When exhibiting at an industry event and/or accepting a speaker slot, it can be an incredibly stressful process. There are so many elements to think about, even if you’re just creating a small stand. Improve the odds of seeing a return on investment (ROI) for your business, whilst minimising the pressure on your employees, by being well organised and knowing what is expected.
A well-respected and established event organiser running a trade show will likely have a clear system and offer lots of advice on the best times to have parts of your plan in place. Unfortunately, not all events are created equal. We’d advise researching the organisers as well as the show, before committing to booking. A poorly organised show can add stress to your team, particularly if there are snagging issues, but you may still decide that that event is a perfect platform for your products or services.
Below is a list of the various parts of the process that may be relevant to you, which is based on our experience as a PR & marketing consultancy. We regularly attend construction and industry events in addition to having organised stands for us and for clients.
Before you book
Have a plan before you plan
When you take part in or attend a lot of events, you realise how important it is to know what to expect before you even register your interest. Things to consider:
Your budget
Can you afford the expense? What do you have already that can be repurposed? With a smaller budget, is a smaller stand a better choice or can you save money by doing a lot of the work in-house? Having a budget will also help you make smarter decisions about what you need and what you can do without.
People
How many people will you need and for how many days, to ensure adequate cover and breaks? Also factor in time for set up and breakdown of the stand, whether you need drivers, who is manual handling trained/physically able (if lifting/carrying is involved), and skill level required. Having a mix of experience is helpful as you may need senior members to answer harder/technical questions. Staffing will need to be included as part of your budget allowance in some cases, but certainly will need to be considered when their absence affects the general running of the business.
Key people
Assign one key person to oversee all aspects of the project, from booking through to reporting after the event (they don’t need to complete all tasks, just be responsible for the timing of them and reminding people when things need doing). Check all scheduled annual leave for anyone involved in the project – you don’t want to find out the assigned graphic designer is on holiday the week before you need to submit your banner to the printers.
Processes
Have a clear process to follow that any member of the team can pick up and know what needs to happen next, if they must take over from the key person selected in the beginning. This process ideally should also include a schedule for meeting deadlines, including lead times for any orders.
Suppliers
Have all suppliers you use (eg. Printers) or plan to contact for quotes in an easily accessible document with contact numbers, account managers, costings, and estimated turnaround times. You will need to add these deadlines into your checklist/plan.
Brief
If you’re working with a PR/marketing consultancy like us, or outsourcing to a stand design and installation company, you will need to create a brief for what kind of stand you’re looking for. This will need to include:
- Booking confirmation which includes details of size of space and what is included.
- Budget.
- Deadlines.
- Points of contact (your assigned person who is managing the event process and the event organiser).
- Brand guidelines (colours, fonts, logos).
- What you want to achieve/your goals.
- Target audience.
- Key messaging.
- Previous examples (if you’ve had stands created before) or examples of what you like the look of (you may also want to consider including what you don’t like and why).
- Any ideas you have on things such as theme, what you want to include/already have.
- Any additional information that may be helpful.
What does success look like?
Before the event, perhaps even before you book the event, your team will need to discuss what you feel the ROI should look like. We have a blog that covers relevant measurements, but these may include:
- Collecting leads
- Sales
- General awareness
- Traffic to the website
- Bookings for CPDs
- Downloads
- Attendees to presentation
This will determine how you approach your strategy for the event, as you should treat it like a campaign, with a report issued a set period afterwards to assess its value to you and your business.