11 Strategic Marketing and Pre-Show Exhibitor Tips to Execute a Successful Event Marketing Strategy
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What is your event marketing strategy and what tactics will you put in place to help you get the most out of your exhibitor sales and marketing efforts to maximize trade show results? Here are 11 strategic marketing and pre-show exhibitor tips to put in place now.
TRADE SHOW STRATEGY
Tip 1: Exhibitor Goals and Objectives.
Exhibiting at a trade show without goals or objectives is like going on a trip with no GPS or pretravel planning. You’ll probably get there in the end, but it will cost you more than you expect, take longer than you expect, and you won’t get as much out of your experience as if you had set specific objectives for what you want to see and do. The same is true when exhibiting at a trade show.
As a trade show, expo, or conference exhibitor, your goals for the event are things you want to achieve. Three examples of exhibitor goals may be to generate new sales leads, check out what your competition is presenting, and looking for new employees.
Objectives are specific ways you are going to achieve these goals. For example, if your goal is to generate more leads, your objective may be to speak with at least twenty booth visitors per day and categorize each visitor as a marketing qualified lead, a sales qualified lead, or a potential lead that needs long-term nurturing.
As you can see, while establishing your goals is important, also creating specific objectives is critical to helping you achieve those goals.
Tip 2: Picking the Right Show.
There are five steps to determine which trade show is the right one for you.
Create a list of all trade shows that attract your target audience based on your already established goals and objectives. Write them down.
Next to each show you just wrote down, include the location where it is taking place. Is it local, regional, or national?
Break down the trade show hours into:
The total hours for educational sessions and keynote presentations
The total expo hall hours
Review the exhibitor brochure to understand attendee demographics.
Ask the show’s management team specific questions based on your needs to make a final decision whether to exhibit or not.
Don’t always assume the largest, most well-known trade shows are the best. If your sales territory is regional or your product is geographically focused, spending money to exhibit at a large, national show may not be cost-effective.
Tip 3: Budgetary Considerations.
Whether you have a $25,000 or $2,500,000 yearly marketing budget, your individual trade show budget can’t be created in a vacuum. Selecting the right trade show exhibitor budget is an art and a science.
There are multiple elements to take into consideration:
What percentage of your total marketing budget is allocated for live events?
How many trade shows and conferences will you exhibit at throughout the year?
What are your goals and objectives for each show? What is your strategy to achieve your goals? What tactics will you employ?
How many employees will be on your booth staff?
Do you currently have a booth you can reuse with new graphics, or will you need to build a new booth from scratch?
What is the total weight of all show materials and how far will they need to be shipped?
Will you send your booth and materials to the show’s advance warehouse to take advantage of available discounts, or will you send your booth directly to the expo hall?
These and many other considerations will help you come up with an accurate exhibitor budget.
PRE-SHOW TIPS
Tip 4: Free Money to Exhibit.
In a traditional sales model, a company develops their own products or services, and their sales team sells those products or services directly to businesses or consumers.
In a reseller or channel sales model, a third-party business purchases a manufacturer or vendor’s products or services and resells them to other businesses or consumers. While the reseller sales model is mot common in the IT industry, you may sell cars, furniture, bicycles, garden tools, or coffee cups. The idea of purchasing products from a vendor or manufacturer and reselling them to other businesses or end-user customers is the same across industries.
Did you know that vendors from whom you buy your products may have money to help you defray the cost of exhibiting at your next trade show? It could be yours for the asking.
Receiving market development funds (MDF), contest prizes, or an additional booth staff member from your vendor partner is a great way to reduce your exhibitor trade show expenses. It can be a win-win for both of you.
Tip 5: Booth and Show Passes / Badges.
As a trade show exhibitor, booth or expo-only passes and a full conference pass will be included in your trade show exhibitor package. Be sure you know how many are included at no additional cost and how best to allocate them before you buy more unnecessarily.
The most important thing to remember is that you are not limited to the number of passes given to you.
For example, you may be given three exhibit hall passes and one conference pass as part of your 10 x 10 ft. booth price, but you’re not limited to only sending four people to the conference. You can choose to send any number of employees that you feel are necessary. Assign the free exhibitor and conference passes to primary members of your team. Then determine if you need to purchase additional passes and how many they will be.
Tip 6: Exhibitor Services Manual.
No matter how many trade shows you have already exhibited at, the exhibitor services manual should always be your go-to resource.
Why is it so important that both marketing professionals new to trade show management and exhibitor managers with years of experience get to know the manual’s contents from cover to cover? Because every show is different.
City and convention center regulations are different.
Safety requirements are different.
Union rules are different.
What you can and cannot do as an exhibitor is different.
The exhibitor services manual provides all the information you need to know on what you can and can’t do at the show, includes exhibitor services forms, and, most importantly, gives you an opportunity to save up to 40% on exhibitor services if you submit your forms before the advance order deadline.
As a trade show exhibitor, the exhibitor services manual is my most important resource. It’s the first thing I review in the morning and the last thing I check at night. It should be your most important resource too.
Tip 7: Advance Pricing Deadline.
Let’s take a deeper dive into the exhibitor services manual by looking specifically at the advance pricing deadline and the large amount of money you can save by keeping that deadline top of mind and placing your exhibitor service orders before it expires.
Knowing your trade show’s advance order deadline for services like electricity, internet, and carpet rental can help you save up to 40% on exhibitor expenses. Have the date burned into your memory and be sure to submit your exhibitor services forms before it has passed.
As you read through your manual, the services that offer advance payment discounts will be obvious. But there are also less-apparent opportunities to save money. Put another way, there are other ways to spend money unnecessarily and exceed your budget. For example:
If you do not reserve your sleeping rooms in the show hotel until after the hotel’s room block deadline has passed, rooms may still be available, but you will have to pay full price.
You will have to pay rush charges to print collateral, graphics, and order tchotchkes shortly before the show is to begin.
You will have to pay overnight shipping charges to ensure the collateral, graphics, and promotional items get to your booth before the show begins.
Tip 8: Preregistered Attendee List.
A trade show’s preregistered attendee list is a gold mine of potential customers. If it’s included in your exhibitor package, use it. Lead generation doesn’t just happen in your booth at the show. It begins well before the show takes place with pre-show marketing.
How can you use this list to generate leads long before the show actually takes place so you can close them more quickly at the show? Conduct an email campaign.
An easy way to determine the success of an email campaign to the show’s preregistered attendee list is to include a unique offer code that only preregistered attendees receive.
Ask them to enter the code when registering to attend your after-hours party or signing up for a private meting with a member of your sales team. Also require them to mention the code to receive a special giveaway at your booth.
And, because you know the total number of preregistered contacts, you can determine the percentage of people who received the email and engaged with your company by stopping by your booth, hearing you speak, or attending your after-hours party.
These attendees are now more familiar with your business, so they’re more likely to engage with a salesperson during and after the show.
Tip 9: Exhibitor Staffing.
While selecting the appropriate trade show booth staff is just one element of successful exhibiting, it can be a critical element of successful exhibiting.
You may have the best products. You may have gone all out on your pre-show marketing activities. Still, if attendees get to your booth and staff are on their phones or are sitting in the corner with their shoes off, your potential customers will walk by without ever stepping foot in your booth.
Visitors can also sense whether your staff is working as a team or if it’s every man and woman for themselves. They’ll never have a chance to learn how great your product is if your staff is not engaging with them effectively.
Tip 10: The Perfect Booth Size and Location.
What’s the perfect trade show booth size and location? There is no one-size-fits-all answer. Factors determining the right booth location vary. The answer lies in your exhibitor goals, your budget, and much more.
Are you looking to go head-to-head against a competitor? Select the booth next to theirs for a direct comparison by show attendees.
Want to establish a long-term business relationship with an industry-leading vendor? Selecting a booth across the aisle from theirs enables your teams to evaluate each other, watch what’s going on in each booth, and easily engage in conversation.
Tip 11: To Rent or Own Your Booth?
Your physical booth structure is one of the most expensive components of your exhibitor budget. But cost alone should not be the only factor in deciding if you should rent a booth or have a custom booth built for your business.
By the time the decision to rent or buy your booth comes up, you have most likely already selected the show or shows you will attend and established your budget. While show selection and budget will impact your decision to rent or to own, there are other important factors to consider.
Step back and consider the rent vs. buy question from the 37,000-foot level. It’s a strategic question that will impact much more than simply the next show. The answer is based on so many different factors. Here are just three:
Will you exhibit at more than one show at a time?
Will your booth footprint vary significantly from show to show?
Will you make major changes to your marketing messages, company look and feel, strategic positioning, or product portfolio over the next year?
Answering these questions will help determine which is the right choice for you.
