Do you know who attends your public exposition? If not, research may be just what you need to profile your audience. Why? Because understanding the demographics of who attends your show will help you plan for future events -- especially in the areas of booth sales and attendance promotion.

For example, if you know the average age and income of your attendees, you can more accurately select the media you 'll use in your marketing campaign. If research shows your average attendee is a 35-year-old woman who lives in the suburbs, then you can plan an ad campaign using a newspaper with heavy suburban circulation and a radio station that caters to adult women. By knowing your audience, you can avoid buying advertising programs that "sound good" but don't reach your market.

Accurately profiling your attendees can help with exhibit space sales, too. Imagine how many more booths you could sell by proving to your prospects just how much last year's attendees spent on site and what types of purchases they made. And wouldn't you target furniture dealers as potential exhibitors, if 30 percent of your home show attendees indicated a desire to see more furniture?

Although the most useful demographic data will be drawn specifically from your show, there are some industry-wide standards available from the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) that you may find useful.

Titled "Profile of the Consumer Exposition Audience," this three-part publication compiles the results from seven large consumer shows across the United States over a three-year period (1988-1991).

While each consumer exposition is unique, the study found that the audiences have enough similarities to draw some generalities about most public show attendees. The study found that visitors to consumer expositions:

• Are over the age of 40,
• Have a high literacy rate,
• Have upscale tastes,
• Have few young children, and
• Have an available disposable income.

The average age of a visitor to a consumer exposition is 44, according to the CEIR study. In fact, more than 72 percent of all public show attendees are between the ages of 30 and 59. With only 14 percent of the adults under the age of 30, public shows clearly are not a good way to target young adults. The same holds true for senior citizens: The study found that only 14 percent of attendees were older than 60.

The good news, of course, is that consumer expositions appear to be ideal vehicles for reaching mature adults who generally are in their years of prime earning power. More than 50 percent of the attendees reported household incomes of more than $50,000.

The statistics showed that, on average, 37 percent of visitors purchased one or more products or services on the show floor. A total of 59 percent planned to buy one or more products exhibited within one year following the show as a result of what they saw. This is a clear indication that the buying power of people who attend consumer expositions is high.

Audience loyalty is another important factor. More than 50 percent of show visitors reported attending no other exposition of the same type. Of those surveyed, 73 percent said they had attended the same exposition in at least one previous year, and the average number of previous visits was six. The number of first-time attendees was also impressive -- an average of 27 percent. Not only do public shows have a loyal audience year after year, they also have good success attracting new attendees -- two strong selling points.

The information from the CEIR study can best be used for attendance promotion and booth sales activities for new shows and those without their own demographic studies. The facts serve as a third-party endorsement of consumer expositions.

But promotion and space sales can be further enhanced if you can verify your audience by compiling your own show statistics. According to Skip Cox, President of Exhibit Surveys, Red Bank, NJ, research provides exhibitors with:

• Data to justify participation.
• Data to define size of their potential audience so they can determine whether to exhibit, their level of investment and a basis for measuring performance.
• Data to plan for the show (interest/background/needs of attendees). Better prepared exhibitors will equal more successful exhibitors, leading to higher satisfaction and higher retention.
• Cox says the three best methodologies for profiling consumer show attendees are: personal interview, electronic self-administered and paper-and-clipboard self-administered.

Which method you choose will be a major cost determinant. Personal interview is generally the most expensive, followed by electronic self-administered and paper-and-clipboard self-administered. Other cost factors include sample size, questionnaire length and design complexity, as well as whether it 's performed in-house or outsourced.

The advantage of using an outside company is that you gain third-party credibility. Cox adds that an outside company can ensure statistical reliability anduse various analytical techniques.

Independent research is generally expensive because it is labor intensive. Depending on the number of attendee interviews necessary to get an accurate statistical sampling of your audience, costs for a consumer exposition audience profile can range from $2,500 for smaller shows to $15,000 for large expositions.

Besides full-service market research firms, you can outsource research to data collection or field service firms, as well as many local universities. But, if you 're on a tight budget, you can acquire much of the information you need by conducting your own attendee surveys.

The first step is to develop a questionnaire. Here 's a list of basic questions:

1. What is your age?
2. Do you have any children? What are their ages?
3. What is your household income?
4. What is your level of education?
5. What is the ZIP code where you live?
6. Have you been to this show before?
7. Do you attend any other shows of this type?
8. How long did you spend at the show?
9. Did you come to the show looking for any particular product or service?
10. Did you make any purchases at the exposition?
11. Do you expect to make a purchase of a product or service within the next year based on what you saw at the show?

You can add show-specific questions to the survey, but be careful not to make the survey too long. Whenever possible, have few written answers and lots of boxes that can be checked.

For example, to question No. 1, "What is you age?" there should be boxes in five-year increments that can be checked starting at age 20. You can use $10,000 increments for household income beginning at $25,000 or less.

On the other hand, some questions, such as ZIP code, need to be written. Also, you want to train your researchers to be sure to ask follow-up questions. For example, if the answer to question No. 10, "Did you make any purchases at the exposition?," is yes, you need to ask a follow-up. Your researchers can either ask about the purchases themselves or the approximate dollar amount the visitors spent at the show.

How many surveys will you need? Professional researchers agree that for a smaller show, a sampling of 200 taken randomly at various times during show hours should project an accurate audience profile. For the large consumer expositions, experts suggest taking about 400 visitor surveys.

Is it worth the effort to compile your audience demographics? In this age of bottom-line economics, any exposition manager who can "prove" his statistics is going to get more exhibit commitments than those whose claims have no factual basis.

In addition, knowing you own audience will enable you to get the best bang for you promotional buck. More accurately targeting your markets will help your exposition to continue to grow and prosper.

Excerpted from the November/December 1993 issue of EXPO.