7 minute read
by Stephanie SelesnickAccomodating International Exhibitors
8 tips for their care and retention By Stephanie Selesnick
Your organization’s sales team has closed the deal with an international client for the upcoming convention. Congratulations! If you plan on retaining the exhibiting company for year two and beyond, the real work has just begun. The list below will give you a good start on the path to success.
1. Invoicing and payments: A number of developing countries (typically their governments) require that a certain format with certain information be used to process invoices. Additionally, if a country has soft currency (not easily traded on the open market), then exhibitors have to go to the country bank and order dollars to be transferred to pay for booth space, displays, utilities, etc. This also requires the paperwork to be in a specified format. If your system can’t be modified to conform to these requirements, create the invoices in MS Word or Excel. As a side note, verify that all of your exhibition’s suppliers take wire transfers. 2. Visa letters: Make these easy to obtain several months before your event. There may be a long wait (three months or more) for U.S. State Department visa appointments. If you have a lot of exhibitors coming from one country, contact the visa officers in that country’s U.S. embassy or consulate to see if you can help move the process along. Sometimes the answer may be to send an Excel file naming those who have received letters. Sometimes it’s sharing your show’s visa letter containing a typo — on purpose. Counterfeiters will automatically correct mistakes. Sometimes it will work, other times not. It’s always worth a try.
Have a reasonable policy in place in case exhibiting personnel are denied visas. Will you roll over their booth to the next show? Find a digital alternative? Be prepared. 3. Hotels and transportation: Assume some people have never been to the city your event is in. Share official hotels with your exhibitors as early as possible, emphasizing the benefits of booking within the block. Some show organizers allow only exhibitors and visitors booked within the hotel block to ride shuttles between the hotels and venues for free. They charge a fee for all others wishing to ride.
List transportation costs from the airport (taxi and Uber/ Lyft) along with the time the commute should take (rush hour/ non-rush hour). Provide the same information with regard to the hotels and the meeting venue. If you will have shuttles going to the airport the last day, share that information as well as the times they run.
4. International page on your show website: This page should include more than “get your visa letter here.” Far more! Think about what kinds of things you would want to see on the international page of a show if you were going abroad. Ask your team for their ideas and incorporate them.
Some basics include: the location of nearby Office Depots and FedEx Offices, Loews or Home Depots (for basic booth supplies), convenience stores, grocery stores, restaurants (feature different cuisines and price points), shopping malls and sightseeing attractions, along with any discount coupon codes if available.
Develop an international FAQ sheet based on the most-asked questions (it may change from show to show, year to year) and update it frequently.
5. Ordering booth décor, utilities, catering: Exhibitions in the United States are different than anywhere else in the world. For example, pipe and drape is used in nearly all U.S. trade shows, but eschewed in favor of shell scheme by shows outside the United States. There are many rules and systems no one outside of the United States has ever heard of. Display rules (space is cubic), union jurisdictions and drayage are all unfamiliar. Have an easy to read cheat-sheet. Pictures convey far more than words. For many of your international exhibitors, English is a second language.
Offer packages with flooring and furniture, in both pipe and drape and shell scheme. International clients may opt for pipe and drape since shell scheme is overpriced in the United States.
6. Free Wi-Fi: Share where free Wi-Fi may be found throughout the building or campus. In greater Asia, most convention centers think of Wi-Fi the same as restrooms — it’s free and works everywhere. Additionally, U.S. data plans can be expensive and international exhibitors may not want to pay those fees. Have a reasonable policy in place in case exhibiting personnel are denied visas. Will you roll over their booth to the next show? Find a digital alternative? Be prepared.
7. Miscellaneous: Offer marketing packages for first-timers at a low price point. Those deliverables should help drive traffic to their booths.
8. Exhibitor etiquette: In many countries, it’s acceptable and normal to pass out literature and other promotional materials in the aisles outside of booths. Sometimes they will bring an extra staff person along for that express purpose. Let them know that is not permitted before they book airline tickets and hotel rooms.
Make your international exhibitors feel welcome. Communicate clearly and often and you will be well on the way to retaining those first-time international exhibitors into year two and beyond.
Stephanie Selesnick, President of International Trade Information, Inc. (ITI), works with U.S.-based exhibition organizers to internationalize their shows by recruiting exhibitors and visitors as well as taking shows offshore. A former show organizer, Selesnick blogs for UFI, the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry; is a co-founder of #Expochat, a weekly Tweet chat; is a podcaster on The Exhibitionists with journalist Antony Reeve-Crook; and is a frequent speaker on the subject of internationalizing exhibitions all over the world.
LOOKING AHEAD
additional follow-up. Using a chatbot can help generate rich data throughout the event that can be used to drive more engagement, or even adjust strategy on the fly.
Thinking about solutions that extend the lifecycle of the event content and messaging helps tie everything back to your goals in a smart, actionable way.
SETTING THE STANDARD One of the best things about digital technology is the data it generates, allowing us to see how attendees are truly engaging. When used correctly, this data can fuel future strategies and refine your approach at events.
But the data can often be overwhelming and presented in different formats. Or you may struggle with finding the right insights across the varied sources and datasets. Because of these challenges, industry leaders are working together in an unprecedented way to set formalized standards for event data. This approach stands to improve how technology solutions exchange information behind the scenes so that we can constantly evolve the engagement experience for attendees. (For details on this initiative, see In Brief, p. 4.)
A CUSTOMIZED APPROACH Digital has transformed all of our personal lives, and it can just as easily transform your event when used effectively. Applying a custom mix of solutions can help differentiate your event in a crowded market.
As long as your approach aligns with your goals, objectives and audience, there’s no limit to the engagement you can achieve.
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Danielle Puceta is Senior Vice President, Digital at Freeman, where she leads Digital Product Management and Partnerships. She previously held leadership positions with American Express Meetings & Events in the Asia-Pacific region and DoubleDutch, an event tech company. In both these roles, she built out the full infrastructure needed for not only driving and managing significant revenue growth, but also creating scalable teams and businesses..
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