The fairs are living markets of commercial operations. On them the best information source of the sector is concentrated in living and live, and there are also the biggest neuralgic center to be able to exchange opinions and tendencies. For it it is hardware that have to be used of an ideal and profitable form with the target to encourage the development of a company.

In the last years there have arisen numerous fairs of national and local character. Before so prolific offer, the election: to which to come? it must be reflective and careful.

 The recommendation is to be informed appropriately about the fair: his antiquity, his recognition inside the sector, his national or international dimension, his regularity, and what is more important, his call power, since, obviously, when an economic effort is realized as exhibiting in a fair, the ratio of the cost for real impact has to be measured carefully and the sufficiently profitable thing for the one who realizes this investment.

To choose the fair most adapted for the promotion and consolidation of the image of the company is vital, because to a fair it is necessary to demand from him to be the meeting point between the best offer and the most specializing demand of his sector. Namely it is necessary to be able to choose to the fair leader. Once elected it is necessary to be able to obtain the biggest profitability. For it we indicate next a relation of actions that it is necessary to foresee in three different stages.

15.1. Check list for the assistance to a fair

15.1.1. Actions he preferred

• To name a person in charge or coodinador for the fair.
• To establish the targets, always in writing, that the company chases with the participation in the fair. The targets can be very diverse, from obtaining new contacts, more sales, up to promoting the image of the company or simply promoting the public relations before the mass media.
• To define the objective public. Namely: with what visitors do we want to contact? Since according to the profile of this public we will do different actions of communication earlier, during and after the fair.
• To check if we keep on being interested in to be present in the fair. It is not necessary to come only because it has been done in the previous years (the market and the tendencies change and can be that the above mentioned fair does not have the same effectiveness at present for our targets) or because our competition is present.
  We will have to obtain information of the profile of the visitor to the fair, sometimes the organizing entity prepares qualitative and quantitative studies that it facilitates to the exhibitors.
• Also we will have to verify that the dates of celebration of the fair it does not coincide with competitive others that could deny importance of ours.
• To request to the professional lounge the necessary papers to take part in the fair and to reserve the exhibition space. The place of the stand turns out to be fundamental to receive the visitors, especially if the communication campaign preferred it is going to be limited. Also it would be interesting to know where the competitors are going to be, as well as the companies that are going to be next to us.
• To define the material that goes to exhibit in the stand.
• To fix the budget which we have, in his different games, for the fair.
• To design the communication / publicity program for the visitors' reception.
• To select and to contact with the decorator / fitter of the stand to request him budget and mock-up, in case let's want that it is realized externally.
• To design and to make the material to be exhibited in the fair.
• To prepare with the time the technical and commercial papers that is going to be delivered in the lounge.
• To approve the mock-up of the stand and the budget. Not to forget that the stand is an element of communication that must obtain a big visual impact before the visitors.
• To design and to entrust the promotional articles for the fair.
• To supervise the manufacture of the decorative elements of the stand (signs, photos, television / video).
• Hiring of furniture, floral decoration, provisions of electricity, water, stewardesses (it is much better to be provided with specializing personnel although it should cost us a little more, since we are staking the image of the company).
• To prepare the price-lists.
• To initiate the campaign of reception of the visitors:

– To hire publicity in specializing press.

– To write articles about press and press dossier.

– Inscription in the exhibitors' catalog.

– Cartels and fences in the (optional) exhibition site.

– To intensify contacts with the press (publication of reportages, articles, innovations).

• To supervise the production of leaflets, catalogs, folders and cards of visit, etc.
• To verify the reception of invitations, passes exhibitor, cards of parking lot, etc.
• To realize the inventory of the stand: staplers, role, pens of promotion, etc.
• To continue the campaign of visitors' reception. For example:

– Mailing of personal invitations to the most important current or potential clients.

– Mailing to all the objective public of the company.

– Press releases in the Home specializing magazines of the sector, since it allows to promote of free form the products of the company.

• To verify the availability of the promotional materials: catalogs, cards of visit, gifts, etc.
• To verify the hiring of services of the fair.
• To prepare cards of visitors' contact to create databases.
• To summon informative - formative meeting with the personnel that is going to be in the stand in order to remind to them the targets that are chased, to assign cards, to revise the skills of sale and behavior in the stand, to establish incentives, etc.
• We must not forget that the human team is so much or any more cash than the proper stand.
• Etc.

15.1.2. Actions during the fair

• Daily meetings with the personnel of the stand to exchange information, to clarify doubts and to value results. We will have to reflect the most significant thing in a daily report.
• To refill the contact cards to create a visitors' database. The first step is at least to gather cards of visit, but the best thing is to complete a few cards - contacts. The above mentioned card must contain the biggest possible number of information that we could obtain on the visitor, from the name and the company, up to the product that he is interested in or the competitors with whom it works.
• To distribute catalogs or CD but controlling his distribution.
• To deliver obsequiousnesses or articles about promotion but limiting his distribution in order to show certain exclusivity.
• To gather information about the competition.
• Etc.

15.1.3. Actions posferia

• Immediate meeting with the personnel of the stand to do the first evaluation of the fair and to analyze the content of the quiet cards - contacts.
• To realize the opportune actions of pursuit in every case to go forward to the competition. It is good enclosed to be grateful with a personalized letter for the visit to our stand.
• Achievement of the final report of the participation. In him the obtained results will be reflected comparing them with the targets that had been foreseen in the beginning, the performance of the personnel of the stand, the analysis of the present competition in the fair, recommendations and suggestions to improve future shares and an evaluation of the utility of this fair.
• Press releases mailing to the mass media with the results obtained in the fair.