Trade shows help businesses to increase brand awareness, connect with customers and secure new business leads. It’s important that as an event organiser, you know how to keep your exhibitors returning year after year. A recent study demonstrated that high customer retention rate can increase profits by anywhere from 5-95% (Bain & Company). In addition, it costs as much as 6-7 times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one (Bain & Company). Afterall, exhibitors are the lifeblood of any successful event, but how do you ensure they keep coming back year after year? We’ve broken down some of the key exhibitor retention strategies for your events to help.
Build long-term exhibitor relationships
Building relationships heavily relies on loyalty and mutual success. It’s important that the first trade show that your exhibitors attend ticks all of the right boxes. By doing so, they will be inclined to return again and it’s how you can build a long-term relationship with them.
Exhibitors typically look for an opportunity to connect with existing and new customers which can lead to a mutually beneficial business relationship. To help your exhibitors do this, you can ensure you have collated data on visitors and exhibitors such as demographics, interests, and job titles. You can then use this data to understand which exhibitors and visitors are likely to want to interact.
Exhibitors often look for thought leadership speaking opportunities to boost their profile, as well as secure positive media coverage. It’s important to ensure that your speakers are well prepared, with details provided to them such as the timings of the speaker sessions, timings of technical checks including sound checks and time available for Q&A. Exhibitors will want the best turn out and so ensuring plenty of media coverage before and after the event can help to attract quality leads. Personalised sponsorships can also help to provide that special experience they are looking for. You can do this by talking to them to understand their marketing needs.
If these areas are carefully considered and your exhibitors are happy with the event day, you can then begin to explore retention strategies to help to increase exhibitor rebooking rates.
Strategies for exhibitor retention
Tailored exhibitor loyalty programs
These are a great retention strategy that offer incentives and benefits to exhibitors who frequently attend your events. These can include:
- Points for attending your event
- Discounts on stands or media opportunities
- Access to areas such as premium booths and networking spaces
- Food and drink vouchers
- Freebies and giveaways for their stands
- Exclusive speaker, sponsorship and branding opportunities
A tiered approach is a way in which you can incorporate the above into tiers. For example, a gold membership could include full company name and logo advertising, social media mentions to promote attendance or speakers, free networking spaces & access to premium booths and first choice of speaker opportunities. A silver and bronze membership could include a reduced choice of the above.
Exclusive offers and perks for repeat exhibitors
Exhibitors want exclusivity to stand out against their competition. It’s important to highlight special offers and perks available to them. This could be early-bird pricing, discounts on booking larger spaces and premium booth locations, priority VIP access to special events.
Personalised post-event follow-ups
Personalisation is key when it comes to follow-ups, regardless of whether you choose to do this by phone, email, social media, or letters. People are more likely to open emails when it’s addressed to them rather. Gather the information you have received from the post-event surveys and use these as a tool for conversation to tailor your communications. You should consider the following when working on your post-event follow-ups:
- Timing: Follow-up as soon as possible to keep the conversation fresh and on the top of your exhibitor’s mind
- Keep in touch: Keep in touch with your exhibitors via updates, newsletters, sharing relevant articles and content
- Event success: Ensure you share the success of the event using data and numbers to qualify what you are saying. This can provide real evidence and reasons for your exhibitors to return again.
First impressions last and getting your exhibitors to return year after year is largely based on their first experience at your event. Therefore, it’s important to consider what factors may prevent exhibitors returning. These include:
- Too expensive to attend
- Having a stand in a location that they are unhappy with
- Given speaker opportunities that are not tailored to their goals
- Not getting enough leads
A great example of follow-up success using feedback given was this The London Book Fair. There were challenges with retaining small and mid-sized publishers who viewed participation as costly. The Fair segmented exhibitors based on categories, such as fiction publishers, and academic presses. The email campaigns were tailored to highlight:
- Reader or buyer interest specific to their category.
- Testimonials from attendees about publishers’ stands.
- A quick survey with personalised questions, followed by customized advice based on responses.
Exhibitors were also offered loyalty discounts for booking their stand early. As a result, repeat exhibitor numbers rose by 18%, with publishers appreciating the tailored feedback and follow-ups.
Conclusion
By ensuring you have a well organised event that considers as many factors as possible to make the event as successful as possible, it will be a lot easier to provide compelling reasons to return to your exhibitors. At Whitespace XPO, we put clients at the forefront of our approach. We aim to create experiences that resonate with audiences to help event organisers create stronger relationships with exhibitors.