Blonde Brits hold key to success

Boat Show season is just around the corner, which might be why Scuttlebutt World Headquarters received this bit of PR from the Exposure promotion company. This UK group believes the marine industry can do better to improve the return on their marketing investment, particularly at Boat Shows. While SWH has not closely reviewed their services, we did find a few images on their website that might reflect their ideas:

Mandy Oakshott, founder and Director of Hampshire based Exposure:

“Every time I walk around a Boat Show or marine exhibition, it frustrates me to see the money companies are wasting”. Claims Oakshott “Time and time again you walk past stands and see disinterested and apathetic staff, mostly untrained promotional staff drawn from somewhere within the company ranks, to “man the stand” for a shift during a trade event. The individuals might be good at what they do within their company but many are not trained in promotion and you can see their sense of unease engaging with the public. Not only is it a waste of money, time and effort, but if you are not generating leads or making sales, why exhibit in the first place? Perhaps the worst culprits are the small owner-managed businesses. For example the talented small boat builder who pays thousands of pounds for his stand to display his range of fine wooden boats who will just sit there on his stool, reminiscing about “the good old days” with like-minded passers-by. It is incomprehensible that you would not want to spend every second of the show, on your feet, engaging with passes-by, generating leads and trying to win business.

“None of us really like to engage in conversations with exhibitors at shows, in fact, many of us actively try to avoid contact completely. It is in your interest, and for the success of your company, that you engage with as many people as possible and convert those leads into sales. Members of a professional promotions team have the training and skills to do that for you.

“The main reasons businesses employ a professional promotions team like Exposure are primarily market research, product promotion, data capture, lead generation and increasing their brand awareness within the sector. We work closely with clients helping them to set realistic objectives against which they can evaluate the true cost of their attendance at a trade event. And ultimately that benchmark must be sales. Follow-up is as important, if not more so, than the exhibition itself and you can only do that by setting aside time and having a comprehensive set of leads to pursue.

“I have been running Hampshire’s only promotional company for 5 years now and I regularly provide trained promotional girls to major companies across a range of business sectors, but of them all, I think the marine industry needs the biggest change in its attitude. We are in a recession and times are tough. It is now that businesses must be looking at every aspect of their business to gain a competitive edge and if a business decides to exhibit at a trade show, then using professional promotion at the show must be a priority to gain that advantage.

“There is so much more exhibitors can do to improve their presence and capitalise on their investment that it would be foolhardy to ignore the possibilities.”