Blog | 3 Trade Show Prep Steps You NEED to Take

Industry trade shows provide valueable exposure for virtually all businesses involved. If you've got an upcoming trade show and booth locked in, awesome! You stand to generate significant buzz about your business and reach a whole new pool of sales prospects. However, if you don't plan right, any results you see after the trade show are going to fall flat.

Don't panic just yet. We've got you covered with 3 absolutely essential planning steps for your next trade show—steps to help you effectively promote your trade show booth, engage with booth visitors at the event and set yourself up for great follow-up interactions.

1.) Launch Huge Promo Email and Social Media Campaigns

Online promo campaigns are a major step that businesses overlook, either fully or partially, in the weeks leading up to a trade show appearance. Email blasts about your trade show, Sign-Up/Registration buttons in newsletters and a simple promotional blog or two can generate great buzz for your business's booth.

Most marketers know the importance of online promotions before a trade show, and do distribute emails to their networks leading up to the show. However, the promo campaign shouldn't stop there.

While marketing emails and promo newsletters are great for getting those in your database up to speed with trade show details, they don't reach or generate buzz from new audiences. This is where very active social media monitoring and interactions play a huge role in trade show prep. Before your trade show appearance, you should be doing all of the following to increase interest in your business and start discussions with new potential customers:

• Follow the trade show page and affiliated pages across all social media platforms (but also note that, generally, Twitter is the best for generating trade show buzz). Also follow speakers and other businesses you know will be attending the trade show.
• Create social media content to build anticipation for the trade show, and to highlight your booth if your booth includes something really unique (more on this below). Use hashtags that other attendees and businesses are using (as appropriate), and join in on conversations with others talking about the event. 
• In your own social media posts, include a link to a registration page for the event, whether it's hosted on your own site or on the event's site. Make it incredibly easy for interested audiences to click-through and sign up for the trade show, even if it's not through your own site.
• Do not use social media conversations about the trade show to sell your product; instead, offer actual value and give new audiences a positive first experience interacting with your business. These folks will most likely be at the trade show, and they'll remember your company and your positive discussion when they spot your booth's logo.

As a final note, be sure to use any available photos or videos of previous trade show appearances in your online promotions. Use images and other media to show your audience what they can expect by attending, and to differentiate your posts in a sea of other businesses doing the same.

2.) Make Sure Your Booth is Awesome

At your next trade show, you'll be surrounded by thousands of new potential customers, other businesses and probably some direct competitors within your industry or space. Your booth will have to make immediate impressions if you want to draw foot traffic and stand out from the crowd.

The most important things you need to focus on when designing your trade show booth are:

• Consistent branding, using all logos, colors and typefaces in accordance with your company's style guide.
• Professional design services to create appealing and unique displays.
• Promotional materials, brochures and company swag to distribute, and where these materials will be located (easy availability for passerbys).
• Technology, products or demos that will be used in your booth space. A truly awesome product demo could take precedent over other booth arrangements; likewise, a fun, interactive display could be your booth's standout feature.

Our friends at HubSpot also recommend making display versatility in different booth spaces a major focus.

"Make versatility a priority while selecting a booth so that it can be modified to different sizes (e.g. 10x10, 10x20 and 20x20). This will give you the flexibility to increase, or decrease your trade show footprint while maintaining the visually stimulating elements of your booth and staying true to your brand."

HubSpot

Don't be cheap when choosing a booth design, either. Find or create an impressive display (plus additional tech or giveaways) you can use for trade shows in years to come.

3.) Plan for the Follow-Up

Trade shows don't end when the crowds leave, and a killer trade show follow-up plan can make all the difference between gaining customers from your trade show and wasting your trade show investment. In the weeks and days leading up to your trade show appearance, you should be creating and refining a follow-up email and social media campaign.

In addition to having great booth attendees for the event itself, set time or team members aside for social media management during and after the show. Have these team members provide live updates from the trade show, engage with others throughout the duration of the event and even coordinate live videos or photo updates over social media.

Plan accordingly for materials and assets you can capture at the trade show, as well. Take photos of your booth and products, as well as photos from the event as a whole, that you can feature in recap blogs and follow-up emails. Even whipping out your iPhone and shooting some videos of the event can be a valuable differentiator for your post-event online activity.

Photos and video from the event are more likely to stand out in the flood of trade show follow-up Tweets. Plan for these things before the day of the event and you'll give yourself some great marketing assets for follow-up activity and future trade shows.

Want to take your marketing efforts to the next level and really get results from your trade show appearance with online marketing? Check out our guide, How to Create an Effective Inbound Marketing Campaign, by clicking the image below.