Important: pragmatic and comparable review of performance
Ulrich Börger, Trade Shows & Events at Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, about goals and strategies - basics for a personalised "Trade Fair" handbook.
There are no better source of data than practical experience. It can be evaluated and applied creatively, or provide inspiration for entering completely new territory and can supply the basics for a very personalised handbook.
Even a world market leader has to stake out trade fair objectives before going on to planning. After all, the objectives provide the basis of all decisions that have to be taken: what products do I showcase, how do I design the stand, prepare the team and interviews with visitors and guests? How do we publicise our trade fair presence and does it fit into the communication strategy of the company?
drupa is an important four-yearly milestone for the trade show strategy of Druckmaschinen AG. Here, the world market leader can show its innovations to a wide international audience.
Mr. Börger, how do you set your objectives at Heidelberger Druckmaschinen?
We plan them strategically every financial year and pursue them before each large event to enable us to reach the right conclusions before and afterwards. A pragmatic and comparable review of performance is particularly important. Visitor attendance reports play a central role. The key data includes the number of orders received during the fair, the number of qualified visitor contacts, or leads, particularly hot leads, broken down by market and product data areas. And, of course, visitor and employee surveys after important events like drupa.
Are there any new customers left for you?
The print media industry with around 500 000 printing firms throughout the world is a market of manageable size. With a market share topping 40 %, we are very familiar with a large part of the sector and we work through the whole market very systematically. But drupa with nearly 400 000 visitors is such a crowd puller that many new prospectives do, of course, show up at our stand.
Is customer care a primary goal?
Where else are our customers given such an opportunity to get such a comprehensive picture of our solutions? And to get a glimpse of their own company's future, too? Where they really get to see what innovations, technical maturity and market presence their supplier has achieved?
Yes, customer contacts and loyalty are an essential aspect of our marketing and communications policy before, during, and after the fair. Starting with the invitation to each target group, through customer care in Düsseldorf itself, to follow-up support after the event. The customer must always sense that we are listening to him, that his needs come first. If our guests take way a positive memory of their fair visit, we have achieved a lot in terms of customer care. By staging special events like a VIP customer evening, for example, for which we send out personal invitations, we can achieve results that are just not possible outside the trade fair.
What about multipliers and new cooperation partners?
You couldn't have a better platform than drupa for finding cooperation partners. It not only attracts everyone who's anyone but also promotes real discussion in informal surroundings. Not just at the stand but at accompanying events, in the forums offered by the programme of events, at the press conferences, while walking through the fair, and whenever there is opportunity for informal contact, such as happy hours or get-togethers. You find more good cooperation partners among fellow exhibitors than you can ever hope for among visitor. Quite apart from the many offers from research and development, the real engines behind innovation.
Do you also look for new employees?
By presenting ourselves generally as an innovative and therefore attractive company we are also addressing potential new employees. We can tone up or tone down this aspect to suit our economic situation.
What product and market objectives do you pursue at this trade fair?
drupa gives scope for all our product and brand building objectives: innovations can be presented, ‘grasped', tried out and figured out. Functions are tested and checked, with feedback from users. And all that in an environment that clearly underlines distinctive features and benefits by direct comparison with other vendors.
At the same time it offers an impression of the marketability and price competitiveness of our new services.
Can you achieve your price objectives in the core market?
Besides offering image building opportunities for Heidelberg, drupa is also an important sales fair. With incoming orders amounting to around one billion euros we have laid the foundations for solid capacity utilisation. By presenting our latest innovations we were also able to stabilise Heidelberg's price levels again.
How important is media presence to you?
Media presence is guaranteed. Not only does the whole trade watch it closely, but the business and daily press, too. This extends to television. But above all in specialist circles, there is no other topic of conversation for at least two weeks.
What image objectives do you follow?
drupa gives us boundless scope for our image. It's all about our reputation and the impression that customers, prospectives, competitors and the entire trade take away with them.
Do you enjoy the competition around you?
Monitoring the competition is an important "side line" - the competition shows itself from its best side and provides us with ample opportunity to position ourselves. Where do we stand? What can or do others do particularly well? What can we learn, take on board, do differently or better than the others? Our task is to grasp the opportunities that arise from the many available options. Giving us a benchmark by which we can measure to what extent we have achieved our goals.
Interview: Barbara Harbecke
Note: How Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG organise their success management will be the subject of a future article.
m+a report Nr.7 / 2005 vom 27.10.2005
m+a report vom 27. Oktober 2005