who you need to include –

Sales, Marketing, Administration, Finance, Logistics, Warehouse, IT

• Sales & Marketing for the product and customer requirements.
• Administration to promote via statements, reception when answering the phone, your message on hold.
• Logistics can send promotional materials with deliveries.
• IT can update the web and emails.
• Finance can forecast increases in inputoutput to manage cash flow.
• Warehouse staff can plan for the increase in incoming and outgoing goods.

From end-to-end your staff can have effective input into your campaign and each will add to its result. This promotes stronger connections between each department and everyone will own the end result.

Tying all actions and executions together is where Momentum Sales & Marketing can assist.  We specialise in running your projects and deal with all key managers in your business. We can act as the conduit or project leader for each of your valuable projects and can set the agenda to follow.  We ensure complete transparency across all actions keeping all parties up to date and allow clear feedback throughout the entire project, we make it easier for you so you can concentrate on the most element your customer.

Don’t manage the media

Mention working with the media and most SMEs duck for cover, it’s too hard and fraught with disaster. SMEs will point to much larger companies with in-house media experts and say even they can’t manage the media.

We didn’t say manage the media, we said work with the media. It’s a common misconception that you can manage the media, it’s like imagining you can manage your suppliers – you can’t – you work with them.

What trips up companies is not knowing the rules. You know the business rules between your company and your suppliers, you just don’t know the ones that govern your relationship with the media.

There are plenty of rules like deadlines, embargoes, and off the record talks but the really big one is, they are in business, they are not a service. Journalists are employed to make money for their company – like you for yours – it’s no different.

Keep that in mind and you will become realistic in your expectations.

Use wisely

You would not open a totally new business stream without employing the right people to run it, so you shouldn’t try to work with the media without employing a specialist. Remember, you don’t know the rules.

Using that trade show example again, how would you use the media to help with your trade show? There’s lots of ways but it is not just about getting exposure in the press before and after, though that’s important.

It’s also about inviting discussion, supplying media appropriate information, demonstrating products and engaging with them. You can do all those things at a trade show but you have to have that mindset.

There’s nothing worse for a journalist than to be brushed aside at a trade show because a potential buyer has crept onto the stand. It assumes the journalist can’t offer your company much, whereas they can – short and long term.

The media can attract a lot more buyers to your company than just the one who has wandered onto your stand. They can open the doors to their publication that has thousands of readers and potential customers.

We can’t help you manage the media, but we can show you how to work with them.