1. What Are the Costs of Exhibiting at an Event?
2. How Do You Choose the Right Trade Show?
3. What Are the Best Ways to Capture On-Site Leads?
4. Who Should Staff the Booth, and How Do You Train Them?
5. How Do You Engage Attendees in the Aisle?
6. How Do You Pre-Promote Your Participation at a Trade Show?
7. How Can You Anticipate Booth Traffic and Audience Quality?
8. Is There a Way to Support the Event as a Sponsor?
9. Does the Trade Show Offer Speaking Opportunities?
10. What Materials and Giveaways Should You Bring?
11. What Kind of Trade Show Display Will Work Best? What Should Your Booth Design Include?
12. What Products Will You Feature in Your Exhibit?
13. What Technologies or Demos Can You Include to Get People’s Attention?
14. Should You Rent a Meeting Room in the Convention Center?
15. How Do You Handle Shipping, Installation, and Dismantle Logistics?
Both first-time exhibitors and their veteran colleagues have a lot of questions as each trade show approaches. And with good reason. Exhibiting at any convention is a huge undertaking that carries a large price tag, and you want to set yourself up for success.
To ensure you’re ready for the event, it’s important to have a checklist of questions to ask before a trade show. To help you master your pre-show checklist and maximize every convention dollar, we’ve organized the top questions to ask. They are general knowledge, pre-show preparation, and on-site and exhibit-related categories.
Every single trade show is different. Even year after year, events grow and evolve. This might be the first or fiftieth trade show you’ve managed for your company’s marketing team. But it’s crucial to ask some general knowledge questions to lay the groundwork for a great expo.
One of the most important questions to ask before a trade show is how much it’ll cost. There are multiple expenses to consider when you calculate your trade show budget, including:
You can easily calculate your trade show exhibiting ROI. Consider partnerships fostered, leads met, and sales earned as a result of the convention.
Marketing managers and convention professionals have struggled with this question for decades.
The right trade show for your company depends on your:
The best way to determine which expos are worth the investment is to carefully consider your industry’s trade show calendar . Then, identify which ones are the most promising. You might choose your conventions based on the number of exhibitors and anticipated attendees, geographical location, or time of year.
Trade show organizers typically provide exhibitors with the opportunity to purchase or rent lead retrieval software and equipment for the convention. In most cases, the easiest way to capture on-site leads is to ask to scan attendees’ badges when they’re in the booth space. After the show, the lead retrieval provider will send you a list of the names, companies, and contact information for each badge you scanned, so you can follow up with them.
Don’t forget that trade shows are face-to-face networking events. Some attendees may carry business cards while they walk the exhibition floor. After the trade show is over, be sure to log the contact information for them into your CRM, so you can follow up with them later.
Success at any trade show is largely dependent on your booth staffing. You can send internal team members or hire external brand ambassadors. Just make sure they’re sufficiently prepared for the convention. Before the trade show, make sure every on-site team member understands:
Your onsite sales team should also be able to answer at least basic questions about your products and services. And your booth staff must know where to guide interested prospects to find more information.
There are many ways to draw people from the show aisle into your booth space. Here are a few ideas:
Many event organizers have rules and regulations about what you can do in the aisle (outside the boundary of your booth). Be sure to abide by the guidelines they’ve published if you venture out of your designated area.
Once you’ve covered the general knowledge questions to ask at a trade show, you can dive into more specific ones. This involves creative marketing and some research into promotional opportunities at your unique show. The more effort you put in, the better your trade show ROI can be.
Every exhibit professional should take advantage of early promotion. It is one of the most important pre-show tips. Your pre-show marketing strategy and campaigns will largely depend on the size of the event. For instance, huge trade shows might necessitate pre-promotion as much as six months to a year ahead of time. Smaller, more localized events, can be marketed closer to a month or two before the show opens.
Your pre-show marketing strategy should cast a wide net.
When done correctly, pre-show promotion can lead to post-show ROI.
Perhaps the best way to anticipate who will visit your booth space (i.e., decision-makers, C-suite executives, or mid-level employees) is to visit the event’s website and review the demographics from previous years. Many trade show sites feature a “Why Exhibit” or “Who Attends” webpage that includes valuable data. You can find data like the total quantity of attendees, management tier demographics, and attendees’ geographical regions.
Sometimes you can buy a full attendee list from the show organizer to find out exactly who is registered for the event. These lists are generally either available for exhibitors to purchase, or come as part of a sponsorship package.
Just about every trade show offers sponsorship opportunities. These are basically paid advertisements that increase your visibility on the show floor. The perks and options will vary by show, but here are a few common ones:
Most shows offer a variety of sponsorship levels so you can increase your presence and still stick to your trade show budget. This is a great way to boost your on-site visibility, so be sure to add this to your top list of questions to ask before a trade show.
Industry thought leaders are often showcased in speaking engagements at conventions. You can boost your credibility, trust, and brand awareness by making a presentation or joining a panel discussion during your trade show. Start the process at least one year prior to the show. You will need to submit a proposal and provide your credentials. Following up with show management can secure a spot on the stage.
In addition to bringing a top-notch trade show exhibit to the event, you should also plan to pack plenty of creative, useful giveaways to hand out to attendees. This might include literature like one-pagers about your company or products, actual samples, or small tokens with your logo for your booth space visitors to take home.
It’s often useful to bring a variety of giveaways so you can provide higher-level items to higher-level prospects. For example, perhaps everyone who visits your booth space is given a tote bag or a pen with your company’s branding. You can buy hundreds or even thousands of these items at a relatively low cost. However, for more promising prospects, consider a nicer or more expensive gift displaying your logo like a reusable water bottle, a Bluetooth speaker, or backpack.
After the pre-work is out of the way, it’s time to buckle down and address the show itself.
From your custom trade show booth design to your on-site team and shipping logistics, here are some questions you’ll need the answers to so you can have a successful event. You can even offer to ship one to your important guests after the show–a great opportunity for a second touchpoint!
You have plenty of options when it comes to your trade show exhibit. You can create a stellar display regardless of whether you have an inline, island, or peninsula booth space—and regardless of whether you want a portable or custom design. Consider the answers to these questions to determine exactly what you need:
Once you’ve determined the right type of booth, start thinking about what elements to include. Get your creative juices flowing with these ideas:
With a gorgeous exhibit booth design and the right trade show partner, you’ll be able to maximize every cubic foot of your booth space.
While some trade shows are ideal for retailers who pack their exhibits with valuable products to sell or give away during the convention, other events have less commodity-based products and focus on intangible services. It’s important to carefully consider and choose what you’re going to feature in your trade show booth space because the physical products or samples you plan will drive your exhibit design and affect your shipping costs.
Cool technology is a huge draw on the trade show floor. If your budget allows, try to incorporate virtual or augmented reality, touchscreens and interactive displays, or motion elements like creative lighting or video. The exhibition industry evolves along with the tech components that exhibitors implement into their displays, so be sure to keep an eye on current trends for the latest and greatest innovations.
Live demonstrations are also a great way to attract visitors to your booth space. Set up a small stage in your booth space, have attendees sign up for time slots, or have one of your on-site salespeople continually demo your product or service. The goal is to capture the attention of the people strolling down the aisle; accordingly, the more creative your demonstrations, the more booth traffic you’ll earn.
Just about every trade show venue in the United States offers meeting rooms, ballrooms, and boardrooms that exhibitors can rent. If you plan to have multiple high-level meetings with existing or prospective customers during the conference, it might be worth investing in one of these private areas. However, if you do rent a room, be sure to bring branded pens, notepads, and signage with you so the space feels like an extension of your office.
As a trade show coordinator, you probably feel like there’s an infinite number of details to address and questions to ask before a trade event. Some of the most vital questions are about logistics. How do you get your trade show booth to the show? How is it installed and dismantled on-site? Who will ship it back to you or your storage facility after the convention ends?
In general, every exhibition organizer will offer options for booth transportation, installation, and dismantle. Unfortunately, though, their vendors can sometimes be expensive and not as well-versed in trade fair logistics as you might hope. Your best bet is usually to partner with a turnkey trade show service provider that has trusted partners who can handle the shipping and on-site labor for you.
Congratulations on making it through the show! Don’t relax and revel in your success just yet. You need to address one of the most important tasks on your trade show post-show checklist: lead follow-up. You can rely on your exhibition sales team for personal touches like phone calls and in-person meetings, but there are a few more must-do tactics:
It could take as many as 50 touchpoints to earn a sale depending on a lead’s status. The more diligently you follow up with the people your company meets at each trade show, you are unquestionably more likely to earn their business.
Every single convention professional has questions. It doesn’t matter how many events they’ve coordinated or how many years they’ve been at the helm. The exhibit industry keeps evolving and creating more questions to ask before a trade show.
That’s where we come in. Our veteran team of trade show professionals stays on top of industry trends and innovations, so we can help you succeed. From your initial trade show exhibit design through post-show asset management, we’ve got the tools and expertise you need to increase your trade show ROI. Event after event, year after year.
Contact us today to tell us about your upcoming trade show and find out how we can guide you to success!
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