Classic Exhibits has been designing and building contemporary, sustainable trade show displays through our ecoSmart line since 2007. No one in the exhibit industry has a longer or larger investment in sustainability than Classic.
What you may not know is that our commitment to “green” extends well beyond ecoSmart Displays. Classic products, all Classic products, benefit from our sustainable initiatives.
For Example:
Our aluminum contains 70% recycled content. And we recycle all material drops.
Ourroto-molded cases are exclusively made with regrind plastic.
Ourreusable foam packaging is 100% recycled material.
Ourscrap wood is recycled into mulch and woodchips.
Ourclear plastic is separated and recycled locally.
Is there more? Of course. You can’t produce ecoSmart for 16 years without sustainability spreading into every facet of your business. Can we improve? Of course. Look for greener printing options in 2024 and even more eco-friendly materials. Plus newer ecoSmart inline, island, and accessory designs.
For 35 years, Classic Exhibits has been designing and building creative custom solutions for our Distributor Partners and their clients. As the largest private-label exhibit manufacturer in North America, we have the unmatched capability, capacity, and creativity to create 3D projects ranging from 10 x 10 inline displays to 60 x 80 double-deck islands.
We all know the expression, “If you fail to plan, then plan to fail.” Which, if we’re honest, isn’t always true. Some projects don’t require much planning. Trade shows, and in particular trade show marketing and exhibition, do require careful and systematic planning to be successful.
Yet, there are companies that devote less time to their trade show planning than they would to a 4-year-old’s birthday party.
It’s nuts… especially when you consider the cost of trade shows and the lost opportunities when trade show planning is handled haphazardly. But you’re not that person, right? You want your trade show program to be professional and financially successful, which is why you’re reading this article.
The Importance of Trade Show Planning
Trade show planning is crucial for businesses to maximize their return on investment (ROI) or return on objectives (ROO). A clear and comprehensive plan ensures that companies maximize their sales opportunities while minimizing costs (and stress).
Any “live event” can be unpredictable and trade shows are no exception. However, what’s often described as “unpredictable” by some exhibitors, like shipping, labor, or show services, is more often the result of poor planning. Everyone and every company that provides services to exhibitors understands that communicating deadlines, pricing, timelines, and expectations makes everyone’s job easier. They don’t want surprises any more than you do.
Regarding what size exhibit to buy or rent, as a general rule, a 10 x 10 booth is sufficient for a small business. At 100 square feet, you can accommodate at least four people at once, two staffers and two attendees. Consider a 10 x 20 for a medium business and islands for a larger business. The size of the booth, however, depends on your goals and products. At a trade show, size matters, but it should complement, not dictate your exhibit marketing goals.
Trade Show Event Planning: The Basics
Assign one person to be in charge of timetables and scheduling. Assign another person to draw up the trade show budget and define the marketing goals. This person will have to account for the cost of renting or buying a booth, the cost of accessories such as literature racks, as well as travel expenses. Travel expenses will vary depending on the location and duration of your stay. If you decide to rent, you should expect to budget:
25% on renting your booth space
20% on design and graphics
15% on electrical, cleaning, and drayage
10% on shipping materials to and from the trade show
10% on press kits and pre-show promotions
20% on staffing, travel, and other miscellaneous expenses
If you decide to purchase an exhibit, you will want to work with a professional exhibit designer. Most exhibit distributors have a designer on staff or rely on their exhibit manufacturer to supply design and rendering services. You will need to follow the rules and regulations on booth design for your particular show as well as observe basics such as fire, electrical, and safety codes and provide wheelchair accessibility. Rely on your exhibit designer who understands these requirements.
Trade Show Planning Guide: Key Steps to Success
By investing in comprehensive trade show planning, businesses can maximize their chances of achieving their goals, generating new leads, building brand awareness, and securing new business opportunities.
Define Clear Goals and Objectives: Without clear goals, it’s impossible to measure the success of a trade show participation. Thorough planning helps identify specific objectives, such as generating leads, increasing brand awareness, or launching new products.
Develop a Strategic Budget: Trade shows can be costly, so creating a detailed budget is essential to avoid overspending. Planning allows for accurate budgeting for booth space, staff expenses, travel, accommodation, and marketing materials.
Design an Engaging Booth: The booth is the company’s face at the trade show, so it needs to be visually appealing, informative, and functional. Planning ensures that the booth design aligns with the brand message and effectively attracts visitors.
Prepare a Pre-Show Marketing Campaign: Trade show success often hinges on pre-show marketing efforts. Planning allows for strategic campaigns to generate interest, drive traffic to the booth, and schedule appointments with potential customers.
Train Your Staff: Trade show staff should be knowledgeable about the company’s products or services and well-prepared to engage with visitors. Planning ensures that staff is trained on sales techniques, lead capture methods, and answering common questions.
Establish Lead Capture and Follow-Up Systems: Effective lead capture is crucial for converting trade show interactions into future business opportunities. Planning involves setting up systems to capture leads digitally or on paper and establishing a follow-up process to nurture those leads.
Measure and Evaluate Results: After the trade show, it’s important to evaluate the results and identify areas for improvement. Planning facilitates the collection of relevant data, such as lead generation, booth traffic, and customer interactions, to measure the success of the event.
Trade Show Management: Ensuring a Smooth Experience
Who is trade show management? It’s less straightforward than it appears. At most shows or events, there are three management teams, each with different responsibilities. Knowing who does what will make your life considerably easier if you encounter issues or simply need answers to questions.
Exhibition, Convention, or Show Hall Management: Every exhibit hall or event venue has a team that handles sales and marketing, schedules shows, maintains the facility, and negotiates contracts with unions, food vendors, and janitorial services. They are responsible for the management and success of the building. For smaller shows, meetings, or events, they may even serve as the show management.
Show Management: Whether it’s a local boat show or the annual trade show for the American Cardiology Association, the “show” is owned and managed by a company or an association. They are responsible for everything associated with the show without necessarily handling every activity. For example, they identify the location for the show and negotiate space and services with the facility management. They also contract with a General Show Contractor to handle drayage, electrical, pipe and drape, signage, labor, etc. However, the show management devotes much of their time to marketing the show, developing education sessions, scheduling speakers, creating social events, soliciting sponsors, and registering attendees and exhibitors.
General Show Contractor (GSC); Most exhibitors interact primarily with the General Show Contractor and often confuse the GSC with both Show Management or Show Hall Management. As mentioned before, the GSC handles a variety of functions for exhibitors, depending on the show. These may include moving and storing freight, electrical services, cleaning, labor, sign rigging, rental furniture, and in some cases even renting exhibits. The GSC has a contract with Show Management and when an exhibitor hits a wall resolving a problem with the GSC, they should contact Show Management, who typically has a temporary office in the show hall.
The Exhibitor Advocate: The Exhibitor Advocate is a non-profit advocacy group that provides exhibitors with education, resources, and assistance with trade show challenges. They’re not show management nor are they at the show. Instead, they are a valuable partner who can help exhibitors address challenges and prominent pain points to ensure your events remain a valuable and irreplaceable marketing channel.
The Exhibitor Advocate’s mission is to amplify the voice of exhibitors to ensure the enduring success of exhibitions and events by collaborating with all stakeholders to promote and cultivate open communication, consistent standards, and industry best practices.
Seamless Exhibit Planning with Classic Exhibits!
Successful trade show marketing doesn’t happen by accident. There’s always a strategy and a plan. The key is identifying the right strategy and executing the right plan. For over 30 years, Classic Exhibits has been a reliable source of expertise for new and seasoned trade show marketers.
The Classic Exhibits Distributor Network includes over 200 exhibit houses and display professionals in North America. Find success on the trade show floor with an exhibit that reflects your marketing message. For more information, see www.classicexhibits.com and explore Exhibit Design Search or request a meeting with a Classic Distributor Partner.
You’re either a planner by choice or a planner by necessity. Or you “wing it.” We’ll ignore the “wing it” group since they probably clicked to “5 Easy Steps to Trade Show Success” once they read the word “planner.”
When it comes to trade shows, someone has to be the master planner. They don’t have to make every decision, but they do have to own the list, including additions, revisions, and due dates. In other words, someone has to be the adult about your trade show planning.
So why keep a trade show checklist? Trade shows are expensive, often as much as 30-40% of a company’s annual marketing budget, and trade show costs keep rising as freight, labor, travel, and show services increase often at double-digit rates.
The person who manages the Trade Show Checklist will be able to maximize your budget by ensuring the timely booking of travel, lodging, freight, and promotional materials and the completion of show forms during the less expensive early bird dates. Honestly, it’s a thankless job, but one that’s just as important as the creative, sales, and marketing tasks required for a successful trade show program.
Why You Need a Trade Show Checklist
Start by searching the internet for a “trade show checklist.” There’s no shortage of examples. Some are free. Others have a cost. None are identical, because no shows, companies, or individuals are identical. Ideally, create your own or ask your exhibit house if they have a template.
The person who manages the Trade Show Checklist will be able to maximize your budget by ensuring the timely booking of travel, lodging, freight, and promotional materials and the completion of show forms during the less expensive early bird dates. Honestly, it’s a thankless job, but one that’s just as important as the creative, sales, and marketing tasks required for a successful trade show program.
The checklist also ensures nothing gets forgotten or overlooked. Which can and will happen to new exhibitors. There are big “Oh No’s!” like not scheduling freight to and from the show, booking labor to install and disassemble your exhibit, and forgetting to purchase flooring. Those can be expensive to purchase at the last minute. Then there are the “Oh Darn!” tasks like not including cleaning supplies in the case/crate, sending literature at the last minute, or not ordering lead retrieval until you arrive at the show. They’re annoying but not catastrophic.
Finally, trade shows are stressful and stress is the exact opposite of what you want before, during, and after a show. Admittedly, checklists are not stress-free since it’s all about completing tasks (which often require the assistance of others) and completing them on time and with accuracy. With each passing show, trade show checklist management becomes easier – and it’s not because the number of tasks gets shorter. The list often gets longer. Knowledge and experience make the job easier. Completing the electrical form, which gave you hives, takes minutes instead of hours. And, after a few hiccups, you understand when to schedule I&D labor vs. rigging vs. flooring. You’ve done the trade show choreography and every move, every step has a logic that seemed utterly random before.
Detailed Trade Show Planning Checklist: Preparing the Logistics
In reality, you need both a budget template (shown below) and a checklist. And while they serve two different purposes, managing costs vs. managing tasks, there’s considerable overlap.
Your budget template can serve as your preliminary checklist, but eventually, your checklist will be longer and will include dates, names, and other details. Some companies already use designated project management software like Asana, but in reality, Excel or even Outlook are sufficient in the beginning.
Trade Show Exhibitor Checklist: Assembling Your Exhibit & Team
Start by identifying the departments and individuals who should “own” elements of the trade show program. It’s more than just Marketing. Sales, Product Development, Customer Service, Shipping, and Accounting/Finance all have roles and responsibilities in successful trade show programs. Successful trade show marketing requires a broad-based commitment in the company, including (and especially) from Senior Management.
In most cases, you’ll be working with an exhibit house partner on your trade show marketing strategy, exhibit design and build, freight, and storage. Their knowledge is invaluable as a resource. They may even have a generic trade show checklist available for you to use.
Some of the preliminary items on your checklist should include:
Exhibition goals and strategy
Budget
Departmental responsibilities
Show date(s) and due dates for ordering services
Exhibit design meeting(s)
Graphic design meeting(s)
Identifying booth staffing and responsibilities
Booking travel and lodging
Creating pre-show, show, and post-show marketing/sales plan, including sponsorships, mailings, invitations, and in-booth events and activities
Designing and ordering promotional materials and giveaways
Scheduling freight to and from the show
11 Must have Trade Show Setup Supplies
Trade shows are a delicate balance between order and chaos. Here’s a list of 11 often-forgotten items that will make your job easier and more efficient.
White Gloves for handling graphics
Power Strips and Extension Cords labeled with your company name/contact (renting them at the show will be equal to the cost of your oldest child’s first year of college)
Packing Tape (for dismantling/repacking)
Cleaning Supplies/Wipes/Magic Erasers (for setup cleaning and before the show opens each day)
Setup Instructions/Printed Staging Photos for faster setup. It’s important to label which crate has the instruction booklet so your team knows where to start
Extra Velcro for wire management or last-minute graphic add-ons
Sharpies for “Empty Crate” labels and for boxes during repacking
Steamer to remove wrinkles from fabric graphics
Lint Roller
Vacuum after installation and before the show opens. This saves on cleaning and is faster so you don’t have to wait for the GSC cleaning services.
Small Toolbox with basic tools like screwdrivers, boxcutter, allen wrenches, measuring tape, and anything else essential to your display assembly.
8 Personal Tips and/or Supplies for Any Exhibitor
Comfortable (not new) Shoes.
Belt (if you’ve ever had to buy a belt in a casino shop, you know why you don’t want to forget it).
Your “Go To” Pain Medication.
Laptop, Phone, Tablet Charging Cords.
Plastic Dry Cleaning Bags for Your Already Clean and Pressed Clothing.
Early Morning/Late Night Snacks
Breath Mints (for you and close friends)
Business Cards (yes, at least a few, for those moments when only a business card will do).
Additional Tips for a Successful Trade Show
Trade show marketing is marketing… but a specialized form of marketing. Expertise takes time. A healthy mix of personal experience, professional advice from exhibition experts, and online resources can significantly shorten the learning curve.
In order to make the most of your investment, it’s important to be prepared and have a plan in place. Here are some tips for a successful trade show:
1. Set clear goals and objectives. What do you hope to achieve at the trade show? Are you looking to generate leads, increase brand awareness, or launch a new product? Having clear goals will help you measure your success and make sure your efforts are aligned.
2. Choose the right trade show. There are hundreds of trade shows held each year, so it’s important to choose one that is relevant to your target audience. Research different trade shows to find one that is a good fit for your industry, size, and budget.
3. Develop a strong marketing and promotional plan. Let people know you’ll be at the trade show and what you have to offer. Use social media, email marketing, and press releases to generate interest.
4. Create a visually appealing and functional booth. Your booth is your home away from home at the trade show, so make sure it’s a good representation of your brand. Use bright colors, eye-catching graphics, and clear signage. Make sure your booth is staffed with knowledgeable and friendly representatives who can answer questions and provide information about your products or services.
5. Prepare a sales pitch. You’ll have a limited amount of time to talk to potential customers, so make sure you have a clear and concise sales pitch. Practice your pitch beforehand so you can deliver it confidently.
6. Follow up after the show. Don’t let your leads go cold! Follow up with potential customers within a few days of the trade show to thank them for their interest and schedule a follow-up meeting or call.
Classic Exhibits is Here to Help with Your Trade Show Checklist!
For over 30 years, Classic Exhibits has specialized in trade show exhibit design, manufacturing, and exhibition marketing. That expertise comes with an obligation to educate new exhibitors and guide them toward best practices, like careful budgeting and detailed checklists. Success at a trade show isn’t haphazard or random. It happens when exhibitors have a clear strategy and execute it with discipline and precision.
Classic Exhibits Inc. designs and manufactures portable, modular, hybrid, and custom exhibit solutions. Classic Exhibits products are represented by an extensive distributor network in North America. For more information, contact us at 866-652-2100 or www.classicexhibits.com.
