“Right from the start, John’s exhibiting masterclass created an atmosphere of excitement – his approach inspired confidence and generated the feedback we were looking for. Because of John’s years of experience and commercial expertise, The Exhibiting Agency has been able to provide our commercial exhibitors with effective skills and knowledge to bring along to our conferences”.
Diane Cooper
Scottish Federation of Housing Associations Business Manager
Exhibiting Masterclass at the SFHA – 5 March 2014
Back in December, we were running a small stand at the Associations Network Congress in London’s QEII Conference Centre when we became acquainted with Diane Cooper, Business Manager at the SFHA. We were helping the Associations Network to survey their 18,000-strong membership and John got chatting to Diane about just what it is that we do.
Interested in what The Exhibiting Agency had to offer, Diane completed one of our feedback forms. One thing led to another and after a successful teleconference with John, Diane decided to bring John in to conduct a Masterclass at the SFHA’s Glasgow headquarters. High demandmeant that we ended up running two exhibiting masterclasses for the SFHA’s members and this is what we found…
An all too familiar story: 76% of those exhibiting did not know what return they got from their last exhibition!!
“I didn’t know what to expect at first when I signed up for the SFHA Masterclass on Effective Exhibition Skills. Then John Blaskey appeared from The Exhibiting Agency. Wow! Not only did John challenge us, but through his experience, passion and anecdotes of real businesses succeeding and failing in their approach to marketing, at exhibitions and elsewhere, was able to demonstrate a new way to deliver great results. Simply inspirational.”
Neil Barnes, Business Development Manager (Scotland)
Mark Group Limited
MicroNav at World ATM Congress 4 – 6 March Madrid
The Exhibiting Agency introduced us to a new concept that we would otherwise not have considered as our exhibition strategy.
We have used it successfully for two years and are looking to build on it in the future.
The Exhibiting Agency’s long-term client, the QEII Conference Centre exhibited at Confex 2014 in early March, bringing us in to get on top of strategy. Unlike in previous years, the QEIICC was taking its own stand and the team needed a bit of a rethink.
John ran a refresher strategy workshop for the QEIICC staff in January to kick things off. Objectives and messaging were agreed upon and a theme for the show was set, with the focus centred on the QEIICC’s award ceremony packages.
The centre’s Confex stand was dressed and staffed accordingly, with professional presentations taking place across the two days of the show. Specially designed feedback forms were handed out to delegates for the gathering of marketing intelligence and the team came back with no less than 123 Leads, plus 62 requests for call backs.
“Can you pass on our thanks for the support over the last two days of Confex- much appreciated! We even had a couple of feedback forms that mentioned the highlight of Confex being the QE2 stand, or Dan/Ashley’s presentation – so well done”
Sue Etherington
Commercial Director
Back in Dubai
John was back in Dubai this March presenting to the internal sales and marketing teams for DMG Middle East. John’s session, run in conjunction with Andy White of DMG, concentrated on exhibitor retention from the organisers’ point of view.
Some surprising statistics prompted the teams to embark on an exhibitor education programme with the aim of ensuring that their exhibitors re-book. During the session, John presented the group with case studies of three of The Exhibiting Agency’s returning clients from last November’s Big 5.
John also presented his Exhibiting Skills Masterclass to exhibitors and potential exhibitors for DMG’s forthcoming shows. Again, we heard the familiar story of exhibitors not knowing what return on investment they got from their last exhibitions…
With those statistics, it looks like the DMG initiative to educate exhibitors will be a win-win for everyone involved.
Jo Pollard, Sales and Marketing Manager at CCS endorsed The Exhibiting Agency process from an exhibitors point of view, having been through it for their attendance at The Big 5 last year. Jo said:
“They say that an investment in knowledge always pays the best interest and this couldn’t be more true when describing our experience with John and The Exhibiting Agency. He showed us the path, helped us explore all possibilities and finally drill down to an exciting and hugely successful theme and strategy. Not only did this make the event attractive to passers-by, but fun for my team to participate in. The hardest part was resisting the temptation to take and hand out brochures as it goes against all previous experience, but it quickly became an easy situation to handle. Would I recommend John and his team to others looking to get results from an exhibition – Absolutely!!”
Click here to read the CCS case history and other testimonials.
UFI Open Seminar in the Middle East
John was invited to speak at the UFI’s Open Seminar in the Middle East. Click here for more information and global exhibiting statistics from UFI. A pretty formidable audience, it has to be said!
Once again looking at exhibitor retention rates, all agreed that exhibitor education was the key to bringing exhibitors back next year. After the session, several delegates reached out to John to talk about partnering up with The Exhibiting Agency. They were keen to push out our methodology, tools and processes to their own clients. Watch this space…