The majority of business practices have evolved significantly in the last decade thanks to technology, but one that has not is exhibiting at trade shows, to the point that business leaders and owners may be questioning why they attend exhibitions at all.

The catalogue’s core function of enabling businesses to share product images, specifications and prices with prospects remains a vital tool especially in the context of exhibiting at trade shows. But the delivery method urgently needs to evolve to avoid extinction.

Anyone who has been to an exhibition in recent years will be familiar with having their badge scanned and the opportunity to scan QR codes at business stands, but you may be wondering what happens to this data after the show and how useful it is for both the exhibiting business and exhibition visitor.

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The answer is that this data often goes nowhere, as it is frequently not integrated into other CRM systems. Behind the scenes of the exhibition industry however, technology is being developed and implemented to make our business lives easier and more efficient.

Here are the top five tips for businesses wanting to modernise their exhibition presence today.

1. Invest in the technology that will really help your business

While a robot or photo booth may look cool, it might be something more practical like figuring out how to best follow up with the leads you make that will make the biggest difference.

2. Treat business leads as consumers

This B2C approach for B2B has been around for a while, but many businesses are failing to apply it to the exhibition context.

If you spend most of your time on a phone or tablet and like to receive image led communications that are easy to share with your wider team, you should be delivering this same experience to your prospects too.

3. Think outside the box

Just because you have already done something in a particular way or because your competitors do it like that, don’t mean you have to continue in that vein forever.

4. Innovate and partner up

If your company has the band width for an innovation division, consider partnering with a business to develop bespoke technology that will meet your organisation’s particular challenges, whether that is how to create bespoke solutions for prospects, facilitate show lead follow up or unlock the sharing potential of your content.

5. Reduce your environmental impact

Accumulating what seems like several tons of assorted catalogues, brochures and leaflets, the majority of which will be binned on exiting a show or on returning to the office not only leaves visitors with a guilty conscience about the number of a trees that have been destroyed, but businesses too. So do something about it!

Take the same approach to exhibiting at trade show as you would for other areas of your business. If you are committing to taking a stand and sending a team to man it you should be investing into making it a success.

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Printed catalogues are just one example of where a little extra thought and effort can lead to a significantly more innovative and effective presence at trade shows.

This approach can also be applied to the look and feel of your stand, how you staff it and how you communicate your show presence.

Sourced by Fadi Sabbagha, founder and CEO of EasyCat