TradeshowGuy Blog

Category: Tradeshow marketing

  • Meduri Farms Exhibit Project

    Meduri Farms 20x20 custom exhibit, seen at IFT, Chicago, July 2016
    Meduri Farms 20×20 custom exhibit, seen at IFT, Chicago, July 2016

    You never know exactly how new clients will find you. It could be from an introduction at a tradeshow. It might be from someone hearing a webinar that impressed them enough to make a call. It might be from an internet search or a referral. The Meduri Farms exhibit project came about thanks to an online search.

    One of our most recent clients, Meduri Farms of Dallas, Oregon, found TradeshowGuy Exhibits through a Google search. Through a few months of back and forth to answer questions, the issuing of a Request for Proposals including a design from scratch, we ended up getting the project. It was awarded in March after a competition of four or five exhibit firms, and kicked off in April, finally making it’s debut in July at the Institute of Food Technologists show in Chicago at McCormick Place.

    Design was by Greg Garrett Designs. Fabrication by Classic Exhibits. The 20×20 structure was a combination of original design (the tower/alcove unit and product display unit) and rental (counters). The top section of the tower features SEG fabric images up to about a 15′ height which grabs eyeballs from a distance.

    The 15′ tower is 9′ x 9′ with a meeting space in the bottom. Two sides are taken up by alcoves that display products and offer plenty of storage room. The roughly 10′ counters give more product display area and more storage for the oodles of samples handed out during the show.

    According to Sara Lotten, Sales & Customer Service for Meduri Farms, management loved the booth and the results it brought (“that’s beautiful!” was the comment passed along as the president first laid eyes on the booth at the show). Meduri Farms got a great number of positive comments about the booth. Comments are great, but results are more impressive.

    “We got as many leads the first day with the new booth as we did all of last year’s show. We ended up with three times as many leads for the show as last year,” said Lotten.

    Meduri Farms, Inc., founded in 1984 is a premier supplier of specialty dried fruits to food manufacturers around the world.

    Check out our Meduri Farms photo gallery here.

    Find out more about how you can get a new tradeshow booth here.

     

  • Using Webinars to Promote Your Tradeshow Appearance [Webinar Replay]

    There are many ways to let people know about your upcoming tradeshow appearance. You can email them, call them, advertise, get some press, and so on. Have you ever considered using a webinar to promote your upcoming tradeshow appearance?

    Using a webinar to promote your tradeshow appearance does a couple of things: it sets you apart from your competitors who are not doing such a thing, and it allows you as much time as you’d like to point out the specific features and benefits of your products and services. If you tell them enough – but not too much – you’ll have people who coming to your booth who are already interested in seeing more about what you talked about during the webinar. In fact, you can let people in on some inside information in your webinar that you may not want to tell everyone at the show.

    Definitely lots of possibilities with this marketing tactic. Take a look:


    Sign up for our next tradeshow webinar here.

  • Tradeshow Logistics [Webinar Replay]

    Last week I sat in with the good folks at Handshake.com and offered a look at Tradeshow Logistics: Getting Your Ducks in a Row. It’s a part of tradeshow marketing that is critical, but tends to be set aside in favor of things such as pre-show marketing, staff training, lead generation and so on.

    In this webinar, we covered a lot of pertinent things, such as shipping, booth upgrades and graphic changes, the logistics of lead generation and getting them back to your sales team and more. Thanks to Handshake.com for offering to have me host another webinar with them!

    Take a look:

    Tradeshow Logistics Webinar with handshake.com

  • The Power of Tradeshows [Infographic]

    The tradeshow industry continues to show strong growth from year to year. Our friends over at Veloxity Inc. created a very informative infographic that shows loads of details about the tradeshow industry. Take a look:

    Veloxity-Infographic-Trade-Shows

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • How to Know When it’s Time for a New Tradeshow Booth [Video]

    Some companies upgrade their large island booths every year. Must be nice to have that budget!

    Other companies hang on to their old ten-foot inline booth for a decade or more because ‘hey, it still looks good and we can still set it up! Why change?”

    Why change, indeed? If it’s not broke, don’t fix it!

    On the other hand, there are any number of reasons you might consider replacing, or at least upgrading, your old booth. In this short video, we look at some of those reasons:

    Need a new booth?

  • Tradeshows: A Mountain of Responsibilities

    You may have done tradeshows for years, or maybe you’re just getting started. In any event, it’s important that you don’t lose sight of one of the key understandings of doing tradeshows: It’s a mountain of responsibilities.

    IMG_3753If you’re the one who’s tasked with getting the booth from Point A to Point Z (and back), knowing what you’re getting into is almost as important as the series of tasks you’re facing.

    Having stated that, it doesn’t mean that you should be overwhelmed by the mountain of responsibilities. In fact, if you take a closer look at all of those tasks and responsibilities, you can make it much more manageable, by putting it all in context.

    1. Make a list. Before you can climb a mountain, know the steps.
    2. Build a timeline. Now that you have a list of tasks, determine when they each need to be done. Some should be done right away, others are more appropriate right before the show.
    3. Delegate. If you’re in charge, determine which of the tasks you can farm out to other people on the marketing team. Certainly, some items such as graphic design and scheduling travel may go to other people. You may choose to take care of some tasks and delegate others. When you delegate, be clear on the task and when you want it done. Build your schedule around your communication with those people and tasks.
    4. Keep records. I emphasized this in my book Tradeshow Marketing because I think detailed records will serve you well in many more ways than you can imagine. Document everything.
    5. Keep learning. Young dogs can learn new tricks. So can old dogs. No matter where you are in your career arc, keep an open mind and realize you can find new and more efficient ways to do something. Keep your eyes open for new technology, keep connecting with good people and stay optimistic. You’ll do fine.

     

  • 8 Essential Tradeshow Metrics to Track

    Tradeshow Success is built on a lot of moving parts, and it’s often hard to know exactly how successful the show is unless you track the details. So let’s dive in a little and see what 8 essential tradeshow metrics mean the most to your overall success.

    • Booth visitors: knowing the overall number of booth visitors, or at least a valid estimate, can give you valuable information, especially in a year-to-year comparison at the same show, and from show-to-show. Even though when you measure show-to-show it’s a bit of an apples to oranges comparison, it does give you intel to help judge the show’s effectiveness.
    • Leads generated: one of the more straight-forward metrics you can track, but it’s important to break them down into at least threIMG_5571e levels: hot, warm and cool. This will give the sales team the information to correctly follow up on the hot ones right away and the warm and cool ones later.
    • Sales as a result of the leads: track how many new customers came out of the show in the first three months, six months and year (depending on the type of product or service you offer). Track the overall sales amount. It’s harder to track B2B sales from a tradeshow simply because you might not get a new customer until a year or more has passed.
    • New leads: a slight differentiation from all leads, this breaks out the brand new potential clients from those that you’ve had some sort of contact before. Valuable information, indeed.
    • New customers: same with customers – how many news ones did you get as a result of a show vs. how many are repeat customers that happened to be at the show and buy something because of the show.
    • Budget: actual vs. estimated. Keeping track of the investment is important; knowing how much over or under budget is critical.
    • Cost per lead: divide the overall cost of the show by the number of leads gathered to get a cost per lead.
    • Return on Investment: divide the overall net profit you’ve gained over three, six, twelve months by the net profit from the show (gross profit minus the cost of attending the show).

    There are other numbers you can track, but if you do nothing but track these metrics you’ll have a lot more insight into the kind of success your tradeshow marketing program is giving you.

  • 7 Questions You’ll Never Ask Your Exhibit House [Video]

    Choosing an exhibit contractor can be a daunting task. Even though your current exhibit house might be competent, are they doing all they can to make your new exhibit experience as good as it can be? Often it comes down to knowing which questions to ask.

    In this short video with Mel White of Classic Exhibits, our main exhibit manufacturer, we examine those questions that you should be asking any potential exhibit house prior to forking over large sums of money to them:

    Still trying to figure out what exhibit fits your needs? Check out our Exhibit Design Search.

  • Reinvent Your Exhibit Marketing Plan [Webinar Replay]

    Marlys Arnold of ImageSpecialist is an exhibit marketing strategist who recently gave a webinar at Handshake.com titled “Reinvent Your Exhibit Marketing Plan.”

    It’s a great look at all of the moving parts of tradeshow marketing, and is well worth your time. So stop wasting time, energy and money and get your marketing plan together! Check out the video here.

    Screenshot 2016-06-30 12.47.54

  • How to Choose a Custom Tradeshow Exhibit House [Video]

    When it is time for you to choose a custom tradeshow exhibit house with a designer and fabricator, you are facing a daunting choice. Especially if you’re new to the game.

    So we put this brief video together to more closely examine the various ways to choose an exhibit house.

    In this video we look at how you might communicate with your exhibit house, what goes into design, the consultant’s depth of experience and strategic partner resources if needed. It all boils down to a couple of things: what you need (and can they handle it) and how well you get along with the company’s reps.

    Take a look:

    Need to get a quote for an upcoming project? Please go here and fill out the form.