Every marketer knows when it comes to getting in front of your customers, trade shows are an important part of that strategy. Whether you want to make new sales or deals on the show floor or generate leads, often times it’s the face to face interaction that people respond to. As expensive as trade shows can be, it’s important to know where to spend your trade show marketing budget and how to maximize that trade show marketing budget. Whether you’ve got a hefty budget, or a shoe string budget, there are options for everyone to increase your ROI within these constraints.
Select the Right Booth Space
They say it’s all about location, location, location. You want to be smart and select the booth space right for your brand. Whether that means selecting a 20×20 trade show booth instead of a 40×50 booth space, that can give you the necessary space within your trade show marketing budget to focus on other areas aside from the physical space you’ll be occupying in order to increase your ROI at the trade show.
Invest in Your Trade Show Exhibit
Often, if people spend too much on their physical booth space, they’ll try to go cheap on their trade show exhibit. This is a mistake for many reasons because absent coming up with more money to fill that booth space with an exciting exhibit, they often go with something boring. Or worse, they turn to an exhibit house providing a cheap estimate that will only hit them with a post-show bill they’ll never see coming. Do yourself a favor and invest the bulk of your trade show marketing budget in a unique trade show exhibit. You can avoid the trap of going to the show’s general contractor and looking like every other exhibit in a crowded exhibit hall and you can avoid post-show billing with a little homework. Absolute Exhibits guarantees no post-show billing and produces some of the most unique and stunning work across multiple industries. Our fixed-price guarantee offers peace of mind that you’ll pay one price up front for all of your trade show exhibit needs without the hassle.
Invest Your Trade Show Marketing Budget in a Pre-Show Campaign
Starting months before the show even happens, you should be reaching out to prospects and clients of your own to join you at the show. In addition to that, if you’ve got a healthy budget, you should also create a targeted pay per click advertising campaign with a retargeting campaign so you can reach new potential show attendees. If the show offers a list in advance, you should purchase that list and start emailing these contacts. This can be a valuable investment of your trade show marketing budget because you’ll be reaching the people who will actually be attending the show. Don’t forget to work social media as well. The people who follow you on social media will want to know where you’ll be. Using hashtags, you can also reach out to show attendees and drive more foot traffic to your booth. Social media is free and if done in concert with email marketing, online advertising and calling campaigns, can be of great help to increase foot traffic.
Try an Experiential Event
If you’ve got some money left in your trade show marketing budget, consider hosting an experiential event. Experiential events are popular at trade shows because they allow show attendees to experience the brand for themselves, instead of having the brand parroted to them by a booth staffer. There have been many wonderful examples that you can try such as creating shareable moments for attendees, virtual reality and augmented reality features, and more. Consider an experiential event to bring in the crowds if you’ve got left over room in the budget.
Consider Sponsorship
Whether your trade show marketing budget is very large or very small, sponsorship is a great way to get your name out in front of attendees. For as low as a few hundred dollars, some shows will put your brand name on a charging station. For as high as tens of thousands, you can be named a major sponsor. Whatever you choose, your brand name will be listed in literature, the show website, and various places at the show itself. If you’ve got money in your trade show marketing budget, sponsorship is a great way to increase your ROI and get your name out there.
Whatever your budget, these are all great ideas for maximizing your budgetary spend against show ROI. The more leads you obtain, the more you reach out to the right people, and the more you are visible, the better your trade show experience is going to be.
