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Exhibition is a cult word of nowadays

Coming into the Russia in ninetieth years of the last century, nowadays the exhibition business has formed the whole industry with its own rules and exceptions, leaders and outsiders, problems and achievements, crisises and rises.
Today not only exhibition organizers, exhibitors and visitors give their attention to the exhibition business. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Russian Federation in collaboration with the International Union of Exhibitions and Fairs took the exhibition industry under its patronage. This means that unusual and incomprehensible exhibition services turned into acknowledged and effective marketing instrument.
There is no doubt that the exhibition is one of the most expensive instruments of promotion. On the other hand, it is the most effective marketing instrument on condition that you know how to prepare your participation and exhibit your production; how to plan and sum up the exhibition results.
Today it’s useless and even dangerous for company image to participate at the exhibition as it was 5-7 years ago. When the managers of serious companies decide to take part at an exhibition, they are thinking how to plan the profit and to attain their object.

How to do it? What are the instruments of effective participation at an exhibition? We are talking about that with Skorikova Elena, the CEO of the Institite for Exhibition Business.

Last time they often say that the effectiveness of exhibition is in decrease. Is this point of view a consequence of inaccurate calculation or we can really speak about the decline, “dying” of exhibition industry in Russia? What is your opinion?

Of course, it is early to tell about the “dying” of exhibitions in Russia. To this very day all around the world the exhibitions are the place where they conclude about 25% of world contracts. And what is more that the tendencies of this process are positive.
Ineffective participation at exhibitions can be explained by three reasons:
1. ignorance of elementary rules of participation when exhibitors take part at an exhibition in accordance with the following principles: “as usually”, “as the others”, “we know everything because it’s not our first exhibition”;
2. incorrect choice of the exhibition (exhibition may be staged by an unprofessional organizer or may not correspond to the marketing aims of participant);
3. ignorance of consumption psychology.

The Internet gives an opportunity to the every buyer to be a participant of world supplies. Now the services are dominating the products. The services which satisfy emotive needs of the client. Today there is no want of goods or products as they differ only in nuances. That’s why the product doesn’t play a decisive role any more. The much more important thing is how the product is “envelopped” in services. The services, especially for small-scale business, are becoming “a measure of increase”, “a measure of profit”. Marketing (and exhibition as a part of marketing) must be considered as a capacity to establish relationship “client – firm” which satisfy the both sides.
The companies don’t take these reasons into consideration and their approach to exhibitions stay invariable. In accordance with the appropriated funds for the exhibition, disregarding the concrete aims of the exhibition, the participants buy meters of exhibition space, show as many as possible samples of their production off (often there is no place for visitors and potential clients in the borders of stands) and wait for trade miracles.
The effectiveness of the participation is still often calculated in old manner: the total sum of sold goods or concluded contracts during the exhibition less costs for exhibition space and other supplementary expences. But the result of an exhibition may be seen in a month, in a year or in three years. There is a concept of instantaneous and deferred profit which depends on the innovation production cycle or terms of collaboration of companies.

Where is, by your opinion, the start point for the calculation of exhibition results?

The start point of such a calculation is the purpose of participation at an exhibition. All the managers know that this purpose must be measured, accessible and ecological (for the company). Specialists for marketing and sales managers have to think thoroughly over in order to correspond these conditions. The purpose is grotty if it was formulated like “establish new business contacts”.
There is only one purpose - the chief one. There may be several secondary and minor purposes but the conception of participation must be made in the frame of one general purpose. It would mean to serve two masters.
Then in accordance with the marketing purpose, you have to choose a concrete exhibition, to calculate the number of contacts and stand men, to calculate the necessary number of square meters. All these calculations made, you have to make the calculation of economic expediency which shows you the right decision – take or not take part at an exhibition.

Are there any methods of calculation of required exhibition space and stand men?

Yes. The most simple methods of mathematical calculations have for the ground the Miller’s formula (Miller is an American business consultant specialized in exhibition industry). All the forecasts of instantaneous and deferred profit and calculations of effectiveness of participation are built on the basis of this formula.
In the course of consultations and trainings organized by our Institute I very often hear the same comments. It turns out that everything is very simle. And if students knew all this before, they would certainly do everything in other way. Unfortunately, companies order seminars and consulting one or two weeks before the exhibition, when there is almost no ways to change  something.

When, by your opinion, must the exhibitors begin to prepare themselves for an exhibition in order to get the best results?

One year or, as a last resort, half of year before the exhibition. As soon as they fixed the marketing strategy for the company and approved advertising budgets for the nearest year, there is a need to decide whether the company takes part at exhibitions this yes. If yes, what kind of exhibitions? What is the object of participation? Reasoning from these questions you may begin writing an exhibition conception.
But I have to do a remark. The offical closing of exhibition doesn’t mean the end of exhibition. All the work do begin at this moment.

Do you mean the preparations for the next exhibition?

Not only. The business contacts that company got in the course of the exhibition, must be thoroughly treated. The result of exhibition may be equal to zero, if you lose sight of this important point. Companies very often consider “after-exhibition marketing” as an “adopted child”. Before the exhibition you must have a clear plan how these business contacts may be delivered to the office and who is responsable for the work with this information. Don’t forget that any information is actual for people only during 48 hours. If, at the exhibition, somebody showed interest in your production, you must support and develop this interest during these 48 hours.

Somebody in the company must possess this wisdom. Is it necessary to prepare especially the stuff for exhibitions?

Sure! One minute of exhibition costs 2-3$ for companies. And it is advisable to spend this time with profit. People need to study it.
A bad stand man is able to waste money of company and, unfortunately, that can be observed very often.
The stuff presenting a company must be able to:
- pick out a potential client among other visitors in few very short seconds;
- take visitors’ tension and fear out;
- make a professional presentation of company and production;
- know and differ visitors, know how to miss useless contacts;
- use regularly advertising materials etc.

Thus you want to say that the decoration of stands and exhibits don’t play an important role?

This is partly right. The organization of exhibition space is one of very important points of success. The exhibition may be described by the equation soft product=hard product. Soft product consists of statement of clear object of participation, determining of potential clients, work of stand stuff, before and after exhibition marketing events etc. Hard product includes number of exhibition meters, exhibits, design of exhibition space. The breach of the balance between two parts of this equation leads to loosing of exhibition.

What demands a particular attention in the course of creating of exhibition stand?

You may write a big work in order to answer this question. It is very important to take into account many things: who is “your” visitor; what colors does he prefer; what is his type of consumption? Besides, it’s important to understand how people perceive different configurations of space, how many word must be written on advertising board….
I want to remind that, besides eyesight and ear, visitors possess smell, taste and touch. Among advertising instruments only exhibition permits to use all these five organs of sense.

We wish you successful exhibitions! Your Institute for Exhibition Business.

Press Department of Uralexpocentre.