Hitting The Target

Exhibiting is an important part of the overall marketing strategy for a company, but it's often difficult to gauge the effectiveness of an exhibition. A successful exhibition can raise awareness in the marketplace, as well as educating customers about your company face to face.

It is important that objectives are set before an exhibition takes place and that there is a method of measuring the results. One objective is likely to be gathering leads and at Envisage we aim to make sure that a stand delivers this. Stand activities and games are a very good way of achieving leads through audience participation, and the best activities are those that also get across your message.

The exhibition stand that we have designed and built for Lifescan at Diabetes UK is a brilliant example. LifeScan provide blood glucose monitors which is an important tool to help control diabetes. These monitors mean a patient can see the effects that activity and diet have, enabling them to make important lifestyle changes and in some cases work out the right insulin dose.

A patient's diabetes healthcare team can use these results to tailor a treatment to fit their needs and meet their targets. On the Diabetes UK stand a visual analogy was created with the use of a target shooting game. A scorecard doubled up as a contact form and players took aim at a target - a visual representation of a patient's target. Donations were given to charity for hitting the bullseye and a 'totaliser' was prominently displayed on the stand. Envisage also arranged an MC to draw attention to the activity and further get the message across.

The game served both to attract and educate visitors to the exhibition stand, in an original fun and entertaining way. The number of leads gathered enabled the marketing team to see if they had met the objectives and hit their own target.