Event peparation, planning and briefing – don’t lose leads at your expo or conference stand
Picture the Monday after the expo. The stand is packed down, the team is back at their desks, and there’s a stack of 400 badge scans waiting to be followed up.
Sounds like a win, but nobody can remember who was a serious prospect, who just wanted a free tote bag, and who spent twenty minutes chatting while a dozen genuine buyers walked straight past.
Most of the time, those leads were lost at the stand on the day, not in the follow-up.
Industry research suggests that 94% of marketers believe their company fails to convert event leads into opportunities. Often it comes down to a handful of avoidable mistakes. We cover the most common mistakes to look out for when you’re exhibiting at events across Australia, so your exhibition displays bring in leads rather than lose them.
1. Spending too much time with one visitor
Sometimes people like to chat and ask questions, but they might not be a great potential fit or lead. While you’re talking to them, you could be essentially ignoring the other potential leads who are walking past or stopping by your stand.
Be conscious of how long you’re spending with each person at the stand. If you have an interactive activation, for example, keep an eye on how long each person is hanging around.
You want to give everyone a chance to have a chat, engage with your stand and enter the competition, but you don’t want people loitering so long that you miss out on others. Spending too long with one person can turn a quick lead collection into a full sales call, and that’s a conversation for later.
So we recommend you greet the person, engage with them briefly and talk about what you’re offering. What’s on the stand today, is there a competition, a new feature or product, or a demo?
Look at getting their contact information and finding out which part of your product or service they’re interested in. Then kindly let them continue their day at the other exhibits, and move on to engaging with other visitors.
2. Turning up without deciding what success looks like
We talk about this in detail in another blog on how to build an exhibition stand that delivers ROI. As a company, you’re spending a lot of money on a stand. If your staff arrive and haven’t been briefed by the event manager, the marketing team or whoever is running the stand, and there’s no clear plan, it can cost you leads. In fact, 76% of exhibitors set no specific goals for trade shows.
Think about how you’re going to approach visitors, how you’ll qualify who’s interested, how you’ll collect their details on the day, and how you should follow them up afterwards. Do you have the CRM ready to go?
Do you have the emails ready to go? Otherwise, you’re just collecting badge scans or details without really understanding that potential person, what they were interested in, or why they visited your stand to start with. It’s really important.
3. Having too many staff on the stand
Being overstaffed can mean you have people who don’t have a defined role on the day. They’re standing around, haven’t been briefed on what to do, and it’s just too busy.
You often get better results with the right number of people, and the right staff roles on the stand. One person can start the conversations, somebody else can qualify the visitor and get them to sign up or give their badge details, and then you leave it to the sales team to focus on the people who might be serious prospects, or the product team to answer more detailed questions. It doesn’t help that more than half of exhibiting companies don’t provide any training for their booth staff.
Again, a quick briefing before the day goes a long way. What’s the plan, who’s doing what, who takes a break and when you’re rotating staff.
If you have a small team, plan your breaks as well, such as grabbing a coffee on the way in. Will lunch be provided, so nobody has to walk off for an hour and miss out on visitors? This one is particularly important for smaller teams and brands.
4. Massive crowds at your stand
Some stands draw massive crowds. To be clear, this one doesn’t mean crowds at a workshop or talk, it’s crowds of people at the stand. It could be because there’s a competition on, free merch is being given away, or a demo is running.
This can really hurt your impact with potential prospects. You’re not converting a lot of these people, and you’re not following up with half of the badges because there are just too many people to talk to. It’s cluttered, you’re not filtering out the right people, and you don’t know where to start. There are lots of moving parts and nothing really gets achieved.
It comes down to the structure of the stand on the day, the messaging, the key areas, and what we like to call the psychological zones of your stand. Our guide on what makes a good exhibition stand covers this in more detail. You also want a smooth data process. You don’t want to be fumbling around when there are loads of people, your technology isn’t working, or there’s a form with 50 questions to fill in. That will turn people away, and you won’t have the time on the day.
5. A cluttered backdrop
People get their stands built with lots of corporate jargon. But someone walking down the aisle towards your stand gives it about a 3 second look, and if they can’t tell what you’re offering, or what the product or service is, they keep walking.
It’s really about making your primary signage stand out and keeping it simple enough for people who have no idea what you offer, or who have never seen your brand or logo before.
We suggest a bold headline that solves somebody’s problem, positioned at eye level, rather than your statement lost among all your product features on one banner. It needs to be simple enough to read from a walking distance away from your stand. We call this the 3-second headline rule.
Our blog on why great expo signage is key to trade show success is a good place to start, or get in touch, and we’ll help you work out the best way to display your message on your stand.
6. Going overboard with interactive elements
Another mistake that can impact your leads is going a bit overboard with interactive elements. A prize wheel, a cash grab machine, or loads of free merch across the stand. This can draw in crowds of people who just want free items, and then you might end up overwhelming your sales and marketing teams later with unqualified leads.
Instead of having everything out on display, keep some items behind the stand and hand them out once somebody approaches you, with just a few things out the front. You could also make your prize or competition online driven. People take a flyer away and enter later, so nobody is tied up on the day standing in a huge line for a prize wheel.
If you have merch all over your stand, you’ll get people who are only there for the free stuff, and they’ll try to grab it without you looking because you’re busy with other potential clients.
Take a look at our brand activations to see how we balance engagement with lead quality.
7. A stand with no branding
Some people have no branding at all. They’ve just got a little logo and no marketing messaging, so it’s a blank stand and people don’t know who you are or what you do. This can put people off and won’t get you any leads, because no one is going to be attracted to something that’s too plain.
If you’re looking for a stand that stands out, get in touch with us at Evexis. We can help you create a custom exhibition stand that really suits your brand and stands out amongst all the other exhibitors. Browse our gallery for ideas.
8. Having no merchandise or promotional items
Having no merchandise or promotional items can also cost you leads and potential clients. You want to have at least something on your stand to give away, even if that’s just a brochure. It’s not the flashiest and it’s a bit boring, but if you’ve got nothing there, there’s no conversation point, and you might struggle to talk to the person.
It also helps with brand awareness, because it’s something that reminds people of the stand they visited and keeps your brand in front of them after the event.
There are cost-effective promotional items, such as pens, that can be given away, and merchandise that’s a bit more environmentally friendly. We’ve seen businesses give out plantable seed paper, bamboo cutlery sets, reusable coffee cups, recycled notebooks and eco tote bags.
9. Turning up late on the day
Whether it’s your marketing team, your sales team, or you’re a small business and you’re all attending, staff members turning up late can really cost you potential customers and leads.
There are early comers who like to get in early and get out early because they’ve got a busy day, so you might be missing out on some good prospects. Think about it: it’s the morning and it’s really quiet, they might be having a coffee, and they may be more open to having a chat before everything gets started, with all the workshops and talks for the day.
Turn more visitors into genuine leads
Avoiding these mistakes comes down to preparation: a clear plan, a well-briefed team and a stand designed to attract the right people. If you’re planning your calendar, our guide to expos and trade shows around Australia is a good place to start.
At Evexis, we design and build stands that help you do exactly that. Get in touch with our team today and let’s make your next exhibition count.
