When to exhibit

Choosing the Best Time to Exhibit

Before you, as a company and as an individual, start exhibiting, you need to decide what your unique reasoning is. What makes it the right thing for you to do? You then need to carefully select the best time for you to exhibit, a time that best suits your company’s needs, requirements, strengths and weaknesses. Your busiest sales period is probably not the time to stretch your team by attending an exhibition! The ultimate decision comes down to; can you afford to or indeed can you afford not to?

Is my company ready to start exhibiting?

It can be hard to know at what stage in your company’s growth you should invest in exhibiting. Too soon and your company’s infrastructure may be overwhelmed with the response and too late you could be missing out on fantastic opportunities. There is no exact science so talk to as many people as you can within your industry- find out what they did, what do they find works, what would they do differently? Talk to customers- why do they visit shows, what are they looking to achieve, what would they like to see?

Things to think about:

  • Have you got enough time to design, produce and deliver a space that accurately reflects your company and brand? The exhibition industry is used to working to tight deadlines so if in doubt get in touch with your contractor to gain realistic deadlines
  • Does the exhibition fall within the correct timeframe in your customer’s buying cycle- should you be  aiming to launch a new Christmas product in November. Or does the timing allow you enough time to  develop your new leads.
  • Does your team have capacity to make the most of leads/sales etc generated from the event
  • How many exhibitions should you include in your marketing calendar? How will this work logistically?

If you know that as a company you are flat out busy and resources are stretched during a particular month, it is unlikely you are going to be able to organise a last minute exhibition stand and work your stand effectively. If you know you are going to be busy, look ahead and get your stand finalised in advance- you’ll be your contractor’s favourite client if you do! Our exhibition calendar lists a number of the exhibitions we will be attending this year so get in touch and we can help you decide if that exhibition is right for you.