Ace the Timing of Your Next Trade Show with This Planning Timeline

If you’re attending a trade show, one of the most difficult things to do is to coordinate all of the many parts, especially if you have multiple organizational departments involved. There are things like the stress and timing of selecting and ordering your swag, designing your booth, creating and ordering your business collaterals, choosing your team, coordinating travel, and working with the event planner or organization in selecting a hundred details regarding your participation. And those things are only the beginning.

In this guide, we’ll give you a timeline for all of the components of a trade show to help you coordinate and organize your efforts in the smallest time possible. We can’t give you more time in the day but we can help you maximize your efficiency.

We’ve broken down the time frames into several categories (one year, six months, three months, and one week) so you can count your time down and you’re less likely to miss something. After all, there’s little worse than realizing something hasn’t been done when it’s too late to make it happen.

Okay…are you ready? Let’s get to it.

When Should You Start Planning a Trade Show?

Ideally, you would begin with a timeline that’s twelve months out. This allows for plenty of time and the unforeseen mishap. In this schedule that we’re laying out, we’ll assume the twelve-month schedule. If you have less time than that, adjust this timeline accordingly. But these steps are the ideal ones that you would follow in this order.

We’re also assuming you’ve done your due diligence on the trade show and you’ve decided on a show that makes sense for your ideal audience. You’ve done some research on the demographic that attends and it fits the group you’re trying to get in front of. Assuming that, here’s how you should proceed.

 

One Year-9 Months Out

1. Set specific goals for this trade show. Meet with your team and list how you will measure the goals and what you will consider success. Then plot how you will get there. What tactics are needed and what will you do to ensure you will meet or exceed your business goals?
2. Set your budget. Knowing what you need helps you understand costs. Do those costs fit within your event budget? If not, how will you whittle them down to ensure they do? What can you cut? On the other side, if you can’t cut anything, what will you do to get a larger budget? Chart out a trade show plan to present to your board or financial approval person.
3. Design your trade show booth. The trade show will provide you with the size/you will select it. You will also receive a list of things you can and can’t do. They may have limitations on electricity access or may require you to use their in-house person to set up your booth. Make sure you study all of that information before building a booth. There are many booth designs and you should match your design with your goals. Will you have an educational component to your display? Will you be putting on demonstrations? Do you want people to “play” with your product? All of these things will flavor the design of your booth. The type of trade show will also impact your design. Some trade shows are solely six-foot table displays, while others can have enormous innovative double-decker exhibits. While you want to stand out from your competition, you don’t want to do it so much that you don’t even look like you’re at the same show as everyone else.
4. Decide on renting or building. After you hash out what you need and what your goals are, you’ll have a much better idea on size and design. With that in mind, you can start pricing options. For recurring uses, it’s probably best to buy. But for one-offs, renting may make more sense. Some of the things to keep in mind when making the decision between renting a booth display and buying one include:
   • how often you will use it in the future?
   • how large it is and how difficult it is to assemble?
   • what your graphics needs are and how often the information will change. Some marketers want the same structure but need the panels to change every trade show because offers are individualized.

6 Months Out

This is the time you want to start building buzz. Most of your activities during this time period will be around fun activities to get people interested in you and connecting with the right potential customers. Marketing has many components and you should be using several, if not all, out of this list.

1. Begin talking on social media about your participation in the event. Use the event hashtag. Don’t just blast your booth number and how excited you are. Try to strike up conversation with attendees. Ask open-ended questions like, has anyone ever been to the host city before and tips for enjoying it. Retweet the organizer’s posts.
2. Post fun pictures of your group preparing for the event.
3. Give a hint about something cool that will happen at the trade show. You want to tease your audience. Are you featuring a new product or service roll-out or launching a spectacular opportunity? Don’t just blurt it out. Create a countdown clock to the announcement.
4. Contact your current customers over email and ask if they’ll be there. Invite them to come and tell them where you’ll be. You may even want to consider some special swag just for customers.
5. Send out a direct mail piece to current customers with a reason to stop by your booth such as a discount or the special swag mentioned above.
6. Order your booth or finalize renting arrangements. Make sure the booth or design creators have everything they need in the exact specifications they need it. The last thing you want is a pixelated logo because you gave them a low-res file. (At ThinkQuik, we’d notify you if your logo wasn’t high res but that’s not true of every trade show booth design company.)
7. Notify your staff about who will attend and ask them to clear their schedules. If they cannot commit to the date, replace them with someone who can. It’s good to know this early on. Then order team apparel based on who is able to attend.
8. Decide how promotional marketing will fit into your strategy. Will you give swag out to attendees. Will you host a contest with ways to win more swag? Decide how you’ll use it and what you’ll do.

 

3 Months Out

1. Continue with your social media posts and conversations.
2. Book your travel and travel for your team or have them book their own. If you go with the latter make sure everyone knows when they’re needed and when they may have free time. Confusing this information can be costly with change fees.
3. If you receive a preliminary guest list, provide it to your sales team to see if they recognize anyone on it. They may have some potential clients that they can connect with there. If they do, suggest that they schedule meetings with them.
4. Book any additional space you need. Some companies schedule time off-site to wine and dine potential clients or thank customers. Consider your needs in these areas.
5. Train your booth staff on how to conduct themselves in the booth and outside of it. Cover all aspects of the trade show experience. For instance, I know of an unfortunate situation when an angry booth staffer posted on social media how much she hated the host city. Needless to say, that was an awkward moment for the exhibitor. Make sure everyone is clear that while they travel, they represent your company even when they’re eating at a local restaurant before the show. You’ll also want to train them on demos and sales techniques that you want them to use. What tone do you want in your booth? Some companies do not allow any food or beverage in their booths. If you choose to do the same, you’ll need to schedule breaks for them to eat without sacrificing your booth coverage.
6. Check in with your booth people and all vendors you’re using for the trade show. When will everything be shipped? Are they on target? Don’t leave this last step to chance. When everything is shipped, make sure you get the confirmation numbers. This is critical. If you realize at the last moment that your materials haven’t arrived, you want to make sure you have the numbers to track them. If you don’t have them you could be at the mercy of the trade show booth creator’s business hours and if it’s a weekend or early in the morning, you could be waiting a long time to speak to someone who can help.
7. Order your swag. Place final numbers for your swag.
8. Finalize the details of the event contest. If you’re hosting a contest at your booth, meet with your legal team and run it by them. Make sure you are clear about the rules and the competition and think about whether you want a tough competitive environment or one where everyone gets a “prize.”

 

One Week Out

1. Track your booth materials. Where are they, when are they arriving, and how will they be assembled?
2. Check the guest list and share it with sales again. Ask if there are any VIPs they want you to keep an eye out for.
3. Make sure your team has their reservations and understands what time you’ll meet at the airport or the trade show floor.
4. Pass out apparel or team uniforms.
5. Encourage your team to post to social media and engage people in conversation. Express to your team the power of a retweet. People love to see others sharing their content. Make sure employees do more than just post about your company. They should be sharing other’s content as well.
6. Double-check all pieces on this timeline.
7. Plan to arrive early. Things come up and you don’t want to be late.
8. Confirm the meetings you set up with current or future clients.
9. Scan the guest list and make notes of people who fall into your ideal customer demographic.

 

Finally, the end of the event shouldn’t mean the end of the relationships you’ve built. Continue cultivating them by following up with those who stopped by. Reaching out to those with inquiries. Following people on social media, and continuing to have conversations with them. When you do, make sure those conversations are about them and their needs and not what you want to sell. If your conversations are all about sales, they will stop listening quickly.

 

If you want to learn more about exhibiting at a trade show, talk to our experienced team today. We can ensure these pieces flow smoothly for you and that you have the best trade show to date.