Exciting News — based on popular demand, we just launched Calendar and DetailView in ExhibitDay.
Calendar View
The Calendar View lets you see a list of all your upcoming trade shows and exhibits in calendar format. That simple!
Detail View
The Detail View is similar to the original “Lite” View. It’s in list format — except, you get to see a lot more details about each event; details like: event attendees, booth reservation status, travel reservations, number of event-specific tasks, etc. So, if you’ve been clicking between events to get a better picture of each event, now you can switch to Detail view and get the overall status of your upcoming events right from the Events page. Hooray!
Switching Between Views
To switch between List/Detail/Calendar views, use the View Preferences button on the top right corner of the Events page in your ExhibitDay workspace.
We hope you find ExhibitDay’s new Calendar and Detail Views helpful and we look forward to all your feedback and any other feature request.
There are thousands upon thousands of trade shows that take place not only in the U.S., but throughout the world. Selecting ones that are right for your niche can be hard, especially when costs are factored into the equation. You only have so much time and money that you can spend on trade shows — which is why there can be a lot of pressure behind your final decision.
Here is a quick guide for identifying trade shows that are the right fit for your business:
Audience
Who is your ideal buyer? Your ideal
investor? Are they millennials? Are they established Baby Boomers? Men or
women? If you are trying to target a younger crowd, going to a trade show in a big
metropolis, like New York City or San Diego, is basically guaranteed to get you
in front of millennials. But, if you are targeting an older crowd with more
established roots, then bigger and more conventional trade show centers (in
places like Orlando) might be better suited for you.
Intent
What is your ultimate goal at a trade show?
Do you want to increase leads and sales? Strengthen relationships with
customers? Raise awareness for your brand? Depending on your end goal, you
might want to consider different sizes of trade shows. If you just want
awareness, then massive trade shows can get your name out there. But, if you
want a few intimate leads, consider a smaller, more targeted and more exclusive
trade show.
Event History
You will be taking a chance on a newly
established trade show; although, one benefit is that you can probably negotiate
a good deal with newer trade shows. For all other, more established shows, make
sure to check out their history. Here are some topics to research before committing
to a trade show: Did the show organizer
invest a sufficient money and effort into advertising the trade show? How long
have they been around? On average, how many people attend their shows? …This is
all free information you can aggregate before you decide.
Budget
If you are on a tight budget, then not
every trade show is going to work for you. Sometimes, you might even have to
pick based on timing of the trade show. There is a discount window when trade
shows first announce their dates – you might find yourself simply basing your decision
on the trade show dates to ensure you align the discount window with your
budget.
Yeah, there can be a lot of trade shows to choose from.
Don’t feel overwhelmed. Take your time; use the guidelines above; do your
research; find the trade shows that are the right fit for your business.
Today, we launched ExhibitDay’s Task Management feature. This release marks a big milestone for ExhibitDay because it allows event teams to collaborate on trade-show-related tasks and get things done.
Here is how ExhibitDay’s Event Task Management works in a nutshell:
You can create generic or event-specific tasks like: “Find a new vendor for booth displays” or “Order swag for the booth at the CES Conference”. Then, set a due date and assign the task to any team member in your workspace.
The rest is straight forward: The task assignee gets notified about what they have to do; you get notified when the task is complete or when others leave a comment on your task. … and, so on. And, of course, you can control all your task-related notification settings (under the My Profile and Preferences section).
The Task Board
The task board is the main hub for all the tasks across all your team’s events (and, even, generic tasks that may have nothing to do with a specific event). You can track and manage every task in your workspace from the Task Board (including the ability to move a task from one event to another).
ExhibitDay – Task Board
Event-Specific Tasks:
Each event has its own [Tasks] tab. Under the event [Tasks] tab, you’ll find all the tasks related to that event. There, you can manage all the tasks related to the event (just like you would on the Task Board); the only difference is that you won’t be able to move tasks to another Event (you’d have to go to the Task Board to do that).
Event-Specific Tasks
Pro tip: If you are adding a handful of tasks for a specific event, instead of creating them on the Task Board, go to the [Tasks] tab of the event and enter them directly there. This will save you the time it would take to drag the tasks to your event if you were to create them directly on the Task Board.
User Permissions for Task Management:
We get it — Every team has its own way of doing things. So, we added granular control over who can do what when it comes to managing tasks in your workspace. You can limit a team member’s access to Tasks based on these three levels of access:
1) Full Access – the user can view/add/update tasks for anyone on your team.
2) Add/update Access to One’s Own Tasks Only – the user can view (and comment on) all tasks assigned to others on the team; but, they can only add/update tasks assigned to themself.
3) No Access to Tasks – the user has no access to the Task Board or the [Tasks] tab of the events in your workspace
Event-Specific Tasks
Pro Tip: if you want to give a user purely view access to all the tasks in your workspace, add them as a Guest User — they’ll be able to see every task but won’t be able to modify anything (and won’t be able to comment on any task).
We’re totally excited!
We hope you enjoy our new Task Management feature. As always, we look forward to all your feedback.
ExhibitDay
ExhibitDay is a simple exhibit tracking and trade show collaboration tool that helps you track and manage all your events.
When it comes time to present your company, startup, or idea to people from around the world, you want to be prepared in the best way possible. Sometimes, all you get is 30-seconds to convince someone to either invest in you, partner up with you, buy from you, or franchise one of your businesses. And, so, there are definitely some trade show do’s and don’ts you need to know before you show up for the big day.
Ready to master trade show management? Here’s how to get started…
The Do’s
1) Listen More
When people make an effort to stop at your exhibit
booth, chances are, something piqued their interest. They’ll start to tell you
about this interest. Therefore, our rule of thumb is as follows:
Listen 80% of the time; talk 20% of the
time
Make sure to let people feel like they
are part of the conversation. They will like you more for it and, therefore, be
more likely to invest in you by the time it’s all said and done.
2) Stay in Touch
Make qualified leads out of people who are
generally interested in your business. Take time to really listen to every
person and identify what it is they are looking for. Once you make connections
with exhibit hall attendees, be sure to stay in touch. Craft a great follow-up
email that lets them know you haven’t forgotten about them and are looking
forward to working together with them.
3) Provide Giveaways
People love free things. That’s why giveaways
do so well. Just be sure they are somehow related to your business – if you
hand out coasters and you are trying to promote a shoestring business, what’s
the relation? Make it easy for people to remember.
The Don’ts
1) Don’t Be Negative
Do not talk negatively about the
competition, even if you want to. It immediately shows people that you feel
threatened for some reason; could it be because your product is not good
enough? Instead, talk to show attendees about your services in an educational
manner.
2) Don’t Be Unfriendly
Do not stack your exhibition team with
negative and unfriendly people. Your booth staff should be energetic, engaging,
and moving at all times. Do not allow staff to sit in chairs and stare at their
phones. You want to ensure your trade show booth is as approachable as
possible.
3) Don’t Be Unprofessional
Do not have food sitting around (like snacks
and lunches). Nothing looks more unprofessional than the sight of half-eaten
sandwiches and French-fries littering your nicely assembled exhibition space. Also,
try not to eat around lunch time, and if you do, bring gum so your breath stays
minty fresh.
Every single year, thousands of trade shows and exhibitions take place in the U.S., allowing businesses, inventors, entrepreneurs, and startups to showcase their products or services to potential investors, partners, and consumers. It’s a great way to launch a new product or service (or a franchise) into international success. It all starts with an educational and interactive display that gets the exhibit hall attendees excited.
However, there is a lot that goes into trade show etiquette,
which is why you want to ensure the next time you show up to an exhibit hall,
you won’t make these mistakes.
Here are the top 5 trade show blunders to seriously avoid:
1) Lack of Sufficient Staff
Nothing is more unprofessional to conference attendees than your exhibit booth not having sufficient staff present. People have questions they want to ask, information they want to know, and demonstrations they want to see. If you send one person to represent your business and 2 or more people want to learn about it, the remaining bystanders are going to end up walking away and passing up your business. Remember: they want intimate, one-on-one attention.
2) Last-Second Preparedness
A lot goes into the coordination and
presentation of a trade show exhibition, which is why it is not something you
will want to put off until the 11th hour. From the banners and
pop-up displays, to the digital tools and handouts, if you wait until the last
second, you’re going to end up paying thousands in rush-order fees. It’s just
not worth it!
3) Overwhelming Displays
People are inundated with
information from the moment they wake up — they don’t want to show up to your exhibit
booth and feel overwhelmed by the displays. If there is text everywhere,
plastered all over every piece of content, where are they to focus their
attention? What is the ultimate point of the product? Keep it on-point,
on-message, and digestible for the average person.
4) Lack of Passion from Temp / For-Hire Staff
More businesses are considering
outsourcing the representation of their trade show to a staffing company.
However, one of the worst things you can do is have individuals with no industry
experience or passion representing your product. Only you and your team can do
that, and, yes — the people at these trade shows can spot passion (or
lack-there-of).
5) Repeat Materials
Many trade show attendees attend a given trade show multiple years in a row. They will start to notice if you recycle your materials; not to mention, the styles and designs will begin to appear aged. You don’t want to come off as cheap, which is why it’s worth sprucing content up for each new trade show.
ExhibitDay: Trade
Show Management
We know that preparing for a trade show, measuring its effectiveness, and organizing the whole event can be stressful. ExhibitDay provides the free tools you need to track and manage all of your exhibits, and focus on results.
