September 17, 2014

What’s Your Biggest #Tradeshow #Marketing Challenge? (Survey Results)

A couple of weeks ago I posted a one-question survey which asked tradeshow marketers to identify their BIGGEST challenge when it came to creating a successful experience. To me, success means coming away form the show with more leads than last time, having a booth staff that’s on top of their game, a booth that really shows your company’s brand and identity and in general leaves you wanting to get back and do it again!

The survey went out via our tradeshow marketing list twice and was posted a handful of times on a few social media sites. In other words, it wasn’t scientific but was instead mean to capture a snapshot in time of what people were thinking when they clicked through to the survey.

The question read like this:

What is your biggest challenge in using tradeshows to market successfully?

The question was designed to be as straightforward as possible without trying to steer anyone to a specific answer or topic. There were eight answers possible. These came from the general topics under which all tradeshow marketing elements would likely fall:

Determining your show objectives
Budgeting
Pre-show marketing and preparation
Creating an awesome booth that represents your company’s brand and image
Booth staff training
Lead generation
Post-show follow up
Keeping track of everything from show to show

The survey was designed to let respondents to choose only one answer. I’m not sure if it would have been better or worse if respondents could have chosen more than one. My thought was it forced people to settle on just a single choice, no matter how many challenges they had in tradeshow marketing. Besides, the question asked respondents to tell us their ‘biggest challenge,’ not their two or three biggest challenges.

As responses to the survey came in, there were two answers that stood out as being the most challenging to the respondents: post-show follow up and creating an awesome booth. For a time it was neck and neck, but in the end, ‘post show follow up’ edged out ‘creating an awesome booth that represents your company’s brand and image’ but not by much.

Tradeshow challenges results — Results from the one question survey: What is your biggest tradeshow marketing challenge?

Bottom Line: the answers don’t surprise me much. In my experience, some of the biggest challenges in tradeshow marketing that people recognize revolve around having a great booth, and taking care with all of those leads that come back to the office with you once the show is over. Booths can be expensive to create and maintain, and leads are often difficult to shepherd through a follow up process. About 80% of all tradeshow leads do NOT get followed up on, so that result is not surprising.

What was interesting to me is that booth staff training didn’t get a single hit among the three dozen or so survey respondents. Staff training is often one of the most overlooked and neglected areas that can influence a company’s tradeshow marketing success.

The fact that about 16% of respondents chose ‘pre-show marketing’ and ‘lead generation’ also indicates some challenging problems in identifying what is the best approach to driving traffic to your booth and, once they’re there, to capture leads in an effective manner.

Tradeshow marketing isn’t easy, nor is it cheap. If it was, everybody would be doing it and growing their businesses faster than they could keep up with. However, done right, it is one of the most effective ways of promoting new products and reaching new markets.

July 3, 2014

21 Tips to Maximize Your Tradeshow ROI

The following is a guest article from Jennifer Callahan of Fathom:

It can come as a directive from the top, but most likely it’s Sales or Marketing trying to squeeze company budgets to allow a team to exhibit at a tradeshow. So if you’re part of a team trying to get dollars approved to set up a tradeshow booth but are facing increasing pressure to prove that it’s worth not only the money, but the time away from the office, you need to read on.

No matter which industry you’re in, you have likely seen budget restraints over the past five years. Proving a Return on Investment for Sales and Marketing is more important than ever. So how do you maximize ROI for your upcoming tradeshow?

First, it’s never too early to plan. Following are just a few items you should begin working on now:

– Press Release: A crucial part of your pre-show marketing. Tell people what booth number you’ll be at and what they can expect from your team. Will you have new product demos? Free assessments? Make it easy for reporters from trade mags to meet with you by stating when and if you’re available to meet with the media.

– Your Website: On your home page you will want a noticeable call to action (perhaps with a discount code for attendees?) to incentivize anyone attending the show to stop by to check you out.

– Multiple Blog Posts: This is a no-brainer if you have plenty of time between now and the show. But don’t just do promos about your company. Write about what attendees can expect from the show and the types of events that have happened in the past. And when you return, write a wrap-up blog post.

– Use Video! If someone from your company is speaking at the event, or if you will be interviewing any notable people from your industry, make sure someone videotapes it. Place the video on your YouTube channel, along with a link to it in your blog, Twitter feed, Facebook posts, etc.

– Meet with Current and Prospective Customers: Schedule time to meet with your current customers at the booth. It’s not a bad idea to have prospective customers meet with your Sales or Marketing team at the same time. Oftentimes your current happy customers can be great ambassadors of your brand.

– Toss the Paper: Resist the urge to haul reams of paper documents for passing out at the booth. Get interested prospects’ business cards to email them everything they’re interested in, post-show. Chances are your documents will end up in hotel room trash cans, anyway. This runs into the next tip:

– Email, Email, Email: Nurture prospects with email post-show. It can start with company documents that explain more about products and services. And from there on out, it’s up to you to continue with marketing automation to further nurture those valuable leads.

While tradeshows may be dwindling in attendance in your industry, there is a way to turn attendees into customers in this digital world. It takes major planning and teamwork between Sales and Marketing. Download the whitepaper 21 (+2 Bonus) Tips to Maximize Your ROI to plenty more tips to make the most of your company’s marketing dollars.

(Tim sez: check out this great infographic):

FATHOM_Manufacturing_Tradeshow_ROI_Tips-Infographic_2014

Find featured work from Jennifer Callahan here.

December 16, 2013

An Open Letter to Veteran Exhibitors

Dear Exhibitor,

You are an experienced tradeshow marketer. You probably have been to many more shows than most of your colleagues. You’ve seen it all – from the small mom and pop shows decades ago to the sophisticated shows with several thousand exhibitors. You’ve seen goofy musical acts, professional product or service demonstrators in booths, wolfed down tons of free food samples, pocketed hundreds of free giveaways until you finally decided they were mostly just worthless junk.

And it’s a pretty good bet you know what works. You’ve tested pre-show marketing, booth staff training, having your best sales people on the show floor and you wonder why your company’s sales staff still has a hard time following up on all of those leads once the show is over.

So let’s see it: let’s see the results of those years of experience. What did you get out of it? By now you must have figured out exactly where the wasted dollars are – and you’ve plugged those holes so that every single dollar spent on tradeshow marketing makes an impact. Right?

Yes, let’s see the records of all of those tradeshows. No doubt – with your experience – you can pull out a 3-ring binder for every show for the past decade and answer any question about the show: how much was spent on booth space, drayage, travel and lodging, pre-show marketing, etc. – and can show us what the ROI was on all of those dollars invested.

Heck, you can probably even show us in great detail with song and dance, the impact of your young social media team. No doubt they’re compiling stats on how many contests they’ve run through Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic to the booth – and what the results of those contests or show specials are. They likely have a precise count of the number of photos and videos they’ve posted in relation to the show, and what the feedback was from them.

So: let’s see them. Let’s see all the results of your professionalism in action. If you can immediately pull those results up on your computer or grab a binder and hand to me – then you’re good. In fact, you’re awesome. You can go back to whatever it was you were doing before you started reading this letter. After all, you are the pro. You’re the expert – the veteran tradeshow marketer who’s been doing this for years. No one can surprise you. After all, you’ve seen it all.

But, if not – if you can scrunch up your face and say ‘Hmmm…I might admit that there are a few missing spots…’ I would ask: What exactly is missing?

Don’t have all the records you think you should? You’re not doing all that you really could be doing at each show?

Let’s suppose that it might be good to have a refresher on the various elements of tradeshow marketing – JUST to make sure that you’re not missing any pieces. After all, it’s not a bad idea to see things from a new perspective, right?

So, from my viewpoint, here’s a list of what you might consider keeping track of in your tradeshow marketing endeavors:

Overall Tradeshow Marketing Objectives
Shows You Attend and the Specific Objectives for Each Show
Budgeting Figures
Pre-show Marketing
Public Relations Outreach
Exhibit Booth: size, age, layout, cost
Booth Staff: who are they; what’s their experience and training and overall level of knowledge of the tradeshow marketing efforts
Show and Booth Visitors: breakdown of each show in detail
Social Media Sharing: who’s in charge, what content gets shared, what are the results
Post-show Follow Up
Lead Generation: methods of collection, grading, distribution
Record Keeping
Final Overall Assessment

These bullet points can be broken down in great detail and the more detail you have, the more educated you are – and the higher the chances that you will have a more successful show.

Remember this: your competition is out there and many of them invest heavily in booth staff training, pre-show marketing, public relations, and social media engagement. They’re not fooling around. If you’re not looking closely at these items on a regular basis and keeping your tradeshow marketing assessment current, you could be slipping behind because it’s a good bet your main competitors are. Those competitors want to win – and they want to take away your current clients and customers. No doubt they’re doing everything they can to achieve those goals.

What are you doing with your tradeshow marketing to keep one step ahead of your competitors? Are you investing in an upgraded booth when the old one is falling apart or do you limp along another year? Are you investing in keeping your booth staff on top of their game with regular trainings? Are you investing in creating a great experience for your clients and potential clients at the next tradeshow, or do you just cross your fingers and hope that the status quo will be ‘good enough’ for this year?

Do you think your competitors are settling for ‘just good enough’?

If not, what are you going to do about it?

Sincerely,

Tim Patterson
TradeshowGuy Exhibits
1880 4th Street NE
Salem, OR 97301
Toll Free: 800-654-6946
TradeshowGuyExhibits.com

PS. If you need help performing a complete tradeshow marketing analysis or audit, click here.

September 24, 2013

Dear Tradeshow Exhibit Buyer, (an open letter to first-time exhibitors)

Dear Tradeshow Exhibit Buyer,

We haven’t met before, but I thought I might take a few moments to share some thoughts on your upcoming quest to find a new tradeshow booth consultant to assist with design and fabrication.

Bob's Red Mill custom booth at Expo West 2013 — Bob’s Red Mill custom booth at Expo West 2013

First – congratulations! Tradeshow marketing is one of the most effective ways of marketing – IF you do it right. If you do it wrong, it can possibly be the biggest waste of marketing dollars you’ll spend this year. And if you do it wrong, you’ll have little to show for it. And if that happens, your mind will be poisoned with the thought that tradeshow marketing is a WASTE of TIME AND MONEY!

But…if done right, tradeshow marketing can be the BEST way to spend marketing dollars. Why? First, it brings you face-to-face with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people that are in the market for what you’re selling.

Second, it gives you a chance to establish a brand in visitors’ minds in just a few short seconds as they approach your booth. That brand can be reinforced by a well-trained staff once those visitors spend a few moments at your booth.

Third, it can cut the cost and the length of the sales cycle. By meeting people at a tradeshow and qualifying them (or disqualifying them as the case may be), you can quickly determine where they are in their pursuit of your product or service. That also quickly determines your next step – which can be confirmed with them before they leave your booth.

Finally, while tradeshow marketing can be exhausting, it can also be FUN. You can get your team away from the office to a far away city. By getting people out of their comfort zone, they tend to depend on each other. By focusing on the exhibiting task at hand during the day, you build trust and respect and confidence in your team. By letting off a little bit of steam after hours with each other, you help each of them appear more real.

So, what to do first?

Here’s a quick checklist before you choose an exhibit and design team.

Know your goals. Define those goals and be specific. Even though the overall goal of tradeshow marketing – any kind of marketing – is to grow the business and bring in more sales, each show may have a slightly different goal because of the nature of the show. If you plan to exhibit only once a year, it may work to try different exhibit companies out. But if you plan to exhibit several times a year, take your time to work with an exhibit consultant that you are comfortable with and enjoy working with personally. If an exhibit house is competent – and certainly most are – the most important factor is how well you get along with them.

Understand the timeline. If you are looking to purchase a small ten-foot inline booth from a catalog, you really don’t need much time to do that. Graphic design will usually take the most at this point. On the other hand, if you’re building a 30×30 custom booth, plan on several months. A recent large custom booth our company worked on took about 8 months from the kick-off meeting to the set-up at the show. Know your timeline and build in extra time for reviews and speed bumps – you’ll always have them. A good tradeshow project management knows what a realistic timetable is and can advise you on what it will take depending on what you want.

Know your budget, and remember that exhibits can be expensive. If you don’t have a realistic idea up front what your company is able to spend for a tradeshow booth for design and fabrication, it can get awkward awful quick! Any reputable designer will not start on a design until he knows how much a company has to spend. A good consultant will likely start the conversation by sharing industry averages, and then explaining how their company’s pricing compares to those numbers. For a quick rule of thumb, for inline booths, expect to spend around $100 a linear foot. For custom island booths, the price can range upwards from about $140 per square foot. Electrics and special lighting can drive the cost up, but those are good rules of thumb to start with.

Plan on training your team. Even if it’s a small show with just a couple of staffers, it pays to be prepared. When your team knows how to quickly qualify and disqualify visitors, it will immediately increase the lead count. Booth etiquette is important, too. No eating, talking on cell phones, standing with arms crossed, etc. All of those behaviors – and more – keep visitors away.

There’s more than just the show – there’s pre-show marketing and post-show follow up. Before the show, your company should be reaching out to potential visitors, informing them of the tradeshow appearance, and what you’ll be doing there: new products/services, special appearances, contests, etc. A social media marketing full press before the show will help draw interest and people to the show and to your booth. A good tradeshow marketing consultant will be able to assist you with planning and execution of your pre-show marketing. Post-show follow up is twofold: sales and marketing. Sales will be following up on all of those leads based on urgency; marketing will be taking content created from the show (videos, photographs, etc) and dripping them out via social media and other outlets to not only remind people of your appearance, but to tease them a bit for next year’s show.

Designate a point person for all ‘official’ communication between your company and the consultant company. While your company may have a marketing team all chiming in with their opinions on the design and fabrication process, when you designate a single person to funnel all communication through, decisions become easier – and final. If the team decides that the color is blue and the point person communicates that to the consultant company’s point person, then that decision is final and the process moves forward.

Jump in! Once the kick-off meeting is underway, trust the process. If you’ve never gone through the process of designing and fabricating a tradeshow booth that fits your company’s needs, keep in mind that your consultant has done it – many times. They’re professionals. Trust them to stay in touch and guide you through the many decision points you’ll have along the way. Follow the designer’s lead and offer your candid assessment of the design and watch how it changes until it becomes a final product ready to be fabricated. Trust your graphic designers. Trust your instinct.

By following this checklist, you’ll go into your booth project with eyes open.

And that’s a good thing!

Grab our free report “7 Questions You’ll Never Ask Your Exhibit House” – click here!

August 13, 2013

Tradeshow Marketing IS Your Brand

Are you going to a tradeshow simply to sell products?

Right! Of course you are!

But seriously, there’s more to a tradeshow than just selling. Among other things, there’s no doubt that you’re there to build brand equity and credibility.

From a practical standpoint, your tradeshow booth not only has to function to meet your exhibiting goals, but the booth itself should shout “THIS IS US!” without anyone saying a word.

From the look and feel of your booth to the style of interaction with your visitors, anyone who drops by should go away with a distinct feeling of what your brand is all about.

Having seen the design process from initial discussion to final fabrication and set-up, I can say that creating a booth that helps build brand equity is not an easy thing. It’s also not that hard. Anyone who’s been with the company for a few years knows the brand inside and out. They know who their customers are, they can describe the brand in a sentence or two and they know how their products are perceived in the marketplace. They also know how they separate their brand from their competition.

All early discussions in a booth-building process should focus on the brand: who you are, what you do, how does the marketplace perceive you, etc. You have collateral on hand that aptly demonstrates the brand. All of this will be communicated to the designer, who – if she’s competent – can craft a design that does indeed should “THIS IS US!” to any tradeshow visitor.

Beyond the look and feel and function of the booth, though, when you exhibit at a tradeshow, you are giving visitors the most important aspect of your brand: your representatives. These are usually employees, although some reps may be hired professionals, which should know your business and product line inside and out. They should be 100% aware of the company’s goals at the show – and how those show goals may differ from other shows – so that if any visitors pops an unusual question, they can address it confidently, whether it means finding someone who knows the right answer, or if it’s even a question that should not be answered at all.

A visitor will not stop at every booth at a tradeshow. That’s impossible – there’s not enough time! A visitor will leave the booths they visit with a strong impression of the company. That impression will be gathered from the few moments they stop at a booth: the look and feel of the booth and the interaction of the staff, and the product offerings. Miss one of the links in the chain, and the impression may be easily outweighed by one or more of your competitors.

The way you draw your visitor to your booth also plays into their perception of your brand. Did they receive an email invitation? A direct mail piece? Did they see a tweet or read about your appearance on Facebook or Google+?

Every bit of the pre-show invitations and post-show follow-up should adhere to the line of building brand equity.

The sum of all of these efforts is the final impression that your visitor receives from your show appearance. How many pieces are you missing? How many are complete?

November 7, 2012

Bringing Home the Bacon

In the swirl of the tradeshow marketing soup, you’re working to create a potent mix of trained staff, an awesome-looking and appropriately-functional booth, interactivity, social media engagement. When all is said and done, the ONLY important thing at most shows is: bringing home the bacon.

When you get back to the office, the big question that determines the success or failure of your tradeshow marketing effort is this: did you get enough warm and hot leads to justify the expense of going to the tradeshow and planning to go again next year? Because if you haven’t, there’s something missing. But what?

When you examine the various and disparate elements that go into a successful tradeshow marketing experience, you may be reminded of the famous question attributed to Henry Ford: “I know that half of my advertising dollars are wasted, but which half?”

Make no mistake, if you can’t identify the wasted parts of your tradeshow marketing efforts, you’ll continue to leak dollars and leads and return from shows with half-empty cups of leads.

It behooves you to examine all of the elements of your tradeshow marketing to determine where the inefficiencies lie:

Tradeshow booth ‘look and feel’ and function: does your booth draw the right people and once they get there, is it set up to handle them properly?
Booth graphics: do your graphics qualify and disqualify visitors as they arrive?
Tradeshow staff training: what’s the level of knowledge of staffers on your products and services and are they properly trained in how to interact with visitors in the chaotic environment of a tradeshow?
Are you attending shows that offer the best market for your products and services?
Social media marketing: do your SM marketing staffers understand social media and the art of engagement?

By hitting all cylinders properly, you’re actually doing two things: one, you’re putting a much more effective tradeshow marketing machine on the tradeshow floor, and two, you’re positioning your company at a much higher level than most of your competitors.

Given the stakes at risk and the amount of money you’re investing in your tradeshow marketing, I have one question for you:

Why wouldn’t you want to do all of these things properly and with excellence to significantly increase the odds of bringing home the bacon?

If you’re not willing to do that, perhaps you are not yet ready for tradeshow marketing.

Oh, and if you want to know where the inspiration for the title for this post came from…

October 30, 2012

10 Things Zombies Can Teach Us about Tradeshow Marketing

Thanks to a recent post on tradeshow-exhibiting Zombies published here on the Tradeshow Guy Blog, Mel White, VP of Business Development for Classic Exhibits, was suitably inspired to come up with a Top Ten List on what we can all learn from zombies. Thanks for sharing, Mel!

Single-minded Focus. You may not appreciate their all-consuming desire to eat your flesh, but they are committed to the task. They let nothing get in their way, except an ax to the brain. Your next trade show will be wildly successful, if you make it a priority, not an afterthought.
Teamwork. Zombies travel in packs, like ravenous hyenas. That teamwork ensures them a much higher percentage of kills. There’s a reason “We killed it” signifies success. By working together, those poor doe-eyed attendees don’t stand a chance.
Appearance Matters. You never forget your first impression of a zombie: filthy clothing, rotting flesh, vacuous stare, and rancid halitosis (that alone is enough to make you hurl). It’s sad but true. We judge people by their appearance. Your company spent considerable money to participate so shine your shoes, press your shirt, and dry clean that blazer.
Lights, Motion, and Noise. The undead and the living are both attracted to lights, motion, and noise. As much as we try . . . we can’t resist it. When planning your booth, ask yourself this, “Will my exhibit attract 200% more zombies than my competitors?” If the answer is “No!” then you need to get creative (or consider a ceremonious human sacrifice ever day).
Intelligence. Zombies love brains and so should you. Being smart about your trade show marketing means you understand that trade shows are not the same as print ads, videos, brochures, or traditional sales calls. Trade shows are opportunities to attract new customers and strengthen existing relationships.
Fresh Meat. Ever notice that zombies won’t eat other zombies. They like their meals fresh. Fresh ideas and innovation, particularly during a weak economy, propel one company forward while leaving another one struggling to survive. Trade show attendees go for two reasons: to find solutions to existing problems and/or discover innovations that will strengthen their operations or bottom line.
Know Your Customer. In zombie-speak, we are customers. Good customers freak-out and get eaten. Bad customers ram a metal rod through a zombie’s skull. You want good customers, just without the “getting eaten” part. Good customers become good customers because we understand them and tailor our product or service to meet their needs.
Preparation Matters. Zombies don’t need a trade show toolkit or an exhibitors handbook or an exhibit designer, they are 100% prepared the moment they go from living to undead. You’re not so lucky. You won’t succeed without thorough pre-show, show, and post-show preparation.
Without Customers, What’s the Point? Wandering aimlessly is pointless, even to a mindless zombie. Zombies crave excitement. When a living, breathing human enters its proximity, it switches from listless to high alert. Serious exhibitors react similarly, albeit without the growling and moaning. We’ve all seen exhibitors who appear annoyed or resentful when an attendee enters their booth, interrupting their game of Angry Birds. What’s the point if it’s not about customers?
There’s No Cure. Once a zombie always a zombie. If you love trade shows and are serious about trade show marketing, there’s no antidote. It’s in your blood. No matter how hard you fight it, once bitten, it’s incurable.

Photo by Bob Jagendorf from Flickr.

November 19, 2010

Tradeshows: The Perfect Place to Showcase Your Brand

I’m halfway through a little book called ‘Branding Basics for Small Businesses’ by Maria Ross, which is full of helpful information, and while reading the book, it occurred to me that there is no better place to showcase your brand than at a tradeshow.

Virtually everything about your company comes into play: image, interaction with the public, products, sales team…it’s all there.

And when you think about branding, don’t mistakenly believe that your brand is just your products and services and your logo. Or your advertising.

Everything about your company transmits and broadcasts your brand.

In the book, Maria gave a great example of how a brand is shouted out by the small interactions.

“My husband and I want to love and support a local bookstore in our neighborhood. Based on location, name and visual identity, the store offers a warm, personal book-buying experience unlike the big box bookstores. Unfortunately, my husband was turned off by an incident that didn’t seem important at the time. One day when we entered the store, someone behind us left the door open as we walked in and they walked out. The clerk glanced up, saw the open door, and headed over in a huff to close it. Her body language told us she was miffed and assumed we left the door open. She nearly pushed us out of the way in her haste to make a point and shut the door.”

As she continues, because one clerk didn’t live up to the promise of the store’s brand, her husband is left with a negative impression of the business – and doesn’t feel like going back.

This little eye-opener should help you focus on the little things: is your staff always smiling and helpful? Do you have enough free samples if you’re offering them? Is the floor of your booth as clean as possible? Do you have staff purses, coats and other personal items stacked haphazardly in plain view of visitors?

Any little thing that’s ‘off’ can create a negative impression. And that negativity echoes through a visitor’s mind long after the show is over.

It’s your company. It’s your brand. Everything from your logo to how you answer the phone to how you interact with people at a tradeshow must be derived from how you would like people to perceive your brand.

At your next tradeshow, pay careful attention and see if all that a visitor sees is a positive representation of your brand. If not, find out how to fix it.

photo credit: DaveBleasdale

(the above link is an affiliate link; I purchased the book and recommend it based on the quality of the content)

June 28, 2010

Health of the Booth Staff

Guest post by Darryl Noble

Trade shows take a lot of money to invest in. Getting a return on investment makes it an imperative that everything at show goes well. There is a lot of books and advice available for displays, giveaways, traffic, and even which shows to attend. There is help on who to choose to man a booth and what they should do while in at the exhibit. What is most often ignored is the staff’s health. It would not take much to disrupt all the plans with a booth staff member taken out by sickness. A lackluster performance by staff could also torpedo all plans for a good return on the trade show investment.

Most everybody has general knowledge about healthcare make sure they follow it.

When the booth is set-up pre-show, have staff wipe it down with anti-bacterial cleaning wipes. The same during slow times of a show or at the end of the day. While talking about antibacterial, they should also use hand sanitizer often throughout the day, as they will be shaking a lot of hands.

If the trade show will be out of area, make sure they are prepared for a new geography or climate. If the staff is from Phoenix and use to a desert spring, taking a trip to the Pacific Northwest could require warmer and staying dry attire. Also, consider if one is staying at the conference hotel or staff has to travel to the exhibit area everyday. Staying in air conditioning all day and then having to take a hot twenty-minute bus ride can be hard on people. Places like Phoenix and Las Vegas can be above 100 degrees during all the summer months.

Then there is good scheduling of staff. The schedule should rotate staff often unless they are able to go somewhere and rest their legs. Also, they should have a place and rest their minds. Having rooms at the host hotel is always good, unless the trade show is far separated from the hotels. Regardless, the staff should be able to stay alert and lively. Also, if the trade show or conference has an active nightlife to it, account for it. Staff that is entertaining clients late into the night should not be working the morning shift in a booth.

With a little planning on everybody’s part, an entire exhibit staff can stay healthy and be able to bring the company a lot more money than it put out. Really, it comes down to remembering the little things along with the big things of a trade show event.

There is more help available for small businesses and entrepreneurs looking at exhibiting at expos and conferences. Here is information about using a used trade show display. One can also look at which trade show product options are available for an event. Visit now to learn more.

June 7, 2010

Questions to Ask Before You Start Tradeshow Marketing

A recent LinkedIn discussion focused on ‘What questions do you ask yourself when deciding on an exhibit for a tradeshow event?’

There were a lot of answers and discussion on the topic, and after I chimed in with my two pennies’ worth, it got me to thinking: what does it take to even commit to a tradeshow marketing effort?

If you’re a new company looking for marketing opportunities and markets to tap, or a company that’s never done a tradeshow, it’s an interesting question to ponder.

In other words, what is the lead-up to the question asked in the LinkedIn discussion?

To my mind, the decision to even get into tradeshow marketing should begin with a handful of questions:

Can we reach a valuable market via tradeshows?
What will it cost us in terms of money and resources?
Is it a short-term or long-term effort?
How will it affect our image in the industry? In our market?
If we get involved, who’s going to do it?

After this, you’ll evolve to questions that may be particular to your company, but those are good questions to kick off your internal discussion.

Tradeshow marketing can be an incredible boon – or bust – depending on how well you do it.

You’re laying a lot on the line. Take time to examine it from all angles before jumping in the pond.

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Tradeshow staff training

Dear Tradeshow Exhibit Buyer,