Negosentro| How to Get Ready for an Expo in a Foreign Country |Getting the company ready to attend an expo with an exhibition stand is no small task. It’s made all the more difficult when it’s necessary to take the show on the road by participating in an international event.
In this article, we discuss how to approach an expo in a foreign country and what steps are vital to take early on.
Understand Your Audience
While you may have a good grasp of your target demographic and typical customer at home, the customer avatar may not be as well fleshed-out for customers in a foreign country. It may not differ much if the expo is in Canada and your main office is in the States, but that’s not going to be the case if you’re venturing further afield like somewhere in Europe.
When traveling greater distances, you’re usually dealing with significant cultural differences and varied tastes or fashions that won’t necessarily match the domestic market experience. Certainly, if sales have already been made recently in this market, then research to see what the hot products in your range are there. This way, you know what the promotional material should focus on, which is probably quite different froman expo in the home market.
Figure Out Everything You’ll Need at the Expo Location
When in a different city, let alone a foreign country, you’re like a fish out of water. Even finding basic supplies that have been forgotten will take longer than you’d imagine. It behooves you to prepare well in advance. Make a list of everything you’ll require. If you need to take a lot of items that are too large to transport with the team that is going over, you’ll need to make other logistical plans.
Also, don’t forget about the people that you’ll need on-hand too. Hiring some temporary translators who are comfortable talking to people in public is likely going to be enormously helpful during the expo. Otherwise, your regular sales staff may struggle in areas where the local language dominates.
Use International Freight Forwarding for the Heavier Items
Once you’ve worked out everything you’ll require, make use of an international freight forwarder to do the heavy lifting for you.A forwarder performs various duties including managing the transportation, tracking the consignment, producing the export documents to get them through customs, arranging the cargo space on a boat or plane or by rail, and warehousing until the items are collected.
Assigning this complex and detailed task to an international freight forwarderis ideal as it will leave the experts to handle the transportation, leaving your team to deal with the other responsibilities needed to pull off the expo perfectly.
Let a Local Designer Arrange the Expo Stand & Setup
It’s probably a good idea to hire an expo stand designer who’s local to the area where the expo is being run.They will be more familiar with the culture, what’s popular, and how best to design an exhibition stand or booth that’s appropriate for this market. Therewill be fewer issues with transporting and setting up the finished expo stand when using a local designer too.
Also, don’t forget that the marketing materials will need to be translated and produced in the local language too.
While preparing for an international expo is more work than one in your local market, it’s well worth it. It provides the opportunity for expansion and making new useful international contacts that wouldn’t exist otherwise.
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