In our previous blog post, we discussed a few questions to ask event coordinators before booking a booth at a trade show. In this post, we’ll discuss a few more important questions.
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What Condition are Your Existing Displays in?
Backwalls and banner stands don’t last forever. You must ask yourself if you’ve taken enough time to get all the display pieces out of storage and inspected them for any kind of damage. If the branding or the messaging looks outdated or even if they look worn out, you must take into consideration a budget for replacing them with new ones.
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What Goals do You Have for the Show?
Depending on your particular industry and the position you hold in the market, your way of defining trade show success may differ from other companies in the same niche as you. Getting additional closing deals, brand exposure, gaining competitive intelligence and also identifying new prospects are all great reasons for you to attend a trade show. Whatever your goals are, make sure you define them numerically. This is essential as it will help you determine if it was in your best interest to attend the event or not after the event is over.
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What is the Projected Return on Investment?
It’s difficult to calculate your event ROI as you’ll have to balance the budget and the cost on one hand and opportunities and values on the other. A general guideline for anticipating event expenses would look something similar to this:
- 10% on purchasing and designing a brand new exhibit
- 30% for renting booth space and floor
- 10% on drayage costs and exhibit shipping
- 20% for accommodations, entertainment and travel
- 20% for on-site labour, storage space and
- 10% on miscellaneous expenses on-site during the event
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How to Ensure Your Booth Gains More Visibility Than Your Competitors?
Ask your event organizer whether they offer any sponsorship packages or not. Also, inquire about the level of additional exposure that you’ll receive in return. Furthermore, make sure you try and negotiate as much as possible. Depending on the options which are being offered to you, simply signing up for a ‘bronze’ sponsorship (which is most likely a low-level sponsorship) could suffice. This may get you twice the amount of prospects as compared to your closest competitor who possibly won’t have a sponsorship whatsoever.
It will also be an added bonus if your sponsorship package includes presenter or speaker opportunities or even the chance to participate in a roundtable discussion on stage. This will make your event impact all the better.
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Will You Have Enough Staff at the Event?
If the event is spread over multiple days or is taking place during a work week, it means that you may only be able to take very few key staff members with you. You must first calculate your event staffing needs. If you can’t have that many bodies out of office for the duration of the event or if you simply don’t have enough people in-house, you can think about hiring provisional trade show staff members.
Additionally, also consider the manpower which will be needed for the setup and also the teardown of the exhibit. If your displays are complicated, heavy, large, or needs skilled labour for assembling, you must factor it into your overall expenses. This will be the cost of hiring more workers who can handle all this.
These questions are by no means a comprehensive checklist. You may, however, have other questions which need to be asked, but the ones mentioned in Part I and II of this post are surely among the most important ones. It’s time to go forward and ask these questions to your next trade show event organizer to get optimum results out of your investments.
