A trade show can be an important tool for boosting brand awareness, generating new leads, and engaging with customers. You can’t just reserve a space, set up your booth, and hope for the best.
Those who are most successful in event marketing avoid costly marketing mistakes by thoroughly vetting every trade show they attend, strategically setting up their booth, and planning their marketing campaign months in advance.
The following are the top 14 trade show exhibitor planning questions will help you prepare for a trade show participation in advance.
Top 14 Trade Show Planning Questions to Ask your organisers
1.What are the costs of exhibiting at the event?
You’ll need to know the exact cost of renting an event center space so you can factor it into your overall budget. It costs about $100 to $150 per square foot to rent space at a trade show or convention. According to Exhibitor Online, this cost represented 35% of the budget for 400 frequent exhibitors.
Depending on the size and popularity of the show, you may pay more or less than the industry average. When signing up early or speaking at the event, ask if there are any discounts. This is the most important trade show exhibitor planning question to ask.
2.Does the show offer speaking opportunities?
This is one of the trade show exhibitor planning questions to ask event planners. The prospect of speaking at an event can be intimidating, but those who are able to muster the courage will reap the rewards. Speaking at a trade show allows you to share your products, services, messaging, and brand with an entire audience. You will reach a more qualified audience at a niche trade show.
You will be more likely to keep your brand top of mind once prospects hear your speech. Once you establish that initial connection, they’ll feel compelled to visit your booth, learn more about your company, and interact with you.
In addition, the trade show exhibitors will provide you with free advertising. They will be promoting your brand by proxy whenever they promote your speaking session.
3.Is there any ways to support the event as a sponsor?
There are several justifications for considering event sponsorship. Among the principal explanations are:
Sponsorships allow you the chance to exhibit your business in front of a broader audience, increasing brand visibility. Additionally, you could benefit from free publicity like print ads, radio commercials, and social media mentions.
Customer interaction is higher because sponsored events frequently draw in highly qualified prospects. You will have the chance to interact one-on-one with potential customers and prospects when you sponsor a specialized event. Hence, asking out this trade show exhibitor planning question is mandatory one.
4.Could you please provide us the floor layout from last year?
Seeking out the floor layout from the event planner is the top-most trade show exhibitor planning question. Floor designs for trade shows often don’t alter all that much from year to year. You can locate your booth more wisely if you can obtain the floor blueprints from the last several years.
5.Before the show, will you give us a list of attendees?
Obtaining a checklist for trade show exhibitors and participants before the event allow you to prepare your interaction strategy. To let guests know you’ll be there and to promote visiting your exhibitor booth, you can also get in touch with them via phone, mail, or email.
You should also think about scheduling meetings with potential clients during the exhibition.
6.How can you make us successful?
The goal of trade show event planners is for you to return year after year; therefore, they want to support your success.
To assist you in spreading the word about your participation in the show, this assistance can take the shape of press release templates and other PR-related templates. It can entail chances for you to market your goods and services through workshops and talks. It can even entail free trade fair tickets for your prospects or subsidized booth space for repeat exhibitors.
To make the most of their expertise and resources, be sure to inquire about how your event organizers intend to assist you in succeeding.
Questions to ask Before Setting up Trade Show Booth – Checklist for Trade Show Exhibitor
7.How much is our budget for booth setup?
Be judicious with the funds you want to invest in your trade show display. Know precisely how much money you have to spend, and divide it up among your numerous costs – the most important trade show exhibitor planning question to ask.
Consider the findings of Exhibitor Online survey of 400 regular trade show exhibitors to help you determine where you’ll likely need to invest the most money. According to this poll, the majority of businesses allocate a percentage of their money to the following areas:
- Booth space: 35%
- Exhibit design/construction: 11%
- Show services: 13%
- Travel/lodging: 14%
- Exhibit promotions: 6%
- Shipping: 10%
- Graphic design/production: 10%
- Other expenses: 5%
8.Should we commission a custom booth from a trade fair display business, or should we rent a booth?
Whether to rent an exhibit or employ a trade show display design company to build your booth from the ground up is a crucial decision to make. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Custom trade fair displays provide a few benefits, including:
- You may alter every feature of the booth to properly reflect your company and entice your target market.
- Those are more affordable if you want to display regularly.
- From the original design through the storage of your display, your trade show exhibit booth maker will manage all the logistics on your behalf.
9.How can we design a booth that promotes our goods and brand and is aesthetically appealing?
You will face competition at trade shows from businesses with greater resources, employees, and clients. That requires you to be clever and design a booth that visually appeals to visitors and grabs their attention. Some things to think about are:
- Appealing visuals
- Ads with vibrant banners and other signs
- Authentic branding
- Strategic illumination
- Modern technology
Hence, this trade show exhibitor planning question is mandatory one in your do-to-list.
10.What location on the trade show floor would be ideal for our booth?
Be careful to think about the optimal location for your booth on the trade show floor before reserving your event rental space. Where will people see you the most?
Think of places with a lot of foot traffic, such the front and center or near a bathroom or restaurant. To make sure your booth doesn’t get sucked up by others bigger and more complex than yours, ask event management which firms have reserved the space closest to your ideal site.
Lastly, check that there are no walls or other obstacles that can prevent people from seeing you.
Questions to ask for Lead Generation & Marketing Strategies –Checklist for Trade Show Exhibitors
11.Which pre-show marketing strategies ought we to try?
Setting up your trade fair display and wishing for the best is insufficient. In order to compete with your booth neighbors and all other exhibitors, you need a strong pre-show marketing strategy. After all, at least one pre-show marketing strategy is used by 85% of corporate display managers. So, pointing out your pre-show marketing strategies is important trade show exhibitor planning question to ask.
Here are some suggestions for marketing strategies:
- Sending out emails to current clients and newsletter subscribers informing them of your presence at the next exhibition (provide incentives for them to visit your booth, such as product demos, workshops, and giveaways)
- Making contact with industry publications and relevant blogs to publish your press release
- Posting an invitation to attend on social media
12.How can we draw a large crowd to our trade show booth?
Point out these trade show exhibitor planning questions like, do you have any plans for interactive booth activities like touch screens, games, competitions, prizes, polls, and quizzes? What about a scheduled product display or instructional workshop?
Usually, there are a lot of people at trade exhibitions, and each booth is vying for attention. This does not need you to have the most extravagant trade fair exhibit, but it does require you to be innovative and think beyond the box. To drew large crowd, try to embellish digital exhibition platform in your setup and go beyond the creative experience.
13.Are our personnel well equipped to interact with clients?
Make sure you can “yes” to all of the following trade show exhibitor planning question to make sure your crew is ready to work your booth:
- Are all employees knowledgeable about our goods and services?
- Are all employees capable of memorizing their sales speech or lead generating script?
- Are all employees able to describe our special value proposition?
- Do all employees understand what we want the show to accomplish?
- Are all employees familiar with our dress code and uniform requirements?
- Are all employees aware of the standards we have for their behavior during trade shows? (For example, refrain from making personal calls, using the booth to sit or dine, etc.)
14.Do we have a set process in place for contacting new leads after the show?
Make sure you have a procedure in place for prioritizing new leads and contacting prospects right away. The more recently your brand will be in their minds, the sooner you can reach out to them. You may examine your lead workflow by asking yourself the following trade show exhibitor planning question:
- Do we have a follow-up email template for trade shows?
- Do we know when we’ll follow up with leads after the event?
- Do we have a strategy for following up with hot leads right away?
- Do we have a strategy for contacting prospects who did not open the initial follow-up email or those who opened it but did not click?
- Are there any plans for social retargeting ads?
These are excellent opening trade show exhibitor planning questions to examine before the next major trade show, but ultimately, the most important thing to think about is whether you and your team will benefit from it. To give your prospects even more interesting trade show experience, do visit our Digital Exhibiton Kit offered by VeeSpaces. Tons and tons of features are loaded and it will really welcome your prospects in a competitive business world.