One of the biggest mistakes exhibitors make is to think about the three days of the show and not about the bigger picture. I use two examples whenever I am talking about exhibitions. I talk about a football match which ostensibly lasts ninety minutes but actually the fans' enjoyment of that is spread over a weeks worth of anticipation and a weeks worth of dialogue afterwards and a party. A party does not just happen whilst you are at hour house celebrating. It happens in terms of the invitations and people talking about it in advance and all the thank you notes you are going to give afterwards. Think about your exhibition stand as three days that last a year. How are you using that opportunity? How are you using that marketing catalyst to create activity leading into the stand and leading out of it and some of that leading out of it is how you are going to follow up? So how are you creating a theme? What is your theme for the stand and how are you presenting that to the market so that (1) they know to visit you at the show (2) if they have no intention of visiting the show, they still know what you are doing and (3) so that when they do visit the show you are capturing valuable intelligence. You are having a meaningful dialogue with them so that your follow up can be thoughtful, provocative and targeted.
