As a first-line exhibition city, several conditions must be met. First, it must be the core of regional production and marketing, with decisive advantages, or a place where businesses compete, such as Beijing; Secondly, there must be strong international information radiation, in other words, cities with global information effects, such as Shanghai; Thirdly, there are very active economic factors and strong economic strength, such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen; Finally, there are cities with special regional significance, such as the degree of western development and the revitalization of Shenyang, the old industrial base in Northeast China.
Except for a few typical first-tier cities, most provincial capitals are second-tier cities for exhibitions, and the city where the author is located is also a second-tier city for exhibitions. Engaged in exhibition work for many years, summed up some exhibition marketing experience and encouraged colleagues.
First, the topic:
As a crucial exhibition, its theme must match the industrial base of the city. Through the exhibition to promote the further development of the industry, the solid foundation of the industry is the strong backing of the theme exhibition. It is hard to imagine holding a heavy industry exhibition in a city dominated by light industry. Even if it is completed, its scale and vitality will be greatly reduced, and even there is no continuity.
Nowadays, many cities are competing to become regional convention and exhibition center cities, which is followed by a phenomenon that which conference topic is more fashionable or has a successful precedent. For example, the planning of Dalian Fashion Festival is very successful. Now there are dozens of fashion festivals all over the country every year. The result is that there is no brand exhibition except Dalian Fashion Festival, and the fashion festivals in many places will be gone after one year, so it is impossible to do it! It is difficult to form a brand exhibition like Dalian Fashion Festival.
Therefore, the establishment of the project is an important link. We should not only consider the supporting facilities of this city and the development of this industry, but also consider the holding of similar exhibitions, the intention of target exhibitors and whether there are different marketing methods. It can be said that a good topic selection is the absolute basis for the success of the exhibition, and even choosing a good topic selection is half the success of the exhibition.
Second, the organizational structure:
Under the current system in China, it is very necessary to have an authoritative organizational structure for exhibitions, which is not only reflected in exhibitions, but also particularly important for administrative examination and approval, publicity and cooperation.
When I organized the Jiangsu Wine Show, I established a reasonable organization through various efforts. Specially invited the national prefix "China Liquor Business Association" as the guiding unit, the provincial and municipal governments as the supporting unit, and the organizer as the provincial economic and trade commission. In this way, it is easy to get the approval of the exhibition, and it is easier to apply for industrial and commercial approval. Especially in the press conference and post-publicity, many media learned that provincial and municipal governments were involved, and the reports were very timely and detailed, which greatly promoted the publicity work. For exhibitors, this exhibition is very authoritative. Even at the opening ceremony, you can take photos with the governor and visit your booth. This in itself is an excellent publicity opportunity, so the exhibitors' work is progressing smoothly.
However, one thing is that organizations can't be set up casually, because once the main leaders of the organizers can't attend the meeting, or the leaders are not heavyweight enough, not only the media will have negative reports, but also exhibitors will be very disappointed, which will have a great negative impact on the continuity of the exhibition and even cause disputes.
I remember going to Shanghai to attend an industry forum at the beginning of the year. The invitation clearly stated that a ministerial leader personally attended the meeting and made a speech. I thought it was an opportunity, so I hurried to the meeting. Surprisingly, the host just read out the congratulatory message from the ministerial cadres, and several other industry experts did not attend the meeting. I just sent each participant a latest research paper that is said to be an absent expert, which made the participants very angry. Maybe this meeting is not going to continue. Even if there is one next year, I won't go again.
Therefore, it is indeed right for the exhibition industry to advocate honesty in running exhibitions. We should not cast a shadow over the whole industry because of a few irregular meetings. After all, the exhibition industry is in the ascendant, and it is one of the few sunrise industries.
Third, the selling point planning:
The success of every exhibition is inseparable from the planning and implementation of selling points, especially the exhibitions in second-tier exhibition cities.
Modern exhibitions are no longer in the 1980s, when you just set up a project and got approval. The development of the industry has promoted the intensification of competition. With competition, organizers need to have differentiated marketing ideas and develop selling points that can attract exhibitors' attention.
At present, it is a common phenomenon that most exhibitions hold conferences on the same theme at the same time, inviting some so-called experts and scholars to give speeches on the spot to attract exhibitors to attend and attend for free. The first person to hold an exhibition in this way was very clever, and later he became blind.
For example, the automobile industry exhibition must hold an automobile industry forum at the same time. Imagine if you have to. How many exhibitors will listen to the forum that can't be more ordinary? How many professional audiences will listen to the forum that there is no doubt about them? After all, the auto show is an exhibition directly facing the general public. Its professional audience is the general public. They don't need to participate in any forums. They don't care about the development of the industry. They just pay attention to whether the car price has dropped or not, and what kind of car has good performance and cheap price. They can't always organize many exhibitors to participate in the forum. Isn't this putting the cart before the horse? The stunt without a professional audience is useless.
But for some exhibitions, such as franchise exhibitions, it is good to organize some forums. Many entrepreneurs need an opportunity to receive expert guidance, and exhibitors are willing to use this opportunity to convey their products, ideas and preferential policies. This kind of mutually beneficial forum is suitable for holding.
Therefore, the development of selling points is based on different exhibitions and cannot be across the board. Through the detailed analysis of the guests of the exhibition, the marketing ideas are formulated.
1. Objectively analyze who the target exhibitors are, what their purpose is, and what channels they hope to realize their participation.
2. Effectively analyze who or which groups of professional visitors are, what they want to get through the exhibition, whether to obtain industry information or seek cooperation directly, what group characteristics they have, and what information or suggestions they are good at accepting.
3. What are the advantages and limitations of your own resources, how to make up for them, and how to learn from each other?
4, a reasonable analysis of industry characteristics, industry development stage and exposed advantages and disadvantages.
5. objectively analyze the achievements and shortcomings of similar exhibitions held in China, understand the successes and failures, and how to make up for them by using their own advantages.
6. What are the environmental disadvantages of the city where the exhibition is located and how to avoid them?
After these analyses, we will formulate the selling points of the exhibition, make efforts to make up for the shortcomings of previous exhibitions, and create differentiated selling point planning, so that the exhibition is more likely to succeed and it is easier to form a brand exhibition.
Fourth, integrate publicity:
The publicity of the exhibition is very important. For second-tier exhibition cities, it is even more difficult to organize an exhibition. When the city's information radiation is not enough, active publicity is particularly important.
Due to the rapid development of the national convention and exhibition industry, there will inevitably be many exhibitions with the same or similar themes held at the same time. How to make your exhibition attract more exhibitors' attention and how to make your exhibition different, besides differentiated marketing planning, is to integrate publicity.
Why is it integrated publicity? In fact, the publicity method of the previous exhibitions was very simple, that is, sending invitations and publishing a certain number of advertisements in newspapers and periodicals, far from integration. With the intensification of competition, more and more exhibition organizers begin to pay attention to the integration of publicity strategies and cooperate with various publicity means to maximize the publicity effect. Its characteristics are as follows:
1. Strengthen traditional propaganda channels, such as advertising in newspapers and magazines and releasing a large number of soft news; Making TV commercials; A large number of invitations were sent out.
2. Develop outdoor three-dimensional publicity channels, including outdoor billboards, banners and other media advertisements; Bus body advertisement, etc. , so that the arrival rate of advertisements is greatly improved.
3. Online publicity. With the popularity of the Internet, many exhibition organizers have begun to pay attention to online publicity. I participated in the Jiangsu Air Conditioning Exhibition, and specially designed my own exhibition website, which has a lot of links with professional websites or portals. It is convenient and quick to send invitations by email, saving time and effort. In particular, many professional websites need this information, which promotes the close cooperation between exhibition publicity and network.
4. Exhibition promotion. I mainly communicate directly with exhibitors of other similar exhibitions before the opening of my own exhibition. When I participated in the organization of Nanjing International Auto Show, I visited Xibo Auto Show, Suzhou Auto Show and other similar exhibitions with other colleagues, and communicated with exhibitors on the spot and invited them to participate in Nanjing Auto Show.
5. Cooperative publicity mode. Joint promotion with relevant media, when organizing Jiangsu Wine Show, the author and Beijing Famous Brand Times jointly opened up a new mutual promotion mode, that is, the organizing committee provided information and customer resources, and the newspaper published a special issue on sugar and wine to report the progress of the show, which became a relatively successful new publicity mode.
Of course, there are many ways to publicize the exhibition, so I won't go into details here. We just need to formulate publicity strategies according to the characteristics of our own exhibitions, otherwise it is not worth wasting resources.
Verb (short for verb) service:
This is the case in many exhibitions. Once launched, exhibitors paid the exhibition fee anyway, and the service was much worse. In fact, as a successful brand exhibition, service is particularly important. For example, communication with the exhibition hall often requires direct communication from the organizer. Once the organizer's service is not in place and there is often information asymmetry between exhibitors and exhibition halls, many problems will arise and disputes will easily occur, which will have a great impact on the reputation of the exhibition. Although the organizer can't satisfy every exhibitor, at least the basic services should be in place.
At present, many exhibitions are independent exhibition companies, and professional exhibition halls must be rented to hold exhibitions, so the service is divided into two parts, namely the organizer and the exhibition hall. This is the case. It is difficult for the three parties to communicate perfectly. Therefore, organizers are required to pay more attention to the service of the exhibition, so that exhibitors can have a good mood and a good exhibition environment to achieve their exhibition goals, which is very important for the continuity of the exhibition. In particular, the convention and exhibition industry itself is a service industry.
Follow-up service of intransitive verbs:
Under normal circumstances, the follow-up service should also be considered as a kind of service, which should be described in the last article, but I think the follow-up service of the exhibition is very important and must be independent to show its importance and irreplaceable.
In previous articles, the author often mentioned a word, that is "brand exhibition". At present, China's convention and exhibition industry is very short of brand exhibitions, such as Canton Fair, Harbin Fair and Hi-Tech Fair. In order to develop China's convention and exhibition industry internationally and give full play to its driving role in economy, we must cultivate a number of brand exhibitions, thus shortening our cooperation with developed countries such as Japan and Germany. One of the necessary links to build a brand exhibition is follow-up service.
The author once participated in the organization of Jiangsu wine show. After the exhibition, I am responsible for collecting all the collected professional audience information, forum information and exhibitor information, burning them into CDs and sending them to exhibitors, or sending written materials to exhibitors by email, fax and other means. There may be some omissions during the exhibition, but we can make up for them through our work, which makes exhibitors very satisfied. This work may be complicated, but the help for the next exhibition is intangible.
At present, many exhibitions simply do not pay attention to follow-up services. The author believes that a successful exhibition is not only a large number of exhibitors and professional visitors, but also a good service system, especially the often neglected follow-up service system.
A successful exhibition has many inseparable links, and the details cannot be recorded in words, and many aspects cannot be understood in words. I hope my experience can play a role in attracting jade, and I also hope to improve my ability in communication with my peers.