Tradeshow Tips: Please Don’t Visit My Booth

Have you been to a trade show where the people in the booths act as if they are bored and really don’t want to talk to anyone? They only put the effort in to bring business cards and you get the feeling it was too much work to even do just that?

Or maybe there was a booth you were afraid to walk up to because they were already engaged with another attendee. You may have also hesitated because you didn’t want to interrupt their conversation with their booth mate or their social media on their phone.

Don’t be these trade show vendors! Use these negative trade show attendee experiences as a precautionary lesson on what not to do and practice the following event hero tips to be an inviting trade show booth host:

1) Location, location, location: you know this!

There is always the decision and race to get the right location for your booth. There are many opinions on where the best location is, but I like center of the room at the end of an aisle. This way I can stretch out a bit and I usually buy two booths to be one of the bigger players in the room.I also like to set up an activity in my booth that will attract visitors.

2) Get the LOOK!

Make sure your booth is attractive so you can attention from attendees. Use bright colors as well as some fun or attractive graphics. Be bold in your booth design!

3) Make your message easy to read and understand.

Create some intrigue, make the signage POP with cutouts or big bold letters. AVOID small type or hard to read graphics. Keep the typeface for signage clean and easy to read from a distance.

4) Make your booth approachable.

Have you seen the booths where the vendor stands behind the table like they are afraid you will approach them? Don’t be that guy!

Stand in front of the tables. Move the tables back into the booth and encourage people to come talk to you. Remove the chairs, you don’t need them. If you want chairs, bring in high bar stools, these are much more sociable.

5) Who’s hosting your booth?

Make sure your booth host is warm and friendly and will be able to engage the people that stop by. Not all of the hosts in the booth need to be well versed in your product, but they need to be able to attract those passing by. Having one or two people who know the product inside and out and a few that are outgoing and can bring in the people will work just fine.

Consider using costumed characters, models, or host and hostess dressed to convey your brand. For example, at a dog food booth for a pet expo, we had a guy dressed in a dog costume handing out free samples. Make sure the character is in alignment with your brand.

6) Offer show specials.

You’ve put in the time and money to have a booth, consider what you want to accomplish with your booth. Do you want immediate sales? Offer a killer price for your product if they buy on the spot or a coupon at a lesser discount if they buy in the next 10 days.

7) Have a contest or promotions.

Everyone loves to win something, and that includes trade show attendees. If you want them to stop by and put their name in (for your later use), make sure what you are giving away is something worthwhile.

8) Treats and alcohol can help—but know the rules!

Read the fine print in your vendor contract. Make sure the facility allows outside food and drinks to be offered and that the show allows it as well. You don’t want to bring all the goodies only to be shut down on show day. The show promoter or the facility may have rules you need to abide by so really, read the fine print.

9) Offer your giveaway but make sure it is of value.

Most trade show attendees have done this before and have seen all the items that are available. Yes, you should have a giveaway, but make it something they will use that won’t just end up in the trash!

10) Put your social media to use.

Work your social media connections to share where you’re going to be located and what your booth number is. Connect with as many of the show attendees you can find to introduce yourself and start communicating before the show. It’s always fun to meet someone in person after interacting with them over social media.

11) Print promotional items.

Keeping with the traditional items we get at the trade show can be a bit mundane but they are still a giveaway. Get creative for the show and produce something that won’t get tossed on the way to the car.

I love the cute stress balls that I get at trade shows. Especially if they are in the shape of something that relates to the company. They actually are a great massage for your hands.

Pens with your logo on them work well because people are always in need of a writing utensil and it keeps you top of mind. Other options include bags to hold all the other stuff they will get, thumb and USB drives (with this you could add a small advertisement that would play when they plugged in and opened the thumb drive), cups and mugs, badge holders, notebooks, folders, and binders.

Think outside the box on your giveaways.

12) Follow up with booth visitors.

The attendees who stopped by your booth and took their time to visit with you are hot leads—make sure you take the time to follow up with them. There are many ways to complete follow-up that can be set up in advance for larger shows.

Choose to do personalized emails to the attendees at the show if there weren’t too many to follow up with. Don’t let those business cards fall to the wayside. They stopped for a reason to visit with you, now go make the sale.

The cost of time and money spent on a trade show are all part of your marketing budget. It should be well thought out and well delivered. It’s all a waste of time if you don’t follow up or follow through.  If you find yourself in way over your head, enlist the help of an intern, a part time employee, or someone else on your staff to handle the follow up.

In conclusion, make sure your time and money are well spent at the trade show where you’ve chosen to be an exhibitor. Check it out in advance, find out who they are inviting, how they are publicizing the event, and how many attendees they expect to show up based on past experiences.

Connect with past vendors to get their opinion of the show, and discover the pros and cons for yourself before signing the contract.

One final note: Read the fine print on the contract to make sure what you are being told you will receive in exchange for your time and money lines up with what the contract outlines.

Happy exhibiting!

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Brainstorming: The Most Fun You Will Have Planning an Event

You need to get your creative juices flowing to plan your next event, but you just can’t think of a good theme and time is running out. You need to get down to the planning phase quickly! What to do?

Oh, yes, you forgot that little step of Brainstorming!   We told you it was important!  Who has time to brainstorm you may ask? You do!  Unless you are happy repeating the same event over and over again, then you can skip this step.

But, if you take pride in producing unique, customized events that fit your client’s individual needs, brainstorming is an extremely important step. It can make the difference between a good event and a great event that your attendees are talking about for years!

So what are the best ways to get a brainstorming session started?  We’ve created a list of our top 10 ways that we like to hold our sessions.  The key ideas we always keep in mind, no matter how or where we hold our sessions are:  have fun and no idea is off limits!

Brainstorming Tips

1. Create a place that is comfortable: Get rid of the office chairs and desks, those are for the serious thinking and planning!

Imagine walking into a room filled with beanbags in bright colors for seating arrangements. This will take your brainstorming to a whole new level. It’s all about getting out of the BOX and in this instance about creating a creative space.

Have a pajama party. Ask guests to wear their PJ’s (with strict restrictions) to the planning session. Just being comfortable can release the creative thinking gene.

2. Include your whole team: Don’t limit input to the creative / planning staff.

Include the drivers, set dressers, assistants, secretaries, etc.—everyone has a unique viewpoint that will add value to your session.

You’ll find that having the same people brainstorm over and over will end up in the same ideas resurfacing. Adding a member to your team who doesn’t think like the rest of the group will give you different perspectives immediately. You never know who has that next WOW idea, and it might not be the creatives!

3. Establish the RULE: No idea is a bad idea.

Create a judgement-free zone for your session. No one has a bad idea, everyone takes a turn, and everyone has input. Set up the ground rules in the beginning of the session and stick to them.

Decide who will be in charge as a group. This takes away any of the animosity that can occur in groups where the leader is appointed in advance. This is not a competition or a hierarchy like the office. It’s a free flowing, safe, and fun environment.

4. Have a large area to record ideas: This enables everyone to easily read and add their own comments.

Cover the walls in brown butcher paper, have plenty of writing tools available, and encourage picture-drawing to get the creative juices flowing.

Allow everyone a moment in the front of the room to write on the wall, or create spaces for each individual and let them draw or write in their space at any time during the session. They might need the space to write a thought down when the ideas start popping! Brainstorming can be kind of like popcorn…once the first kernel pops, the whole bag explodes!

5. Everyone’s ideas are equal: Nobody should feel shy or reserved.

Give everyone free reign to express their ideas. Brainstorming is about free associating and ideas that caused laughter should not be exploited in the office. You are building comradery and teamwork while gaining all sorts of ideas. Make sure this is one of the rules you set up in the beginning.

6. Collect and save all ideas: You never know when something mentioned in one brainstorming session will spark an idea for another event!

OK, so the crazy idea of flying the CEO in on an airplane cable didn’t work for this event. But it might work for another. Keeping all those ideas in a folder of ideas will help you create this event and many more in the future.

7. NEVER criticize anyone’s ideas: This will lead to self-censorship, which squashes creativity.

Be respectful of other’s ideas—you never know when one silly idea might lead to a brilliant invention.

8. Take turns being the leader: Giving others the chance to lead empowers and expands thinking.

Make sure when doing this that you only have one leader at a time. Otherwise, you could have conflicting power interests.

Changing up leaders will open up different areas of conversation.

9. Work in teams and mix teams up: Have the owner of the company team up with the part-time driver to come up with a theme.  You might be surprised what they create together!

Have team competitions for the craziest ideas, the most fun ideas, and the “are you kidding me?!” ideas.

10. HAVE FUN!  Brainstorming is the least stressful and the most fun part of event planning!

The most important guidance is to have fun. More ideas come out of relaxed conversation, laughing and giggles, sharing harebrained ideas, and drawings on napkins than any other way of communication. Have fun, build relationships with others, and great ideas will flow that will translate into great events for your attendees!

Finally!

We find brainstorming to be one of the most fun elements of our job. Just letting our hair down for a few hours, laughing at ourselves and our ideas, and usually coming up with some ideas to WOW our audience is what it’s all about for us.

We love finding those unique ways to thrill our audience and this is one of the ways we find works best for our team. Need some quick inspiration? Check out five of our favorite themes to get you started. 

What techniques do you use to stir up creative juices? We’d love to know!

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Tradeshow Tips: Better Serving Your Vendors

Planning and managing a trade show can be both exciting and overwhelming. There are a lot of details to attend to prior to, during, and after the event.

One of the most important aspects is managing your vendors. Because they’re taking their time and resources to be there, you want to be sure to manage their expectations and provide them with accurate information throughout.

Our Vendor Experience

We’ve been vendors at numerous trade shows throughout the years and wanted to share one of our most memorable experiences as an example of what not to do—and help you learn how to better serve your vendors.

We attended a trade show a few years ago as exhibitors, in order to meet and network with event and meeting planners in a different part of the state.

It was a one-day show that promised to bring in as many as 500 event and meeting planners. In order to extend our reach and visibility in the community, we took the plunge and paid the booth fee, hired labor for travel and hosting the booth.

On top of this, we created new graphics for a fresh look and produced flyers and additional collateral to furnish our booth. Preparation wasn’t cheap–we put in several thousand dollars to make this happen as vendors.

One cost saver was that the event was from 3-7 PM and didn’t require an overnight stay. We arrived and set up in four hours, had a pleasant check-in experience, and were able to grab lunch at the local café before the show began.

Less Than Expected 

After doors opened, there was a VERY light crowd. We thought attendance would increase, but boy were we wrong. The expected crowd of 500 turned into a potential 100 and by the end we only saw about 25 meeting planners.

To say we were disappointed in the turnout is an understatement. To say the show was well organized, well, I’m just not going there. This was especially surprising with a room filled of vendors with extensive meeting and event planning experience.

Taking Advantage of Our Situation

To turn this negative experience into a positive one, we spent our time visiting with other vendors. We were able to set future appointments with them and have in depth conversations with the few meeting planners we were able to find in the slim group that attended.

Vendors are the core of trade shows, so it’s important that you understand how to best serve them in order to ensure the success of current and future trade shows. Learn our top tips for vendor management and appreciation from our most recent trade show experience below.

Here are a few ways trade show organizers can better serve their vendors:

1) Offer a vendor hospitality room

Although we weren’t there for a long amount of time, a place to put our coats and grab a water and small snack would have been nice. Any time you have people standing on a hard floor for a long amount of time, it’s nice to have a place for them to get away. Even for five minutes.

2) Underpromise and over deliver

Gather friends and friends of friends that are in the demographics you promised and make sure you deliver on the promises of attendees made. Trade shows are expensive ventures for your vendors so make sure you deliver the crowd.

3) Pay special attention to noise levels

Keep music and presentations to a level where the attendees and vendors can have a conversation. We could not hear the people that attended our booth and they couldn’t hear us over the very loud bands that had been booked to play during the event.

4) Make sure your deliverables are outlined and clear

I was told by the trade show intern that I would get a list of attendees. In this group, the attendees this probably didn’t make that much of a difference, as they turned out not to be my audience.

However, there was one person whose business card I didn’t get that I would have really liked to communicate with later. I was later told by the organizer that no list would be delivered. I understand that several of the other vendors were expecting a list as well. This should be clearly outlined for both the vendors and the attendees.

5) Offer incentives to help pull in attendees

For the companies and meeting and event planners in this area, an educational series or discussion might have made the difference deciding to attend. Tapping into the speakers’ or performers’ social media followers could have also increased the opportunity to reach more of the audience and incentivizing them to attend.

6) Don’t forget signage and/or mapping

Make sure there is a banner for each booth to hang on the drape at the back of the booth. If the vendor has their own signage, this is a waste of money but if they don’t, this would have certainly helped to identify the vendors. In this case, those were not provided and several vendors didn’t have any signage to identify them.

We know it’s a lot of work to put on a trade show, we know that there are a bazillion things to manage, but keep in mind that your vendors have paid you money to attend and are expecting what you promised in return. They too, have taken a risk of time and money to be there and it can be quite costly for them. Make sure you deliver!

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Themes We Love: Corporate Meetings & Events

Every meeting or event you plan has a purpose and a reason for being held. Having a theme helps to relay the message of the event to the attendees, helps you focus on the elements you need for a successful meeting, and helps you control what you do with the meetings. Need some inspiration? Learn how we brainstorm themes.

Whether you plan events for corporations or small businesses, these five event themes are sure to be a huge hit with both your client and their guests:

1. Charting a New Course

Best used when an organization is changing directions or launching a new product. Charting a new course can be water, compass, or map theme.

2. Mission Possible

This is a pretty obvious theme and contains a lot of fun ideas to incorporate.

Your VIPs enter in black suits, hats and brief cases. They appear on stage and can even repel from the ceiling or make other Tom Cruise-esque entrances. This theme is great for launching a new product or to encourage team work in reaching a grand company goal!

3. The Power of One

This is a longtime favorite. Use this theme when you want to encourage individuality, need to empower your attendees or move them to action. Think of ways to express how one person can make a difference or how an individual can be a hero.

4. Picture the Possibilities

This theme can be used for a variety of purposes. From creating new ideas or releasing new products to changing how a company functions or producing an award show, this theme is perfect for brainstorming new products and revised company procedures.

5. Everyday Heroes

Of course we love this one, because it has our favorite word in it! This is a great theme for recognizing those who have gone above and beyond in their positions or careers. Whether they have created exceptional outcomes, provided valuable service to their community, or advanced the company or organization in a big way, this is a great theme to use to acknowledge excellence within a company or organization. Think of the pink Cadillac award given to Mary Kay makeup distributors when they achieve a certain number of sales.

These are five of our favorites! Share what your favorite theme is or what theme you’d like to see.

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Five Reasons to Theme Your Next Event

Take a moment and think about the last event you attended. If you can vividly remember the handwritten invitations, the elegant entryway, gourmet foods and classy décor, chances are, you got themed. Themes help drive the vision and also create a seamless flow during any event.

Whether you choose something fun or funky, fantastical or serious, theming will ensure attendees are engaged and relaxed.  Here are five more reasons you should theme your next event:

1) Clear, Concise Messaging: When your theme ties into the message your client is trying to convey, the event is more influential and impactful.  For example, let’s say you’ve been hired by an organization that will be opening new offices all across the U.S. A great theme for a company’s journey to expand is the historic Route 66 theme.  You could also use this theme for a venue along old Route 66. See other themes we love.

2) Setting the Mood: Theming enhances the atmosphere of any event. From the time attendees receive their save the date cards to the end of the event; theming sets the tone and makes the difference between a good event and an event attendees will remember forever.

3) Cohesiveness and Connection: Nothing says professional as much as seamless elements flowing as one. When the food choices, the entertainment, lighting and room arrangement all work together, attendees feel connected and in tune with all the combined elements.

4) Manageability: By using a theme, every single element becomes easy to manage and deliver – which means success for you and your client looks like the hero!

5) An Event They’ll Remember: The best reason to use a theme is that your client and the attendees will remember and recall your event – taking delight in how everything flowed and how every element made them feel connected and a part of something bigger.

Don’t know where to get started? Read our blog on 8 Steps for Creating a Theme or How to Choose a Theme

Instead of relying on a broad vision, choosing a theme for your next event can guide you as you plan, alleviating any chance for missing an important detail. The focus that comes from theming your event will benefit you as an event planner, and will delight your client and their guests. And don’t even get us started about how much time and money you’ll save –that’s a whole other blog! Find more great resources, tips and tricks for being an Event Hero at www.eventheroes.com/vip-membership

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