The Exhibitor's Resource – Trade Show Marketing Blog

Plotting trade show deadlines and project milestones on a timeline is a good way for an exhibitor at a trade show or other marketing event to ensure that they stay on schedule. An exhibit agency like Exhibit Resources is a good partner in developing such a guide to keep your project on track. The experienced event marketing professionals at an exhibit house can help exhibitors manage all of the details, from submitting forms and payments to reserving services. The timeline offers a visually accessible way to quickly see those details, and know when decisions need to be made. Timelines also make it easy to see what stage the project is in at any given time. Often a timeline is the go-to document to make sure nothing falls through the cracks, and can help prevent unnecessary rush fees from suppliers, shipping companies, and the show venue. A trade show planning timeline can include due dates for approving design, submitting graphics, submitting show services forms, and shipping materials.

Consider working with an exhibit agency that includes a timeline as part of the regular communication process. But if this isn’t offered, there are some options out there for creating such documents. “Mind Mapping” software often includes a timeline view, and can help get organizations on the same page internally, as well as help coordinate with vendors. After all, when planning for a complex event such as a trade show, the more informed everyone is about how their part of the process affects the final outcome, the more successful the project will be.

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A - Get the word out to prospects, clients and trade show attendees ahead of the conference.
B - Make the most out of every minute on the expo floor, and then network as much as you can to drive traffic to your exhibit outside of expo hours.
C - Follow-up on show leads and other connections immediately and persistently after the trade show, or even while still at the show.

A) Pre-show mailers, email blasts, and calls to set up at-show appointments are the three tasks you and your team should be focused on one to two months ahead of your show. Your team’s goal is to “get on the dance card” of every potential customer. Consider an incentive to get pre-qualified prospects to your exhibit space. Take advantage of show-sponsored marketing tools, such as postcard mailings to all attendees, or email blasts to lists of attendees from your target segment. Many shows can break out lists of just your target audience, often by their professional title.

B) Schedule enough booth staff to cover your exhibit space for the entirety of the expo hours, factoring in snack, lunch, and bio breaks. Make sure that knowledgeable staff are available continuously until the show hall is empty. Once you and your team leave the expo floor, make an effort to connect with prospects and clients at after hours receptions and networking events. Encourage those you meet outside of expo hours to drop by your trade show booth to see that demo or meet with that colleague that has experience with their situation. Do everything you can to drive traffic to your booth on the next show day.

C) If you’ve done A and B, you’ll have a long list of interested prospects to call on after the show. This is a great problem to have, but you need a strategy in place to make sure you turn those leads into sales. One idea is to handle as many requests and follow-ups as you can while still at the show. This offsets the work you’ll need to do when you return to the office, but also ensures that you are seen as responsive and engaged. But once you’re back to the routine of the office, it’s important to make time for proper follow-up on all of the leads acquired at the show.

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No Sitting!
There is no reason for booth staff to sit while in the exhibit space, unless your exhibit space has a lounge area or conference are and you’re having a productive conversation with a prospect or client. Booth staff need to be up and actively reaching out to potential visitors. Sitting behind a table creates a barrier between booth staff and visitors. Booth staff should wear the most comfortable professional looking shoes they have. And schedule your staff so that they can take regular breaks to rest those legs and feet.

Absolutely No Eating or Drinking!
Schedule breaks and lunches for you and your staff so that staffers can have snacks or meals somewhere else other than in the booth space. And leave the coffee cups and soda cans in the food court, you’ll be able to get more at the next break. And think twice about that stick of gum, a mint might be the better option.

No mobile phone usage or texting.
Of course these days it’s very easy to quickly check your email or txt messages on a smart phone, but while you’re representing your company in your booth space, you shouldn’t reply to those messages or receive or place calls. Set your email outgoing message to let your clients know that you’ll be at the show, and will return their calls ASAP if you happen to be unavailable when they call. Adhering to this rule will ensure that you are available to make eye contact with show attendees and effectively engage them in conversation when there is interest.

Never leave an booth unattended.
Be sure to schedule booth staff so that breaks and meals are accommodated. It’s wise to try and have two staffers in even the smallest booth space, just so that there is some overlap in case one person must leave. An unattended booth during show hours is the just like a store being closed during the posted “open” hours. Again, you’ve spent enough money to reserve the booth space, design and set up your display, get staff to the show, so get the most our of ever expo hour with a staffed booth.

Don’t neglect housekeeping.
All booth staffers, no matter how much of a super-star they may be, need to be vigilant about keeping the booth space neat and tidy. Keep trash cans out of sight, personal belongings in storage areas, pick up any trash that appears in the booth, place furniture back into the default locations when visitors leave, replace any light bulbs that may burn out, vacuum the carpet at the beginning of expo hours, and generally do whatever you can to keep your space looking its best.

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Exhibit Resources just started using twitter to see what all the hype was about. We initially thought that it would be no more than a novel way to discover like-minded trade show exhibit professionals and display designers and suppliers. Little did we expect that this twitter thing actually had a lot of value. So far, we’ve made some pretty interesting connections.

We’ve also noticed a lot of trade show producers using twitter to communicate with attendees and exhibitors. One example is InfoComm09, which posts informative links, info and statistics on the InfoComm show in mid June. How else would we learn that 7.2 miles of Aisle Carpet will be installed at the show, or get a handy link to planning your trip to the show? Here are some recent InfoComm09 tweets:

# From move-in to move-out approx. 18,058 hours of labor will be used to produce InfoComm 09
# Visit InfoComm’s booth, #5261 to find out more about membership, certification, education & social media
# 7.2 miles of Aisle Carpet (38349 liner ft) will be installed at InfoComm09
# Don’t miss over 100 new exhibitors at InfoComm 09!
# 50% of Classes are new at InfoComm 09! Check out all the classes, http://bit.ly/OUBI7
# Planning your trip to the show? Find deals to Orlando from Total Travel http://bit.ly/12UsDk

We’ve also seen some companies tweeting about the trade shows they are preparing to exhibit at to drive traffic to their trade show booth, tweeting from their trade show display during the show, and using twitter to update followers from live demos, key note addresses and conference sessions.

Exhibit Resources plans to participate in a webinar on the future of “Digital’s Role in Exhibit Marketing” on June 4th, when The Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) will share the findings of their recent survey findings on the topic. The session will include stats on measurement, ROI, budget for digital media and best practices exhibitors can use to integrate digital and social media into their event marketing plans.

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While there are a lot of variables to consider when selecting a trade show booth space, a basic thing to realize is that all trade show booth spaces are not created equal. Here are some ideas on how to select the best trade show space you can.

One factor to consider is trade show space proximity to compatible brands or products, and this is particularly important at larger trade shows, where one expo attracts a wide range of attendees looking for a wide range of products. If, for instance, a software developer exhibits at an electronics show, they might want to position themselves either near the hardware that their software runs on. Each situation is different and may require an alternative strategy, but understanding what “neighborhood” a given space is in is crucial.

Spaces that don’t work as well include some that would initially seem to be prime real estate, but research has proven to be less desirable. An example would be those spaces in the “decompression zone” up front near the entrance. Retail store planners have for some time designed store layouts to place lower-margin merchandise in this dead zone. Just like a shopper, a trade show attendee tends to miss the displays front and center and is ready to absorb more of what they see a little further into their journey on the trade show floor.

And that journey most often starts to the right of the entrance, which is why exhibit planners talk about “left side lethargy” – by the time exhibitors make it to that far left side, they are often starting to tire, and at the minimum, exhibitors with spaces on that side might want to consider a seating or lounge area to ensure they do everything they can to capture this traffic.

Exhibitors should look for spaces away from columns, corner spaces for inline displays, and any space that offers a way to stand out. Although spaces against the convention hall walls might not have as high traffic as others, once advantage is the potential for an exhibitor to make an inline display taller. Depending on the particular trade show’s rules and regulations, an exhibitor might be able to go as high as 14′ or higher and stand up and above the typical 8′ display height for most inline trade show displays.

Another area to potentially avoid would be spaces near restrooms and other facilities. Sure, there will be a lot of traffic moving past those booth spaces, but attendees might have a more urgent task on their mind and won’t necessarily be interested in slowing down to speak with your booth staff. Some trade show displays might do well near food court seating, but a good plan needs to be put into place for how to draw attention for those taking a snack break. Particularly for smaller booth spaces, being close to tables and chairs means that they might be able to move a conversation to a more private location without the expense of an in-booth seating area or lounge.

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