If you are a trade show manager, you understand that any mistakes can be extremely costly. To help you get the most out of your investment, we’ve assembled the most common trade show errors for your business. Avoid these and ensure yourself a winning exhibit.
Prior to the Event

Goal Setting
Ask yourself what you wish to accomplish at this trade show event. Once you have determined what you want to achieve from the trade show, you will be able to decide your booth’s theme, design, products, marketing tools and so forth. You’ll need to coordinate every aspect to ensure a seamless presentation.

Knowing your Venue
Most facilities will provide you with trade show itinerary, guidelines and maps. Pay close attention to these documents as they will usually include everything you will need to know. You do not want to set up your booth with graphics and tables, only to find that you are violating a trade show regulation, and have to break your booth apart on day one.

Your Staff
Some trade show managers are so focused on the event and their display that they do not consider their staff. Employees are often just told what time to be at the trade show event, and nothing more. Briefing staff or hiring professional trade show talent before the event makes an enormous the difference in qualifying leads and utilizing the best of your time. Communicate your goals for the event and set your staff up to succeed.

During the Event

Ignoring the Needs of Potential Customers
This goes hand in hand with preparing your staff for the trade show event. If your staff is not spending enough time inquiring about the needs of the visitor, they may be missing an important sales opportunity. Your staff needs to know what the trade show visitor wants and needs in their product. Providing them with too much information or facts that are unrelated to their problems may leave them feeling bored or confused.

Handouts
Handing out literature can be a great way to provide information to potential clients. However, literature may just be thrown in the trash can because they do not want to carry it with them throughout the show. It may be better for your company to allow visitors to pick up your literature if they desire, but you want them to leave with something that has your logo. There are numerous promotional products that are available to visitors, as well as something that is useful. Pens, water bottles, carrying bags, and so forth are all examples of products that can display your company logo and remind them to view your company’s website when they return home.

After the Event

The Follow-Up
This may be one of the most vital parts of the trade show event; it may also be the most overlooked. The leads that you receive from the event are hot leads. The longer you leave them sit the colder they will become. A trade show visitor may not remember you a month after the trade show. That is a lost lead, and losing leads is wasted money. Determining how the leads are handled after the trade show is something that should be established during the planning phase of your next exhibit.

Check out our guide on Utilizing Social Networking to Market Your Trade Show

For more information about how to minimize your trade show mistakes, please contact Kevin England, kevin.england@vonazon.com.