Exhibition spaces go beyond aesthetics. Designing your exhibition space strategically can optimise lead generation. The main goal of an exhibition booth is to capture the attention of the audience. Philipp Lorenz-Spreen, Research Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, states, “Content is increasing in volume, which exhausts our attention. Our urge for ‘newness’ causes us to collectively switch between topics more regularly.” Tradeshows are busy and for a visitor, the amount of content can be overwhelming. With this in mind, let’s explore how you can maximise lead capture at events effectively, whilst serving the interests of visitors of today.
Designing booths with clear conversion paths
The layout of your booth can naturally guide visitors around key points in your space to generate lead capture. With lead capture being your primary goal, it’s important your booth design is centred around this goal during the planning process.
The layout
Think about the information you want to get across to your visitors and how you want to display it. The flow of your content should work together to tell a story via your layout. The location and size of your stand should be considered when planning your layout, to ensure you are not overcrowding your space. Consider walkways and entry points to ensure you have displays in the optimum spaces without it looking cluttered.
Design an inviting booth
The starting point of where visitors will enter your booth should be bright, open and inviting to encourage visitors to walk in your booth’s direction. Your team will want to start conversations with visitors and then guide them through the stand to an area where more in depth conversations or demonstrations can take place. The average visitor will only spend between 30 seconds to 3 minutes at your stand before leaving and applying their attention elsewhere. Here are our top two tips to apply in the visitor journey:
- Be bold and creative. Use a combination of graphics, text and lighting to generate curiosity from all distances as well as inside the booth to tell a story. Consider different types of lighting, such as ambient, task, or accent lighting, to create a visually appealing atmosphere within your stand. Additionally, lighting should be flexible enough to adjust to different times of the day.
- Offer interactive elements via gamification so visitors stay for longer and attract more as they do, as well as in certain points in your stand as you walk visitors through the booth
A great example of a business utilising their exhibition space is Mercedes-Benz at the Geneva Auto Show. The booth incorporated the following elements:
- A circular stage for rotating cars provided 360° visibility.
- Immersive digital screens displayed features and performance metrics
- A lounge area allowed for personalised consultation
As a result, Mercedes-Benz qualified over 500 leads which were captured through on-site digital kiosks. They also made use of AR (Augmented Reality) which allowed attendees to visualise custom configurations, encouraging further engagement.
Incorporating lead capture technology
As you get towards the end of your booth with visitors, this space should be supported with tools such as tablets, smart screens, and laptops to capture information quickly and effectively, as well as conduct product demonstrations. You can make use of tools like:
- QR code to encourage visitors to learn more about the company
- Smart badges to allow visitors to gather information on your stand without having to carry brochures and other material
- Mobile apps that allow users to access information about your company, ask questions and get live support
Train your team
It’s important that your team can engage with attendees effectively and maximise lead generation and customer interaction. It’s important that you play to your team’s strengths so that conversations flow naturally, and they feel confident in their role.
Ideally, all members of your team should be informed about the products so that they can direct any relevant questions to certain individuals. Here are some top tips to ensure stand etiquette:
- Ensure the stand is covered at all times
- Avoid laptops and mobile phones on the stand
- Keep an eye out on visitors
- No matter the role, encourage your staff to say hello to visitors
Sales teams will have the skills to attract visitors into the stand and assist with the initial conversations as well as guide them through the sales journey. It’s also important to have marketers or product specialists on the stand on hand to deliver any demonstrations or provide a more in-depth conversation. If they need to submit information electronically, then your team can demo it to the visitors so they’re familiar with the process or do it on their behalf.
Admin people can assist with capturing information for follow-ups. If it’s a form, ensure they take the visitor through it. Admin teams who are well informed about the exhibition are also helpful for any queries about the show or directions to places like restaurants and toilets, as usually, this can enhance the experience of your visitor and they may be inclined to come back and visit.
Measuring success post-event
Introduce methods for tracking which parts of the booth or layout resulted in the most lead conversions. By leveraging post-event analytics, you can understand which touchpoints in the booth were the most engaging and what follow-up content resonated the most with your visitors.
Ensure your booth is integrated with event management software so you can track which leads drove conversions. Your software should be able to capture which product demonstrations or content engaged attendees. Real-time lead scoring systems can segment this data to enable your sales team to prioritise follow-ups.
Research shows that companies who follow up with leads within 24 hours of engagement see a 60% higher response rate compared to those that delay contact. By integrating your lead capture tools with your CRM system, you can make sure all data is collected straight away and in one place. This is then accessible to your whole team to prevent any lag time between the end of the event and follow-ups.
Conclusion
Ultimately your exhibition stand design should leave a lasting impression. By following the above best practices, you can create an exhibition stand that will communicate your brand’s message, attract visitors, and generate valuable leads and connections. We can help you to craft a well-designed stand that will achieve your goals and objectives to maximise your return on investment and establish a strong presence in your industry.