Kyrah Howell is the Marketing Coordinator at Events 720, innovative exhibition suppliers in Australia. She is a recent communications graduate navigating the exciting world of events and expos. Alongside full marketing duties, she is also studying a master of marketing communication at the University of Melbourne. You can follow her work on the Events 720 blog and her LinkedIn.
The new year is in full swing and it’s time for you to make your mark in the exhibition world with show-stopping stand design, excellent customer service and innovative ideas. But before you can start deciding or where or what to exhibit, you need to be clear on what you hope to achieve. By resetting your exhibition goals for 2019, you can more efficiently develop your exhibition strategy and measure its success.
I’ll take you through a simple process to help you determine what type of goals you should be setting and how you can develop them.
Exhibitions offer many opportunities to showcase your business and/or product to potential customers, but to do this effectively, you must be clear on what outcome you are looking for. Define the purpose for your exhibiting and create your goal from there. This will help you determine the approach you should take when choosing a display stand design and interacting with stand visitors.
There are three types of goals you can strive to achieve:
Your exhibition display goals should reflect your overarching company marketing goals, not function independently. Consider areas that your business could improve or emphasize on and develop company goals based on these findings.
If your company goal is to increase profit margins, for example, then developing sales goals for your exhibition will work best. If your company goal is to increase brand awareness, then a communication-focused goal will be most suitable for your exhibition stand. If your company goal is to identify a new target market, then a marketing goal will produce the greatest results.
Sales goals at your exhibition stand can be to generate revenue or conduct sales meetings.
Communication goals can be to develop relationships with potential customers, enhance company image or gain media exposure.
Marketing goals can be to conduct market research or introduce new products and services.
It’s important to remember stick to one goal at your exhibition. You do not need to create goals that meet each of the three types. Often exhibitors will try to achieve multiple goals at once, but this can risk spreading out your efforts too far and missing the mark entirely. Instead, focus on one goal for your exhibition and put your energy toward achieving it.
To start accomplishing your goals, you need to know how to set them. With a type of goal in mind, you can start defining what your exhibition stand objective really is. To do this, follow the SMART method for setting specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound goals.
When setting a goal, make sure it is exactly what you want to achieve. The more detail you include about your desired outcome of the exhibition, the better. You can determine the specifics of your goal by considering who, what, when, where and why.
Goals need to be measured in order to confirm their success. Think about the metrics you could use to determine this. By ensuring your goal is measurable and assigning a method to measure it, the chances of achieving it are higher. Examples of suitable metrics are:
Your goals should be inspiring and exciting for your business, but they should also be achievable. You don’t want to risk setting yourself up for failure by creating goals that are not within your reach. Focus on how you can realistically achieve a goal — do you have the tools and skills required? If not, how can you attain them to help you reach your goal?
Simultaneously, your goals shouldn’t be too easy. Make your goals realistic, yet challenging.
It’s important that your goals are relevant to your business and exhibition. Your goal should align with business values and larger, long-term goals. This also includes goals that suit the skills and strengths of your business and your exhibition team.
To increase your chances of achieving your goal, set a realistic deadline. This can help you manage your time and efforts more effectively. Ask yourself what can be accomplished within the time period and to what standard. Your timeline will depend on what achievement your goal is based on. For example, if your goal is to attract 100 visitors to your exhibition, then your deadline might be by the end of the expo. If your goal is to gain 40 leads, then a suitable deadline might be a week after the expo to allow extra time for finalization.
A great tip for meeting a deadline is to set smaller deadlines within it that you can work toward throughout the process. Creating time-bound goals also creates a sense of urgency, which can increase productivity.
To create your SMART Goal, pull together each aspect discussed into one strong and concise statement. This statement does not have to address each component in order of the acronym, but it must include all five.
Here are some examples of a SMART Goal:
Remember that different components of your goal, such as timeframe and metrics, will be more detailed and specific to suit your own business.
After you’ve set your SMART goals, the next step is simple: Stick with it! Write out your exhibition goals, educate your team on them and continue to work towards achieving them. Goal setting is an ongoing activity, so make time to regularly review your goals and analyze their effectiveness.
Don’t forget to set goals that motivate you. If you are inspired and challenged to achieve results, then your exhibition can be a fun and exciting way to boost your business.
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