ExhibitDay

How to Exhibit at a Trade Show on a Low Budget

For many small businesses, startups, and entrepreneurial ventures, sometimes, a massive trade show just isn’t in the budget. If you’re just trying to break into a market, you may not have extra funds to spend on booth furniture, services and materials that are essential to trade shows. Many new businesses don’t even witness a profit within the first few years of operation – it’s totally normal.

Still, you need to get your business out there – people need to know you exist. If you are looking for prospects, partners then trade shows are an excellent way to get everyone in one room, learn more about you and your offerings.

Here are a few ways to exhibit at trade shows on a budget:

Startup Pavilions

Although not every trade show hosts a startup pavilion, definitely check to see if one is available before you pay full price for a regular booth. These pavilions are reserved for the newcomers that generally need a money break.

Small Spaces

You don’t need a massive booth to make a lasting impression. In this case, quality trumps quantity, which is why you want to book the smallest space possible while the discount window is still open for either the startup pavilion or the early sign-up period.

Say No to Electricity

You can get creative; electricity isn’t really necessary for a good startup booth. But, if you feel it’s dire, be sure to reserve your setup during the initial discount period.

Lead retrievals

Lead Retrieval systems are very costly. Consider collecting leads on a form that your prospects would complete. Give them incentives to fill it out by offering them a chance to win your product or subscription to your service in a drawing. Alternatively, you can collect business cards or use your laptop to record your leads.

Portable Display Vehicles

Budget trade shows can be a do-it-yourself kind of adventure, especially if you invest in a portable display vehicle that enables you to carry your entire display to the show all by yourself. These carrying cases can also double as the booth counter, and the back wall fits inside the case. The entire thing comes with wheels for ease of transportation so you don’t have to hire anyone else to help carry it.

Trade Show Accessories

For all extra seating, trash cans, flooring, and so forth, be sure to check big box stores for major savings. You could purchase flooring, chairs and other accessories from a local vendor such as Walmart, Home Depot or Ikea and save yourself shipping and rental charges.

Shipping and Handling

When it comes time to have your trade show material and booth shipped, elect to have your items shipped via shipping carriers, such as FedEx, that hold the packages at the destination for you to retrieve. Although less convenient, you will save money by handling the shipment by yourself and bringing your booth furniture on your own.

Plan Ahead of Time

Flights, train tickets, and other kinds of transportation are significantly cheaper if you book them ahead of time. Tuesdays at around midnight is typically the cheapest time to book a flight. And, the cheapest days to fly are Tuesday and Wednesday (you’ll save an average of $73 per ticket). Additionally, opt for an Airbnb over a hotel. Many decent Airbnb’s are only $50-70 per night.

Many small businesses, startups, and entrepreneurial ventures start out at trade shows with a low budget. Nothing to fear – just follow the tips above for saving the most amount of money when it’s time to exhibit at your next trade show.

The Do’s and Don’ts Following a Trade Show

Once you’ve done all the hard work, set up a trade show booth, showcased your products and services to exhibit hall attendees and potential customers, and packed up for the day, there are a few after-the-show do’s and don’ts you should definitely consider.

We are going to share our top do’s that’ll help yield more sales, as well as the top don’ts, that could lose you the valuable leads you worked so hard for.

After-the-Show Do’s

1) Follow Up Email

Attending a conference or a trade show is usually an all-day event and it can get exhausting. The attendees absorb a lot of information and make many new connections; which is why they might not necessarily remember you or have your business card in their wallets when they get home. It’s up to you to send out a follow-up email that reminds them of their conversation with you. We recommend sending the follow-up email on the evening of the day of the show.

2) Virtual Connections

There’s nothing wrong with sending out a LinkedIn request or liking a Facebook page. It’s a great way to strengthen the lead without being overly obnoxious. Once you interact modestly online, follow up with a phone call to gauge their interest.

3) Measure Results

In order to assess and improve your trade show strategy, you need to be measuring the total cost, number of leads in relation to the cost, and the number of sales secured per trade show. Once you compile this data, you can determine which shows yield better returns on your investment.

4) Review and Adjust

What worked and what didn’t work that day? Think about everything from the set up until the booth dismantle and make sure to note what you can do better next time.

After-the-Show Don’ts

1) Be Annoying

No one wants to receive 4 emails per day following a trade show. One email is enough, and if you are afraid it went to spam, then sending a LinkedIn message as well is fair. Otherwise, let these people come to you. Don’t be annoying!

2) Forget Promises

If you promised an investor a whitepaper or a potential customer an answer to a technical question about your product, make sure you follow through with those promises.

3) Forget Prizes

If you had prizes or giveaways that day, do not forget to reward the winners and showcase it on your social media. You don’t want to look dishonest or cheap to your potential customers.

4) Forget Names

It’s really great etiquette to send a thank you note or some kind of indication that you appreciated everyone who showed up. It shows you are willing to go the extra mile. Also, do NOT forget names — generic emails don’t feel personal and will most likely not get read or end up in the trash.

Trade shows come with their own unique sets of etiquette and procedures, no doubt. If this is your first trade show, fear not — our list above is a good guideline to follow.

7 Tips for Driving More Traffic to Your Trade Show Booth

After you determine the right trade shows to attend for your business, it’s time to hone in on the actual trade show booth and how you plan to stand out against the crowd. The competition can get stiff at the exhibit hall, especially in bigger trade shows with thousands of other exhibitors. So, let’s focus on how you can keep a steady stream of attendees coming your way.

Here are 7 tips for driving more traffic to your trade show booth:

Visuals and Illustrations

Humans are biologically visual creatures, which means: colors, moving graphics, and overall beautiful imagery will get people excited about your booth. Even if your industry is not visual in nature, find a way to make it visual at the trade show.

Charging Station

Everyone loves a good charging station for their mobile device. If you include a complementary charging station as part of your booth, it’s an easy way to get attendees to come by and see your service or product while they pause to recharge their phones.

Giveaways

Who doesn’t love free things? If you host a raffle or a giveaway contest periodically throughout the show, you’re basically guaranteed to have steady leads coming your way all day long.

Photo Booth

Thanks to the popularity of Instagram, everyone wants to take photos today. Having a photo booth at your exhibition space will get attendees to come over and take a fun photo. Afterward, they will be more inclined to inquire about your product or service offering.

Demos

People would rather watch a product in action than read 5-pages about it. So, have constant demos occurring at your space, making them as lavish as you possibly can. “Put on a show” to get attendees excited about what you are offering.

Social Interaction

Create some kind of contest where you give attendees a prize if they “check-in” to your booth or leave a review on social media. You’ll be getting something in return, and the attendees will be getting something for free.

Mascot

No one is above a good mascot. If your company has a mascot, like Geico’s gecko, have someone there dressed up and cheering everyone else on. Consider playing some fun music that makes the entire booth feel welcoming and happy!

There’s no way to sugarcoat it — the competition can be stiff at trade shows. If you want to ensure you stand out against the crowd, no matter how many other flashy booths are out there, then follow these 7 creative ideas, go the extra mile, and make a lasting impression.

A Handful of Minor ExhibitDay Enhancements

Based on your collective feedback, over the last few days, we rolled out a handful of minor enhancements.

We hope that these enhancements make for an even more buttery ExhibitDay experience:

Additional Event Travel Fields

The following fields have been added to Event Travel:

Flights: Class/Seat Info
Automobile: Vehicle Type
Train: Cabin/Seat Info
Bus: Seat Info
Hotel and B&B’s: Room Type

Auto-complete for Airport and Airlines

The Airport and Airline fields (under event travel) now have auto-complete for Departure and Return airport/airline fields:

Notes about Event Attendees

You can now add notes for each event attendee:

We appreciate all your feedback as we continue to work towards making ExhibitDay better, and better, and better…

Track Your Event Sponsorships

Yet Another New ExhibitDay Feature…

We just added the ability to track your event sponsorships in ExhibitDay.

Each event in your ExhibitDay workspace now has a new [Sponsorships] tab. Under the Sponsorships tab, you can enter the descriptions of all your sponsorships for the event (e.g. “Attendee Badge Sponsorship”). Additionally, you can keep notes about your sponsorships and attach sponsorship invoices.

Hope you find the new Sponsorship Tracking functionality useful, and, as always, we look forward to all your feedback.

Exhibit Day