7 Tips For a Successful Trade Show

Setting up a booth at trade shows and specialized events can be an effective way to promote your business to a targeted audience. Not only do attendees see your company name, they can stop by and speak to staff, they can also interact with your products first-hand.

Organizing and planning a booth at a trade show takes months of preparation. It requires securing the spot with the trade show, to designing booth materials, to procuring products and promotional items for the booth. Shows are a big investment in both time and money. To make sure you get the best return on investment, here are some of our top tips having a great trade show.

1. Set Goals and Expectations Before the Event

Before each event, your team needs to have idea of what you expect to gain from the event. For example:

• How many people do you expect to drop by?
• How many leads do you expect to collect?
• How many mentions will you see on social media?

After the show, compare what you achieved to what you expected so that you can modify your investment for future shows and evaluate if the cost of the show was worth it.

2. Offer Snacks & Refreshments

Large trade shows can get tiring for attendees. Use this as an opportunity to attract visitors to your booth by providing much welcomed refreshments and snacks. Have your company branding on water or snacks you give out to remind attendees where the items came from.

3. Leverage Social Media

Have a social media plan in place for engaging your booth visitors to get the most out of your time at the show. Ways you can use social media include offering prizes for people to:

• Tag you or mention your hashtag, on social media channels like Twitter or Instagram
• Follow you on LinkedIn or Facebook
• Sign up for a company newsletter

4. Wear the Right Attire

What your booth hosts wear should reflect your company’s brand and the products you’re promoting. For example, if you’re appealing to a young and savvy demographic, t-shirts or polo shirts are more appropriate than suits. Make sure whatever clothing you pick, your staff can comfortably wear it the whole day.

5. Have a Booth Schedule

Trade shows can involve long hours over multiple days. To prevent burn out, plan a schedule for all the staff so everyone knows ahead of time when they get lunch, dinner and snack breaks. This ensures you always have full coverage and everyone still has time to eat and recharge.

6. Have Great Promotional Products

Great promotional items can help attendees remember your brand after they’ve left the event. The key to promotional products is to offer ones people will actually keep, not ones that will toss as soon as they leave the event. Some of the most kept promotional items are:

• Thermal mugs
• Pens
• Notepads
• USB Drives

7. Be Extra Prepared By Bringing Backups

A lot can go wrong between the time you leave work and set up your trade show booth. Equipment and marketing materials may get damaged or the setup isn’t what you imagined. Extra supplies you should consider bringing include:

• Power/extension cords
• Extra signs and banners
• Extra promotional products and items

We hope these tips help you get the most out of your trade show investment. If you need deciding which promotional products to order, please contact us at info@shopeveryday.ca or 416-652-6829.