Experiential marketing applied to industry trade fairs

The growing relevance of experiential marketing is easy to understand: it does not start from the product to develop a sales strategy, but instead uses the end user’s experience as a vehicle to bring them closer to the seller.

Its importance is, if possible, even greater in the context of trade fairs—especially B2B (business to business) events—where we cannot speak of a seller and buyer in the traditional sense.

Since the goal is not to complete a real sale on-site, but rather to create relationships, contacts, partnerships, and future collaborations, experiential marketing becomes fundamental.

The trade fair visitor is overwhelmed by a flood of information and content, making it hard to choose. The only hook capable of establishing a connection will be their emotions and the experience they have when coming into contact with your exhibition stand. In practice, you must showcase not only your products and services, but also the philosophy behind them, your company’s history, and the values it embodies: professionalism, reliability, and experience.

Make sure they choose you in every way—and truly connect with your offer.

An experience is successful when it engages the user.

To begin with, it's essential to reflect on the very concept of experience in order to develop a clear and effective strategy.

Experiences are not random; they must be designed and carefully planned. An experiential process is always the result of proper external stimulation—and we must focus on the effectiveness of those stimuli.

Experiences should fully involve the user—not just physically, but emotionally—through aesthetic, passive, and active experiences.

Without going too far into technicalities:

·       Aesthetic experiences derive from the quality and attention you dedicate to your booth design.

·       Passive experiences stem from what the visitor perceives unconsciously near your stand: music, scents, small details that are too often overlooked.

·       Active experiences arise from the direct interaction between you and your potential customer, in how and what you communicate.

There is one essential tool today that encompasses nearly all aspects of these experiences: the video. The key pillars of experiential marketing are: sense, feel, think, act, relate. This classic framework, developed by experts, is still incredibly effective.

In short, you should aim to: engage the senses (smell, taste, hearing, sight, touch), move emotions, stimulate thought—even just by highlighting the problems your product or service solves, encourage action and interaction, and connect the user to your company or help them build a meaningful relationship with your brand.

The Director’s Perspective

At first glance, it may seem like a bold comparison—but it’s not: you need to shift from entrepreneur to director in order to design an effective trade show marketing approach. 

This is even more crucial when you consider that you're addressing buyers who are entrepreneurs themselves—people like you—who don’t have trouble finding products or services, but are seeking a well-rounded purchasing experience and especially want to discover the latest market trends. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be attending the event.

As a good director, your first concern is the set, which in this case is your stand. Don’t cut corners—invest in a strategic location, ideally at the entrance or center of the hall.

At the entrance, you'll meet visitors full of energy and curiosity.

In central locations, they may already have other offers to compare you with—but don’t fear comparison, as it allows your strengths to stand out.

Rely on professionals for both rental and booth design. The secret is to stand out—even through color and sound, background music and if you don’t have a unique message, create one.

Video to Inspire Emotion

Your booth should be equipped with LED walls displaying multimedia videos. These could include:

·       promotional videos of your products or services, even general ones

·       emotional videos telling the story of your company or production processes

·       fully-fledged advertising spots

What’s most important is that your company—and possibly you as a person—receive proper attention.

The first type of video serves an informational purpose, providing technical specifications and features to give a complete picture of your offerings.The second type should inspire emotion, leveraging your core values, competence, and professionalism.

Use nostalgia marketing—show how your product connects to the past, to a time when things worked better, or to the visitor’s childhood. This is currently one of the most powerful emotional triggers.

Video is one of the strongest tools to deliver a message while also drawing in the public with high impact.

For this reason, based on years of experience, we increasingly recommend incorporating an emotional video component into your trade fair marketing strategy—after careful planning and study.

We’ve produced dozens of such videos, specifically designed to be shown using the best technology available.

Based on the feedback and results we’ve received, we know they work—and today, they are one of the most decisive elements in creating a unique emotional value that drives real results for companies choosing this channel for their exhibition communication.