Exhibitions offer a unique opportunity for businesses to create lasting impressions, transforming casual interest into tangible value. They allow you to engage face to face with existing clients and potential leads, showcase products, and build strong relationships.

When I first joined InText — a Ukrainian-founded localization and desktop publishing company — the marketing department was abuzz with preparations for tekom fair, Europe’s largest technical communication event. As a marketing newcomer tasked with finding a Ukrainian sweets supplier in Germany, I wondered if such requests are routine for marketers in the localization industry. I soon found out that exhibition preparation is about promotion, logistics, production details, and a lot of teamwork.

Preparing for an exhibition typically requires three to seven specialists, including marketers, graphic designers, sales managers, and production experts. Drawing from our experience at events like tekom fair, LocWorld, and game localization conferences, we’ve developed a comprehensive approach to exhibition success. Here’s a detailed look at how we prepare for successful exhibitions, including unique tips for your own journey.

Defining resources

Find as much information about the event as possible. Gather details such as dates, locations, contacts, white papers, feedback, deadlines, and material guidelines. Don’t hesitate to contact event organizers if you can’t find certain information; they can often provide more assistance than you might expect. Analyze the event’s attendees, including demographics, interests, preferences, and buying intentions.

Next, decide which products to showcase and which existing marketing materials to use. Establish an internal team and a budget for preparations. Finally, create deadlines, allowing two to four months for preparation. Set interim deadlines for each stage, including buffer time for unexpected issues.

By defining the required resources early, you can create a solid exhibition strategy. This will guide your decision-making and resource allocation throughout the preparation process, ensuring a focused and effective approach to the event.

Creating a concept

Ideally, the concept should align with your company’s identity and tell a story about your business. Perhaps your company wants to be seen as a formal business-oriented team. Or maybe you’d prefer to be perceived as a cheerful team that clients see as friends rather than just business partners. This choice will influence your concept, which will shape the designs of your banners, handouts, leaflets, merchandise, social media posts, and more.

A successful exhibition concept attracts attendees’ attention, communicating your brand identity while creating memorable interactions with potential clients. You need to stand out among other exhibitors, catch the eyes of visitors, and effectively communicate with them once they’re at your stand.

At tekom fair 2022, InText laid the foundation for our new exhibition concept that you may have noticed at recent localization industry events. Our team wanted to show our gratitude for the world’s support of Ukraine and apply the national Petrykivka folk art style, using bright yellow and designing a big heart in the
Petrykivka style. At the fair, everyone noticed our colorful design, which helped us make new connections and get new work requests.

Identifying marketing materials

Your marketing materials should incorporate the concept while providing useful information. The marketing team will need to activate their creative side and imagine as many engaging ideas as possible.

Effective exhibition materials typically fall into four categories: promotional, educational, useful, and entertaining. To maximize your impact, aim to include items from all four categories. This approach ensures you not only promote your company, but also provide true value to potential clients.

Here’s a sample list of materials based on our recent experience at LocWorld51 in Dublin, Ireland:

• Exhibition space decoration: stand banner, lighting (as much as possible), cat-shaped cardboard chairs, and a hoodie rack
• Interactive elements: a cat-shaped wheel with a set of languages
• Merchandise: hoodies for adults and kids, wooden souvenirs in Ukrainian folk art style, cat-shaped pins, eco-friendly shopping bags, caps, and cat-shaped cubes with sweets
• Printed materials: business cards, notebooks with promotional pages about the company, service-specific booklets, sticker sets, raffle leaflets, and educational leaflets
• Raffle activity materials: yellow hoodies, participant cards, and promotional signage
• Team members’ clothes: branded T-shirts
• Additional materials: chocolate and vegan sweets

Implementing the plan

The most time-consuming stage is bringing your plans to life. This involves close collaboration with other departments within your company, including sales and production, to create impactful and error-free marketing materials. Implementation includes creating text and visual designs for marketing materials, selecting suppliers, planning logistics, and shipping materials securely to the destination. Remember that top managers should review and approve final designs to ensure consistency and alignment with the company’s image.

Adding final touches

If you want to maximize your stand’s attendance, you should conduct a public relations campaign. This includes a massive bombardment of posts on social media, blog posts, website banners, press releases, and news in managers’ email signatures. Use every possible way to promote your participation and make the most of your experience. Implementing a content plan will help you maintain an organized approach to social media posts. Consider what you will share before, during, and after the event.

Finally, don’t forget about your team members. Your marketing materials are only as effective as the people representing them. Make sure everyone knows the plan of action and how to use all the marketing resources. You may want to assist your sales managers by providing them with a script for conversations and a guide on how to talk about your company in line with your brand guidelines.

Remember, impulsive last-minute decisions can still happen. Be prepared for your managers to come up with late ideas that you may need to implement promptly. Quick adjustments can often lead to great opportunities.

The day of

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the big day. After months of preparation, it’s finally time for the exhibition. Enjoy the event and celebrate the culmination of your hard work!

Wish your team members luck, stay in touch with them throughout the event, and be ready to answer any questions they may have. Also, be prepared to promptly post updates on social media to give your followers a real-life experience.

For sales managers, the fun part is only starting. Working hours during the exhibition will greatly exceed the usual eight, and communication with people will never seem to stop. Here are tips from our sales team on how to successfully manage an exhibition stand:

1. Engage actively: Be proactive in approaching visitors and initiating conversations.
2. Listen more, talk less: Focus on understanding visitors’ needs before pitching your solutions.
3. Use your materials wisely: Leverage the marketing materials you’ve prepared to support your conversations.
4. Take breaks: Pace yourself. The days are long, so ensure you stay energized.
5. Collect contact information: Always aim to get visitors’ contact details so you can follow up.
6. Be genuine: Build authentic connections rather than focusing solely on sales.
7. Stay informed: Be ready to answer questions about your products, services, and industry trends.
8. Follow up promptly: Make notes after each significant interaction for effective post-event follow-up.

Debriefing

After the event, collect feedback from your colleagues and assess the outcomes. This helps you learn from your experience and improve your approach to future events. We typically start by writing down our own feedback, then present it to others. Finally, we compile a comprehensive presentation about the event along with future ideas for the entire InText team. For a productive debriefing session, consider what worked well, what didn’t go as planned, and what didn’t meet expectations.

Over time, you may forget details such as which supplier produced low-quality merchandise or which aspects of your leaflet were most appreciated by clients. To ensure continuous improvement in our exhibition participation, our marketing department always reviews debriefings from previous exhibitions. This helps us refine our strategies and enhance our event planning.

Learn from challenges

Challenges are a normal and important part of the event planning process. No amount of planning or management can eliminate them completely. Here are some real-life examples from our experience:

• For LocWorld49 in Malmö, Sweden, we discovered just three weeks before the event that our booth was 4×2 meters, not 4×4 as we had believed. Despite this unexpected realization, we managed to fit all the materials into the smaller booth. Since then, we’ve made it a priority to double-check the booth size early in the planning process.
• Once, our logistics company couldn’t locate the area where our materials were to be stored before an exhibition. The driver and the security team decided that the best solution was to place our boxes in an unknown room on the warehouse premises. That night, our marketing department couldn’t sleep at all. Thankfully, by morning, warehouse workers found our boxes safe and sound. Remember to develop contingency plans for logistics, especially when dealing with international shipments or complex situations.

By sharing these real-world challenges, I hope to provide a realistic view of exhibition preparation. Each setback taught us valuable lessons and helped us refine our approach, ultimately contributing to our success at future events. It’s not about avoiding all problems but about how you handle problems when they arise.

Conclusion

They say localization is an art. Well, I believe exhibition planning and execution is an art form too, blending creativity, project management, and adaptability. It requires prompt and authentic teamwork, with every member dedicated to a common goal and ready to support one another. What challenges await us at upcoming exhibitions? To our mind, it’s striking the right balance between reusing proven materials and introducing fresh, exciting elements for stand visitors. Additionally, optimizing logistics and packing processes remains a significant challenge given their time-consuming nature.

Exhibitions can sometimes feel chaotic. However, with each exhibition, you have an opportunity to sharpen your skills and achieve greater success. By following the tips in this article and learning from past experiences, you can effectively prepare for and participate in an exhibition. The next time you spot our team in bright yellow hoodies with cats, remember this article and the journey behind our presence. Until our paths cross at the next exhibition, keep refining your art!