In the world of live events why do exhibitor programs fail? According to Jefferson Davis, president of Competitive Edge a leading tradeshow consulting and training service, “One of the biggest mistakes I see exhibitors of all types and sizes make is what I call “exhibiting by hope”. This means just renting space, showing up, and hoping attendees enter the exhibit hall, pass their booth, and stop.” He further states that “…less than 20% of exhibitors do any form of targeted pre-show marketing.” We agree.
A Center for Exhibition Industry Research’s (CEIR’s) study points out that 76% of attendees arrive at a live trade show or event with an agenda. In addition, attendees spend quality time with just 26 exhibitors at a show and half of these 26 exhibitors scheduled appointments in advance. CEIR also commissioned a study by Deloitte & Touche that concluded exhibitors who conducted a pre-show marketing campaign raised the quality of the audience they were able to attract by 46% and their conversion of booth visitors to qualified leads rose 50%.
Based on these facts, the conclusion is clear – the successful exhibitor has to implement a program to get on the attendee’s agenda. Hoping attendees will walk by your booth and drop in (“exhibiting by hope”) doesn’t work at live events and it probably will not work any better in the virtual world.
Preshow exhibitor marketing is a key factor for an exhibitor’s success and it is even more important at virtual events. At these online meetings, attendees are looking at a list of companies and will probably only check out the ones that they are doing business with or the ones that contacted them before the show with a reason to stop by. In order to drive attendees to the virtual booth, exhibitors need the ability to reach out to attendees before the show starts.
Sponsor level and marketing savvy exhibitors have always been good at driving booth traffic by emailing the attendees using show sponsored email systems that hide the attendee’s data. Virtual and hybrid events will need to offer exhibitors the same opportunities.
