Planning Your First Trade Show

How to go about planning your very first trade show?

So, you have finally decided that you want to attend a tradeshow. The important thing now is how to prepare for your first trade show. Trade shows are a large affair and as such, you should prepare adequately. Since this might be your first time, you should follow these tips to plan your first trade show.

Set your goals

The first thing you do when you are planning for something is to set goals. Trade shows are not left out of this. You should know why you are going to a trade show. Is it to increase brand awareness, to get more leads, or to build existing relationships? With goals, you would be able to review your performance at the end of the show.

Check around for quality tradeshows

After setting your goal, you should check around for quality tradeshows that would help you achieve your goals. The location of the trade show is one important thing you should look out for. By knowing about the location, you would know how to get things like quality trade show displays. You should also check the stats for the trade show you plan on attending.

Prepare your budget

A budget is a very important part of your plan. Your budget can practically be the deciding factor between a successful trade show and a haphazard one. You should make sure that your budget is comprehensive enough to cover all eventualities. You should remember things like trade show displays, staffing, logistics, travel, and so on.  

Get trade show booth staff

This is your first time at a trade show. It is very likely that none of your in house staff has trade show experience. It would very risky for you to just go with staff that do not have trade show experience. To get the required experienced staff, you can easily contact a staffing agency.

Get the right booth design

Your booth is a very important part of your trade show performance. This is your first trade show and as such, your performance should be top notch. With the correct trade show displays, and general trade show booth design you should be well on your way to getting a quality booth. You can get in touch with Exponents to get a quality trade show exhibits.

Be Proactive

When you are at the trade show, you should not just stand in your booth and wait for attendees to come to your stand. Take proactive steps to engage attendees outside your stand. You can organize contests and many other things to engage attendees outside your booth.

Also, you shouldn’t make the mistake of just collecting business cards. Make sure you add notes to the cards to give you information about the attendee. This way, when you call for a follow up, you have a bit of information about your lead and you can make the conversion process easier.

Carry out a level of introspection  

Finally, when the trade show is over, you should examine your performance at the trade show. Did you achieve your goals at the show? How many leads were you able to acquire? How many existing clients did you relate with? All these help you measure your performance and know if a trade show was worth it.

In preparing for your first trade show, you can get quality trade show booth rental from Exponents.