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Please contact Laura Sharrock-Long, Holly Smith or Tony Attwood at Hamilton House Public Relations. Call 01536 399 000.

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Exhibitions - show guide
     

The way you write your entry in the show guide can really affect how many people attend your stand at the exhibition.

That little free entry in the show guide can make quite a difference.  Of course many people do just stroll around, wandering up and down the rows until dehydration and tiredness set in.   But many others plan their trips, highlighting which stands they want to visit.

Here's how it can be done:

Think of the show guide entry as a sales letter.   There are many rules relating to sales letters, but the key ones are

  1. The headline or opening sentence must really grab attention.  Spend time on your headline - they are not easy to write.  Craft it lovingly until it really does do the job.

  2. You must write from the perspective of your visitor, not your perspective.  The average visitor does not come to see you because you are considered the leading company at this or that, but because you can do the job.  Listing your clients is fine - but do it in a leaflet on the stand, not as a reason to get to the stand.
  3. You must give them a unique reason for coming to your stand.
    The problem is that most show guide entries are written from the perspective of the company - we do this, we have been solving this problem for 20 years, we are a family run business - and not from the perspective of the visitor.   
    This usually results in announcement advertising - simply saying "we do this" or "we have this" and as any serious analysis of advertising will tell you, where your customers have a choice announcement advertising does not work.
    In fact there are only five methods of advertising that do work - selling on price, selling on benefit, selling through the interesting question, selling via humour and selling through emotion.  The same five approaches work in the show guide.  Talking about yourself, and announcing your product are not part of the five options.
  4. Take time.  Most people admit to dashing off their show guide entries within seconds - often after being reminded about it by the show organisers.  This is a mistake.   Take your time - it is not easy.

So let us look at an example that does work, and an example that does not work.

Here first of all is one from an actual educational show guide, changed a little to hide the identity of the company.

Rainbow Design modular screens and furniture are rapidly becoming established as the preferred solution for providing designers of open plan space with shared and interactive areas for meetings, refreshment and relaxation, hot desking and hubs for office peripherals such as printers,  Rainbow Design is also available off the shelf and is completely flexible allowing it to be adapted as needs change.  It is now being successfully used by some of the most demanding organisations in the UK such as... (a list of universities and government departments follows).

Here is an alternative version.

What is the most cost effective way of dividing up an open plan space?  The fact is that while open plan has great merits, sometimes it is a good idea to divide up your open space.   You need meeting areas, relaxation areas, refreshment areas - in fact all sorts of areas - at least for a time.  What is therefore needed is furniture and screens that can be used to divide up space one way, and then, when needs change, divide the same space in a different way later on.   The system needs to be flexible, easy to arrange, and above all cost-effective.   To see illustrations of how other educational organisations reached their open plan goals, please come to stand X111.


The original (including the list of places that had used the company) ran to 110 words with a line and a half left over.  My version has 119 words - the extra fitting into the spare line.

The central difference between the two is that I believe mine really does talk to the reader about the reader's needs.  (If the reader has no open plan space issues of course the reader does not read on - but that is a given in all shows - you only talk to people who have a need that you answer.)

I have cheated in one regard and used bold.  What show guides try and sell you quite often are entries that are shaded out - a pointless activity in my estimation.   They often don't offer bold, but if you ask,  you can get it sometimes - especially if you make it a condition of your booking.  Even without the bold the difference can work.  Here are the opening lines of show guide entries from one page in a guide.  (I make the point - these are not entries that are specially selected for their awfulness - they are all the entries from one page.)

  • Rising Stars create books and software for teachers
  • Riverdeep Interactive Learning is a leading global
  • RNIB is the UK's leading charity offering information
  • Roadwide Educational Publishers exists to teach and
  • Rockschool is the UK's only dedicated
  • Rolypig composters bring boring old composting to life
  • Romstor in partnership with Provost Storage Systems supply

It is obvious that every one of these entries starts in the same way - with the company name.  But I maintain this is pointless, because if you want to find a company by its name you use the index or the floorplan.   The show guide (or Exhibitor Profiles as I see they are now called) is for the browser - and the browser doesn't need the company name thrown at him or her.

After the name, the companies tend to push forward in the same way - by talking about themselves.  It is a case of me me me me me all the way through.

Of course some of these firms may have had wonderful shows - and if they did my argument would be they might have had just a few more visitors with a better show guide.

The entry in the show guide is, after all, free - and just watch people next time you are at a show.  The show guide really does get read.

 


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