Are you planning to exhibit your products or services at an upcoming exhibition or trade show? It is crucial to utilize the event as a tool to attract new customers, broker dealership and distributorship deals and expand your business networks. 

Having worked with several businesses in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa at their exhibitions, here are our 5 top tips to ensure that you generate quality leads for your business at your next exhibition or tradeshow:

1.Utilize social media: 

Use social media to promote your presence at the exhibition or tradeshow before and during the event. Announce your attendance and booth number to your followers, have the event organizers announce your business as an exhibitor on their own pages and  encourage followers to come visit your booth at the event. 

During the event, keep updating your followers with pictures from the event and reasons why they should visit. You can also connect visitors who came to your booth to your social media, and continue the business conversation with them after the event.

2. Capture contacts:

The most important action in your lead generation is to collect contact information from visitors at your booth or stand. You can do this by using a lead capture app or QR code placard, and having a data entry sheet for signup. Be sure to clearly explain the benefits of signing up, such as receiving newsletters or promotional offers.

While some visitors may not be ready to patronize your business immediately, they may become your future customer.  The best part of exhibitions is that only prospects who are interested in your services or products would visit your stand and even offer to provide their contacts .

With their contacts you are able to build an email list where you can follow up and continue to market your products and services to them after the exhibition, until they eventually become your customers. For an exhibition of over 2,000 visitors per day, you would be able to capture a minimum of 20 good prospects on each day. 

After the event, be sure to follow up with the leads you collected. You can do this by sending a personalized email or whatsapp text to thank them for their interest and provide more information about your business.

3. Bring along your contacts

Most proactive sales teams print new business cards when preparing for an exhibition or trade show. You may underestimate the number of prospects that will show up at your stand, but to be on the safe side, bring 100 business cards for each day of the exhibition. 

Handing out your business card to prospects is just as important as capturing their contacts. We have seen cases where sales teams run out of business cards when good prospects requested for it. 

Visitors  who do not require your products or services directly but know someone who does, would need your business card for the referral.  Handing it to their reference makes them confident that they’re connecting them to a reliable company contact so they have met in-person before, and this could make all the difference in their buying decision.

4. Samples of products and catalogues:

Displaying samples, demos and giving out tasters of your products is a very effective technique in attracting visitors to your stand and getting them to make an immediate buying decision. If you offer services or products that are heavy equipment that can’t be easily moved, a catalogue of your products is a powerful tool to display them. 

Ensure that the image and descriptions of the products are clearly visible, including their prices. Depending on your budget, the catalogue may be in limited quantity so it is important to differentiate who to hand the catalogue to and who not to. While all visitors will have access to reviewing the catalogue, you should only hand out the catalogue to promising leads.

5. Hire hostesses

We have found this tip to be the most effective way to successfully maximize your business opportunities. A beautiful friendly face at your standing draws more attention to your business, than a sales team in suits.  Hiring exhibition hostesses whose jobs are solely dedicated to ensuring that your business generates as many leads and sales as possible would definitely increase your lead generation at the exhibition. 

Hostesses are well experienced in exhibitions, they know how to pre-qualify visitors and identify worthwhile leads. Your sales team may not be as eloquent or professional as exhibition hostesses when interacting with local visitors. Also you’re able to hire multilingual hostesses who would help you in translating and communicating in local languages between you and the native customers. 

To hire our experienced exhibition hostesses for your booth at your next exhibition, fill our booking form in 2 minutes or chat with us on WhatsApp. 

If you found the information in this article useful, don’t forget to leave a comment below and share it with your contacts.