By Claus Hetting & Inna Tachev
We get this question often and fortunately, extracting maximum value from your WWC event participation is not hard – you just need to apply early planning, loads of creativity, and plenty of common sense. Here are our most important pieces of advice to prospective expo participants. Enjoy.
Book your space early
Signing up early means you get to pick your expo space as one of the first – and it also means you will get the benefit of having your brand exposed for a longer time on – for example – event campaign emails, websites, etc. Making early and fast decisions is always a great idea, also in this case they pay off.
Make sure you meet everyone including other sponsors & expo participants
While you may be able to sell stuff to consumers without ever showing your face, B2B business is all about relationships! If you’re not the gregarious type make sure at least someone on your team is, and then assign that person to talk to everyone at the show. You will be surprised how much information you will gather and how many organisations are interested in learning more about what you do.
If you’re not the person going – make sure whomever is going is fully briefed!
This is a low-level issue but something we come across all the time: The marketing coordinator responsible for the event is not actually going to the event. Make sure whomever from your company participating is fully briefed – otherwise you risk wasting important opportunities to participate.
Make sure you get some coolness into your exhibit & make up fun stuff to do
If you want to attract folks to your exhibit think about how you can make it stand out. There are tons of excellent pop-up stands that can be customized to look cool – and more than that, fun activities at your stand like trying on AR/VR headsets or little games, perhaps even serving drinks – anything goes as long as it’s entertaining. You don’t have to build a giant pavilion to make an impact, instead humour and creativity go a long way. Fun is contagious and is a great way to build B2B relationships that last.
Ship you stuff in time
May seem like obvious advice but we’ve never conducted an event where not at least one exhibit was either delayed or lost. Make sure you ship in time and make sure you label boxes, get the address right, and make sure you set up in time for the event and not last minute.
Examine all the options for branding & presence
Having an expo presence is one thing – but you may want to think of cool ways of extending your brand presence. Most event organisers – including the Wi-Fi World Congress – will offer things like badge or lanyard branding, branded cups, social evening event sponsorships, etc. Depending on your style and preferences, such things can be very much worth your money and time.
Read the expo manual
Another obvious one but you would probably not believe the amount of emails we get from people asking straight-forward questions that can be easily answered by a quick look in our expo manual. It’s not that we mind answering – it’s just a lot more efficient if you take 5 minutes to read the expo manual.
/Claus & Inna.
