How To Plan For A Successful Trade Show with Social Media, Promotional Gifts & Other Activities

It has never been so easy to spread the word that you are going to be exhibiting at an upcoming tradeshow.  Where we used to have to get on the phone and send letters in the post, social media and email has made promoting your next exhibition much easier and cheaper.  This is not to say that you should not use the more traditional ways of promoting your event.  Used together with new methods of business promotional, new media such as Twitter will help you to experience what could be your most successful show ever.  The most important thing is that you plan well and give yourself enough time to really get it right!

So many people make the common mistake of waiting too long to do the necessary things to promote their involvement in a trade show.  Many also do not consider what they are going to do to ensure that they get the most for their money when the exhibition days finally arrive.  This is unfortunate, as trade shows are usually quite costly.  They can be an excellent means of attracting  new customers and impressing those you already have!  So get it right!

Easily said.  So what do you need to do to get it right?  You need to promote the show, ensure you have an attractive booth, order promotional gifts to remind visitors to your stand who you are and what you do after they return to their offices. It also does not hurt to look into other promotional activities such as competitions that will help draw people to your exhibition stand.

Get your customers to ‘follow’ you so that they can always be in the know.  You should also look for new followers that may find your products and/or services of interest.  One excellent way of doing this is to pay a visit to a website called www.socialoomph.com.  You can try the site out for free.  On it, you can choose keywords that describe what you do.  For example, if you sell catering equipment, you might type in keywords such as frying pans, aprons, ovens etc. The more the better!  Socialoomph will then scan all of Twitter for tweets that have those words in them and forward them to you.  If you find a person or business who you think might be interested in your products, follow them on Twitter.  There is a good chance they will follow you back and you might just get a new customer.

As you are spreading the word about your upcoming show, you will want to begin working on your exhibition stand if you do not already have one.  If you have an in house designer then you are already half way there.  If not, contact your promotional gift supplier. Often, they can supply this service free of charge when you are purchasing your promotional gifts from them as well.  Many promotional gift suppliers also supply exhibition shells and banners so it may be worth finding one that does.

Your exhibition stand should really sell the type of company you are.  Obviously, if you work for a very large company such as Chevrolet, you may have an extra large budget to create an amazing eye-catching design.  We cannot all be Chevrolet.  Less expensive options are available and could make your stand look very nice and professional.  Again, contact a professional exhibition display company or a good promotional gift supplier for the best results.

With regard to promotional gifts, you are passing up an excellent opportunity to promote your company  if you do not give away business gifts on your stand!  These do not need to be expensive, but try to consider who your target customers are before diving in and purchasing any old gift.  Try to find gifts that have a use as well.  Products such as promotional pens, mugs, mouse pads are all obvious choices but if you have customers that would appreciate more niche products such as  printed calipers, laser pointers or tailor’s tape etc, they may well be worth considering.  There are a lot of niche promotional products on the market and any good promotional gifts supplier should be able to assist you.

The important thing to consider when purchasing promotional gifts is that you get a variety of inexpensive and more expensive gifts.  The inexpensive gifts can be given away to every visitor to your stand while have a few nice executive gifts for your key customers and qualified leads will go down extremely well.

In addition to gifts to give away, you will want to ensure you have plenty of brochures and catalogue to hand unless you happen to be one of the many paper free companies.  If this is the case, try to ensure people know where to find your information on line so that you will not be forgotten when the show is over.

One last thing to consider is the other activities you could do to get visitors to the trade show to visit your stand.  Many companies rent gambling machines or hire show room models.  You could also run a competition for a magnum or two or three of Champagne.  It really depends on who you target audience is.  Get it all right and you will have an excellent trade show experience.