How do you ensure that everything is in order? Avoiding these mistakes would be a good start:

Going to the wrong show

Signing up for a trade show “just because” is not a good business strategy. The trade show has to be relevant to your business and its goals.

First and foremost, the audience – or trade show attendees – has to be the group you want to target. Research the audience by looking at past attendee records.

Secondly, read up on the purpose of the trade show – is it sales or product launches? Does it align with what you want to get from a trade show? If not, this is not the trade show for you at this time.

Neglecting to do pre-show promotion

You have to inform customers, prospects and the public that you will be setting up a stand at an exhibition. Entice them to visit the stall with a promotion or discount.

Definitely use social media as part of your campaign – people can retweet and share your news in a split second, letting even more prospective customers know.

Not giving your exhibition stand enough thought

Exhibiting is not as easy as booking your spot and showing up with a table and two posters. The stand has to be big enough, for starters. You want exhibition staff to be able to move around comfortably and for the space to have ample room for all elements that will be used.

These mentioned elements would also require a fair amount of consideration. Do you need electricity points? Do you need high tables or low ones? Would you need chairs or lamps? Note every little thing to ensure the booth you get offers everything you’ll need.

The look of the exhibition stand is important too. Think about the colours, graphics and fonts you’ll use. Make the space stand out from all the other exhibitors around you.

Not having a back-up plan

There’s a saying that goes “if something can go wrong, it will”. Be prepared! Do you have extra staff on stand-by should someone scheduled to work fall ill? What will you do if you’re moved to a booth smaller than the one you planned for? Run through all possible scenarios and come up with a solution to each.

Failing to follow up on leads

This is post trade show, but a crucial part of the process. Neglecting to follow up on leads will mean a lot of the effort leading up to and during the exhibition was wasted. Why would you want this to happen? Always follow up on leads within a week.

For specific advice and help with your exhibition, contact Assignment 3 at our Cape Town or Johannesburg offices. Our staff is experienced and more than happy to help make a success of your next trade show.

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Best in the business

At the Cannes Lions awards for outdoor and billboard advertising, a number of ads were recognised for their ingenuity in using their environments to their advantages.

One of the winning campaigns was created by Ogilvy & Mather in Paris for IMB. It consisted of three billboards which functioned as a bench, shelter and ramp and served to provide small improvements to a city as a metaphor for the company’s efforts to make cities smarter using technology.

Another campaign used adult and baby portraits – who looked remarkably similar – on opposite sides of a train platform so it appeared the two were staring at each other.

A Puerto Rico-based agency used photographs of the final meals of five innocent men who were executed in the US on cafeteria trays. This was used to build opposition to the death penalty.

Ogilvy & Mather in Argentina used the old wrecks of crashed cars as highway safety signs. These were found to have far more impact than traditional road signs. According to the campaign: “All violations decreased by 25 percent on Interstate Highway 36, the most busy of the area.”

Standing out in the crowd

Bored Panda rounded up 33 of the most clever and creative billboard ads. The first on its list was for a paint company’s line of natural finish colours. It showed a painter adding blue paint – the exact shade of the surrounding sky – to the billboard.

In the second, for tv show Law & Order, a man appears to be about to stab another by using the sign’s own light fixture which hangs above them.

The Economist, in the third advert, uses a sign featuring a giant lightbulb. As pedestrians walk underneath the sign, the bulb lights up.

In this roundup, a number of billboards advertising different products used rain to change their images. A woman’s shirt became translucent, mascara started to run down a model’s cheeks, and blood began to run from a toddler’s face to illustrate the effect of road safety during storms.

Other adverts, featured on Hongkiat’s roundup of clever ads, showed road users the impact of speed. One, with the tagline “Tailgating isn’t worth it”, showed a car crashing into the back of a truck with the billboard crumpled up between the two vehicles. Another showed the speed at which drivers were travelling next to the words “Days in hospital bed”.

All of these examples show that the best outdoor advertising need a little bit of creativity and out of the box thinking for the most memorable impact.

And nowhere is more important in a brick-and-mortar operation than the reception area.

From the manner of the receptionist to the comfort afforded to visitors, the room should be an extension of what you hope to convey; a business that is as congenial as it is excellent in services or products rendered.

There is a certain degree of irony that so many businesses spend large amounts of cash on advertising campaigns yet overlook the state of their own reception areas.

Pharmaceutical companies are a very good example of this.

Television, radio and the print media are filled with adverts depicting friendly family doctors administering colourful medication to children, yet more often than not the reception areas at Pharmaceutical Inc. headquarters resemble something out of a Gulag admissions office.

The disconnect between public and in-house image is substantial as a result.

Increasingly it is importance that the reception area encapsulates the essence of your business, and for this reason it should be representative of the brand you are selling in as many ways as possible.

By displaying your logo either along a side wall or behind the receptionist, you are telling your clients that you are proud of your brand, and this sends a strong message to them that they should want to work with you.

Another excellent way to showcase what your business is about is to position “standing” advertising boards for a new product within the lobby and/or reception area. While you should be careful to make sure these boards do not interfere with a visitors or client’s movements, the correct positioning will catch their eye and show that your business is ahead of the game with regard to new offerings.

Framed posters can also serve the same purpose as standing boards. Human nature dictates that when a person is waiting for a meeting they want to pass the time by doing something, so what better way to keep them entertained than by allowing them to cast their eye over your product range? Certificates and awards for achievement should also have pride of place in any reception area.

Coupled with these branding strategies are steps to ensure a prospective client is made as comfortable as possible.

Since so many businesspeople are constantly on the move, and accordingly tied to their smartphones or tablets, it might be a good idea to include charging points or wi-fi in the reception area. This will show them that you understand their time is important to them, and will go out of your way to offer every convenience possible.

Assignment 3 can be trusted to ensure your reception area is one that leaves a lasting impression, from desks and visitor convenience to branding and signage placement.

Branding, obviously, always matters – but at events that are aligned to your company’s interest, there is no better time to draw the attention of investors and customers.

Obviously the nature of the event is everything: is it an opening for one of your stores, a conference, a merger, and so on. Priorities shift depending, thus we need to cater to the kind of event it is.

For example, if the event is the opening of a store, you have complete freedom to promote yourself as much as you like. Further, this doesn’t need to be in your face as much as it first appears.

As Pandaform notes: “Because your company’s name will be associated with the event when you host, you can promote your business and market to your audience without overtly selling.”

This means less potential irritation, while getting increased attention.

You obtain this result through smart forms of advertising. For example, putting your logo on signs and placards, having your brand’s colours and name – all of this is a display of your company to potential customers.

If you’re at an event like an expo or tradeshow, you particularly need to stand out – even more so than on home territory where you can control the location itself. Since everyone will be competing for that most lucrative of resources – attention – you need to consider alternative forms of branding and promotion. Key rings are convenient and elegant forms of advertisement: customers can always use the functionality of it as a tool, while your brand is on display wherever they take their keys.

Here at Assignment 3, we recognise the importance of such shows and offer specific event branding:  consider banners (roll-up banners, pull-up banner stands, spider banners and dolphin banners etc.), event posters, tradeshow displays and bunting flags. These items are specifically designed to enhance your presence, in a space where others are competiting for the same resource of attention.

Everything is about capturing attention. This is the essence of good marketing and branding; attention means knowledge of your business’ existence, mission, and so on. That could then lead to actual use of your business and, thus, profit.

No matter where you are, then, whether opening a new store or at an expo, good branding is essential.

Even though cut-price shaving kits are all that’s left, the melee is backing up the human traffic something awful. The usually serene fruit and veg aisle is beginning to take on the look of a polling station in downtown Mogadishu, although far less organised. Children are screaming and grandmothers are flustered by not being able to access the queue for weighing their goods.

This is but one example of what can happen when managers of a retail store have not thought through the layout and design of the outlet.

Even on days marking annual events like Father’s Day, Mother’s Day or religious holidays, it is essential that store owners and managers keep in mind that the store’s layout should always flow, as this thedetermining factor in how customers shop.

While it is recommended that “specials” or products associated with an event have pride of place in the store, there is a way to do this without jeopardising a pleasant shopping environment.

Rather than cutting off access points to aisles, a section of the store could be cordoned off so that customers can be channeled to the product table in an orderly fashion. Not only will customers be able to seek alternative roots to the section of the choice, but the product table will invariably gain the attention of some shoppers who might not have been interested otherwise.

Even the cashier points have a part to play. In fact, many of the more successful stores have cottoned on to the fact that the tills are the place to place the most enticing products. Increasingly cashier points are places where chocolates, savoury snacks and interesting magazines have pride of place – an enticing treat to tempt shoppers as they stand in the queue.

It is also important to maximise every square foot of the premises.

Say for example an area is lacking in sales. The solution is to place as many products on the floor as possible, comprising a good mix of high and low priced goods. It is also a good idea to give high-priced items more retail space, where low-price goods can be stacked on a fixture to place more products on the floor.

At the end of the day, as a store owner or manager you want your customers to come away with a positive response. For many, a simple trip to the shops can be a cause of great anxiety, as they do not wish to jockey for position with other customers.

The key is to get an excellent mix of open space and product placement, so that customers will want to stay longer and buy more.

Assignment3, South Africa’s leading signage and printing company, is a master at advising store owners what layout will best work for them