Our online tradeshow Exhibit Design Search is a live and active entity with changes afoot frequently. We thought it was worth taking some time to point out some recent updates to the service:
Not only are you able to browse literally thousands of exhibits, you can find rental exhibits, rental furniture, hanging signs, lights, shipping cases, tablet stands, counters, pedestals, banner stands and so much more. Beyond that, you can easily save any item to your gallery, which is a very useful tool that allows you to easily share the dynamic library with colleagues and partners.
Tradeshow record keeping. Yikes! Who wants to keep track of everything.
Record keeping is one of those things that most of us wish we didn’t have to do, – we know it’s tedious – but know we really should do. So how much should we keep, what should we keep, where is the best place to keep it, and WHY?
Tim Patterson discusses tradeshow record keeping in this brief but informative webinar:
This week I hooked up with Matt Hill of the Hill Group out of San Jose to discuss the importance of booth staff training. It was a fun and engaging but brief 20 minute conversation which hit all the high points of why tradeshow booth staffers will do much better with training on how to specifically work with visitors at tradeshows. We go over questions to ask, how to engage and disengage politely, lead generation, body language and more.
It must be because I was a rock-and-roller from about the age of eight. Or maybe it was the first time I sat down at a drumset when I was 11 and knew I had to have one of my own. Or maybe it was when I finally figured out at the age of 16 what a bar chord on a guitar was, and how I could move it up and down the neck of the guitar for different chords.
How many decades ago was this? What’s up with the goofy hat?
Or maybe it’s just because I gotta have music in my life as much as possible. I listen all day long, and grab my guitar to work on chord progressions, play an old favorite or sit down at the drums often to bash out something.
So you can imagine as my iTunes library’s some 47,412 selections (and counting) is set on shuffle day after day, I hear a lot of music. And that music inspires me in interesting directions.
Like the song I’m listening to now called “The Endless Night” by Return to Forever. I put “tradeshow endless night blog post” the Google box and on the first page was a link to “Ten Very Cool Examples of Experiential Marketing” by David Moth at Ecocunsultancy. Now that’s some inspiration!
Next comes “Red Rain” by Peter Gabriel. Let’s see what happens when I search for “tradeshow blog red rain.” Up came “Running a Live Lab at a Tradeshow” by Redgate on their blog. What an inspired idea for a tradeshow!
Next: “Hidden Treasure” by Traffic. A search for “hidden treasure tradeshow blog” gave me “The 4 Most Annoying Hidden Tradeshow Costs”on the Expo Marketing blog. Hey, saving money on shipping, drayage, deadlines and labor is definitely inspiring!
How about one more? One of my favorite Sixties bands, The Troggs, came along on my computer and played “Girl in Black.” So when I searched for “tradeshow blog girl in black,” on page one was an article from Classic Exhibits’ blog titled “What Not to Wear at a Tradeshow,” which is definitely a good read.
Now that you’re found out the wide diversity of music that inspires me, I want to know – what inspires you?
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:
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!
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:
Time for a new tradeshow booth, but you know it’s going to be a hard sell to the boss? Help is here!
In this short video I look at the steps you can take to pitch the boss on how a new booth will help sell the company’s products and services more effectively and deliver a solid ROI.
You want a new tradeshow booth, but perhaps you don’t know exactly where to start.
You might consider issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP) to a select group of exhibit houses. This gives you an organized process to judge which exhibit consultant might be the best fit for your company and your project.
Here’s a quick video that examines what it takes to issue an RFP:
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.
