Best tradeshow marketing tips and case studies. Call 800-654-6946.
Best tradeshow marketing tips and case studies. Call 800-654-6946.

Travel

All You Need to Know About Tradeshow Planning and Traveling

This is a guest article by Lee Becknell of Pinnacle Promotions.

Trade shows provide companies and marketing professionals with excellent opportunities to grow their brand awareness and generate valuable leads, but there’s a lot of preparation that goes into participating in a trade show. Between budgeting, arranging travel plans, preparing staff members and ordering promotional products, it can be difficult to prioritize all the necessary tasks—especially if you’ve never attended a trade show before.

We’ve compiled some helpful tips to guide you through the trade show process. From determining which conventions to attend to booking your travel plans, you’ll be able to master your first trade show experience and grow your business in the process.

Selecting the right tradeshows

The first of many steps in the trade show preparation process is selecting which events are the best for you to capture the attention of your target demographic. Begin by researching upcoming events in your industry and decide if you’d like to showcase your business on a local, regional, national or even international level. If you’ve never attended a trade show as a professional, you may want to start small with a local or regional event before moving on to national and international events.

Depending on factors like location, other attending vendors and time of year, some trade shows may be more beneficial to your business than others. Ask other experienced business owners in the industry for tips and try to seek out feedback on specific shows for more insight on which events would be the most advantageous to your company. Keep in mind that you should try to plan all events for the year at once to keep yourself organized and provide plenty of time to make arrangements, including enough time to order promotional products.

Book flights and hotels in advance

Determining which tradeshows you want to attend well in advance ensures enough time to plan, prep your employees and purchase travel accommodations before prices begin to rise. Tradeshows typically attract people from across the country, and sometimes even the world, which means everyone will be scrambling for plane tickets and hotel rooms. The earlier you can plan, the better off you’ll be in terms of securing accommodations.

If you’re the one in charge of planning for tradeshows, you should develop a travel protocol to ensure that all employees know how they’ll be arriving at the event and where they’ll be staying. Once the most willing and qualified employees have been selected to participate in the event, you can create a spreadsheet to organize important information such as flight and accommodation details. If the event is close enough to drive to, coordinate groups to carpool.

Many tradeshows are hosted in convention centers, which are usually located inside a hotel. If you can plan the trip in advance, you may be able to secure rooms right at the convention center, saving your employees travel time and the additional costs associated with transportation.

Budgeting for the event

Setting a budget for any given event is an essential part of the trade show planning process. A good rule of thumb for estimating the total cost is to multiply the price of a space at any given event by three. This should give you an accurate guideline on how much you’re likely to spend on all major expenses, including booth rental, display materials, travel and promotional products.

Set objectives for the tradeshow

Tradeshows can provide businesses with many different kinds of opportunities—networking with other influential members of the industry, generating leads, expanding your brand influence and building a reputation for your company. But, before you hit the trade show track, you should set some clear, obtainable goals for your business.

First, determine specifically what you’re hoping to get out of each event and avoid goals that are too vague. Are you looking to expand your brand’s exposure? Generate sales leads? Recruit employees? Announce a new product line? All of these objectives are common reasons to get your company involved with trade shows. By narrowing down your intentions, you allow the business to more accurately create materials and select promotional products that will reflect your goal and lead to your target results.

Order promotional products well in advance to use as trade show giveaways

Promotional products are vital to the success of a company’s display booth. Handing out a unique product that people will actually use will help your business stand out and make an impression at the trade show. Though attendees certainly go to these events to learn more about the vendors and network with other professionals in the industry, people still tend to gravitate towards booths offering some type of trade show giveaway.

Attract more people to your booth by offering useful and interesting trade show giveaway products like customized travel bags or retail-inspired tumblers. Once you’ve attracted people to your booth, you’ll have the opportunity to talk to them about your company and spark their interest in your products or services. Another huge benefit of promotional products is that these items work as usable advertisements. Every time someone reaches for that promotional product with your company’s distinct logo, they’ll be reminded of your business, which can lead to conversions and positive word-of-mouth reviews.


Lee Becknell serves as the Senior Digital Marketing Manager for Pinnacle Promotions. Lee oversees digital marketing from the Atlanta, GA headquarters. Lee has been with Pinnacle for over six years. Lee enjoys spending time with her husband, son and golden retriever, running and taking naps.

The Tradeshow Road Warrior Web Roundup

When it comes to assembling a list of what it takes to be a tradeshow road warrior, there’s nothing like tripping around the web to see what other people say, right? I travel a handful of times a year for work, and maybe a time or two for pleasure, but the real road warriors know more than I. Let’s take a look:

Morag Barrett, founder and CEO of SkyeTeam chimes in on Entrepreneur with These Five Tips Will Turn You Into a True Road Warrior. For example, use TSA Precheck, take shoe bags and make sure you have backup power for your devices.

Tradeshow Road Warrior

At Inc.com, Suzanne Lucas takes the flip perspective: 10 Tips to Survive Life with a Road Warrior. If you’re a spouse or partner who’s home with the kids, life can be difficult. She offers tips such as making use of technology to stay in touch, don’t save things until he gets home, make family a priority and more.

Jessica Pettitt offers Packing and Travel Tips to Become a True Road Warrior in a post on Speaker Magazine. She speaks staying in touch with family and friends, getting good exercise, and of course, packing!

On Salesforce.com, Laura Stack gives us The Way of the Productive Road Warrior: Advice for Newbie Business Travelers. She covers how to plan for travel, plan for lots of downtime, be loyal to your airline for more points, and more.

From the Wrike blog for brilliant teams, Emily Bonnie offers Road Warrior Productivity: Must-Have Tips and Tools. Tips include carrying extra business cards, tackling the busy-work (emails, expense reports, organizing your computer, etc.). Tools include having a good battery backup for devices, staying hydrated during long flights, and taking podcasts along.

Heading to Europe for business and pleasure? Here are some tips for saving $$ from Rebecca Lehman on Brad’s Deals: 20 Things I’ve Learned That Save Money While Traveling in Europe. Tips include do a lot of walking, take public transit, don’t tip at restaurants and eat at food cars, among others.

Whether you travel half the time, or just a few times a year, it does take some time and thought, and yes, some experience, to make the travel go smoothly.


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