Expert, Personalized Feedback and Direction on How To Improve Exhibiting Effectiveness
INTRODUCTION:
As part of the E3’s Team ongoing commitment to exhibitor satisfaction the E3 Exhibiting Effectiveness Evaluation™ was provided by your association as a complimentary, value–added service. This unique and personalized program is provided to support the following objectives:
Refer to your individual scorecard reports to identify the specific recommendations that apply to your company.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW:
Exhibiting companies were provided with a brief, but thorough 21 point observation and evaluation of their exhibit in action on the exhibit floor. These evaluations were conducted individually by Jefferson Davis, of Competitive Edge and one of the members of his core team including Judi Baker-Neufeld of TradeShows Plus and/or Bob Milam of TradeShow Bob. Jefferson also uses other evaluators depending on the size and location of the conference. Feel free to contact Mr. Davis with questions at jefferson@tradeshowturnaround.com
At your conference, each exhibit was observed in action during open exhibiting hours and the findings were captured using an iPad application. Your exhibit was scored using twenty-one visually observable elements in three major categories.
After the show, a confidential evaluation report containing evaluation results, commentary, individual element scores, photographs and overall area scoring along with benchmarks to show average scores as well as exhibitors with similar size booth including inline, peninsula or islands.
Exhibitors are encouraged to carefully review the report and use the feedback to reinforce effective practices, and to consider making improvements in ineffective areas of their exhibit program. As results are reviewed, please remember the goal is not to be judgmental or critical, nor to discount the considerable effort invested in executing your exhibit, but simply to provide constructive feedback that can help improve overall effectiveness of your exhibiting program.
We sincerely hope the feedback and direction provided by this program helps you to make incremental improvements that lead to a positive, productive and profitable exhibit program.
THE EVALUATION CRITERIA:
21 Elements Evaluated in 3 major areas
1. Exhibit Presentation:
Your overall exhibit presentation plays a critical role in your exhibiting success. First and foremost it has to have an attraction that motivates the target audience to stop. In turn your exhibit presentation must efficiently and effectively communicate who you are, what you do and what you can do for the audience that persuades them to cross the carpet line and ask about products, services and/or solutions. The overall exhibit presentation should communicate and reinforce your corporate branding and communicate succinctly what you sell. Since the exhibit is a clearly defined space where your staff and attendees interact, it must be designed to facilitate traffic flow and make it easy for attendees to learn about your organization. It is also important to make it easy for attendees to find what they need.
Having sufficient space for visitor interaction is also key to prolonging the visit to aid retention for your message. If your booth is not messaged and it’s hard to tell what you sell even if you do attract prospects they won’t stay long. Finally it is critical to meet the focused information needs of visitors so they leave your booth wanting to do business or more business with your company. The biggest success is when an existing customer(s) say “I didn’t know you did that” and you hear this more than once during exhibit hours.
To evaluate overall exhibit effectiveness, specific evaluation questions included:
a. Does the overall exhibit attract attendee’s attention?
b. Is it quickly/easily discernible what the company does/offers?
c. Is it quickly/easily discernible who the company is?
d. Are there sufficient graphics/are they well placed/legible?
e. Do the graphics communicate clear, concise, specific message(s)?
f. Do the message(s) inform/educate/give attendee a reason to stop?
g. Is the exhibit easy to enter?
h. Is the exhibit easy to navigate?
i. Can visitors quickly discern what is being displayed and where?
j. Is there enough open space for attendees?
k. Is the corporate identity effectively integrated in exhibit design?
2. Product/Service Presentation:
Attendees visit an exhibit for a number of reasons. They want to interact with the staff and products/services, as this is something they cannot do in their offices. This is what makes trade shows so unique among all marketing initiatives. It is possible to participate firsthand in demonstrations, which are efficient learning tools for customers. This satisfies attendee’s desire to engage with people and participate firsthand in the educational process. It is a unique opportunity for prospects to evaluate products and services and see how these apply to their organizations. This is why it is critical regardless of what you sell to find unique ways to present company resources. Getting attendees to do something, anything is mandatory for increasing retention for the visit. If the only thing your audience does is scan their badge and get a gift, it is important to reconsider why you are going and think about the recommendations in this section. These will help you become far more productive and memorable as a result of your participation.
To be effective, product and service presentations/demonstrations require thoughtful planning based on the following criteria
a.) Understanding your typical customer or prospect
b.) Creating an engaging, interactive, informative experience through thoughtful planning to address what they want to see, do and experience in your exhibit. And most important, what they are likely to participate in.
c.) Planning how the demonstrations or presentations fit into the entire booth experience so all initiatives complement one another. All product presentations and demonstration should prolong the stay to increase retention for the message
Remember, attendees are there for hands-on, interactive educational experiences. Your job is to give them that unique, interactive involvement they cannot get while sitting in front of a computer screen in the office. They want to be able to efficiently and effectively collect and evaluate product/service information and understand how your products/services can help their business.
To evaluate product/service presentations evaluators observed the following:
a. Are products/service physically displayed or presented?
b. Is the display/presentation thoughtful, creative, unique?
c. Is the display/presentation engaging and/or interactive?
d. Is feature/benefit signage integrated into presentation?
e. Is takeaway product/service information readily available?
3. Exhibit Staff:
While your exhibit and product/service presentation are important, your exhibit staff may be the most critical factor in overall effectiveness. Regardless of the size or allure of your exhibit, your staff’s behaviors, availability and communication skills can make or break your program.
Attendees make quick judgments about your company and your products/services based on their observation of and interaction with your staff. Attendees want visible, available booth staffers who acknowledge them quickly. They expect professional, friendly, knowledgeable service and staff who demonstrate interest in their needs and respect their time. They appreciate staffers who take a moment to learn who they are, what they do and what attracted them to the exhibit. They are attracted to staff that address their specialized needs efficiently and provide customized, relevant information and appropriate responses to their questions.
To evaluate exhibit effectiveness evaluators observed the following:
a. Are there an appropriate number of booth staffers?
b. Does their dress quickly/visibly identify them as a booth staffer?
c. Do they keep body language open to visitors/attendees in aisles?
d. Are they quickly responsive to booth visitors?
e. Are booth staff behaviors appropriate?
HOW TO USE YOUR INDIVIDUAL REPORT:
While reviewing your evaluation report, please be as objective as possible and remember, scoring is not an attempt to discount the considerable effort you put into your exhibit program. The scoring acknowledges your efforts in relation to the show average and a comparison of you to others in your exhibit category including inline, peninsula or island. It identifies ineffective practices and reinforces what’s right with your program. The goal is for you to enhance what works, toss what doesn’t and ultimately improve exhibiting performance and results.
A five point scoring system is used with five (5) being Very Effective and one (1) being Ineffective. The scoring system is applied to all 21 elements. Pay attention to questions scoring three (3) or less, as these are the areas requiring attention in your program. Also, comparing your individual scores to the all show averages in the second column next to your feedback is helpful in assessing how you compare to competitive offerings and peer companies at the show. Any score highlighted in yellow on the report indicates you fall below the all show average. These are areas to address in your program. Sometimes all you need is a small adjustment to go from 2 to 4 so little changes make a big difference. Or you may find yourself rethinking performance and make major changes to your program. The reports are versatile and there are many ways to approach the results and benefit from the reports from a major program overhaul to a few small changes in messaging, demonstrations or staff performance.
While some of the evaluation questions are self-explanatory and provide direction for improvement, other questions require additional information to understand how to improve the rating. There is a link on each page of your report to the suggestions for each section. These include an Exhibit Presentation link, product presentation link and link for staff performance. The suggestion in each section lists the questions with suggestions for improving your ratings and booth performance at future shows.
Copyright 2013. All Rights Reserved. Competitive Edge.