It doesn’t matter what business you are in or what size of business you have, if you are an exhibitor at a trade show, you will all have one thing in common – an eye watering appreciation of the costs involved.
Stand space, stand design and build, the get in and get out, staff and accommodation costs, sales staff not on the road selling. It’s enough to put the Financial Director Reaching into a cold sweat.
However, with a little forward planning you can make the event work for you in terms of maximising your attendance, attracting potential customers to your stand and raising the profile of your company. The key, of course, is to harness the Public Relations opportunities and set them working for you.
Successful exhibition PR is all about timing and your starting point quite simply should be the date of the exhibition, because you need to plan backwards.
For example, if your exhibition is in February and your key industry magazines are monthly, then you need to be sending your exhibition press releases out in December, because they will be working two months in advance.
PR activity around exhibitions falls neatly into two halves: your role and the role of the exhibition organisers.
In terms of your role, let’s start with the press pack. This should contain two or three newsworthy press releases. Don’t forget to put the hall and your stand number on the front page of each release. Enclose good quality and interesting photography. Be creative, it will stand much more chance of being used if your new product shot has been taken from a creative angle. You might want to include biographical details of key personnel on the stand. Also, don’t forget to put a label with details of how to find you on the pack itself.
Make sure that there is always someone on your stand who can speak to journalists about your company and the products you have on display.
Tell the business editor of your local newspaper that you are going to the exhibition and send your quirky photograph and press release to them.
Here’s how to make the exhibition work for you.
Once you have your Exhibitor’s manual, find out who has responsibility for co-ordinating PR on behalf of the organiser and make contact with them. Find out which magazines are supporting the exhibition and target them with press releases and invitations to visit you at your stand.
Ask for a list of journalists who have confirmed that they will be attending and make a point of introducing yourself to them. Check if the exhibition is going to have a daily newspaper – they are often produced by an industry magazine – and contact the editorial team. They will be hungry for stories particularly for the first edition which will be produced before the show starts.
Make sure that you are included in any exhibitor directories and that you are featured on the exhibition website.
Some very large international exhibitions like 3GSM in Cannes will attract the attention of business television companies like CNBC or Reuters. Find them and keep in touch.
The exhibition will have a Press Office, so make sure your press packs are on display – don’t rely on Press Office staff to do this for you – it’s your responsibility.
Visit the Press Office frequently to ‘top up’ the supply of press packs. Also, keep some packs on your stand just in case a stray journalist turns up.
On Press Day (usually the first day of the exhibition) make sure that your key personnel are available and have someone hovering around the Press Office. Nothing is more frustrating than finding that an important journalist is somewhere in the exhibition or worse, that they have been and gone.
Once the exhibition is over, tell the media how successful it was for you. This is especially important if you have clinched an important deal, won an exhibition award or had influential visitors to your stand.
And finally. Many exhibitors feel that they are too small to be of interest to the media. This is a completely false impression. Journalists are always interested in small, exciting companies with interesting stories to tell.
For more information and further advice, speak to Damion Clark or Steve Greenhalgh at Real Public Relations in Cambridge. Tel 07779 129193 or email damion@realpublicrelations.com or steve@realpublicrelations.com
