Avoid a Tradeshow Built on Afterthoughts
I hate cars. As much as I rely on them to get me around, I despise the care that’s needed to keep them running. I’m automotive illiterate. My dad showed me how to change a tire, change the oil and other basics for car maintenance, but I quickly learned as an adult that opening my wallet keeps my hands clean from dirt and grime. Even still, I tend to avoid an auto mechanic like a pack of rabid raccoons.
Recently, I had been in need of brakes from my car, but as my quest was to avoid the automotive dentist, I put it off and put it off….until I noticed a nasty grinding and squeaking sound from my car. It was unavoidable now. My presence was known for miles with the hideous sound and making the issue an afterthought had now become the first thing attributed with me on the road.
Tradeshow exhibitors often fall vicim to this routine. From exhibit planning, service orders, shipping, graphics and more, there’s a number of items, intentional or not, that are often overlooked. Some exhibitors accept this as part of the process. They sacrifice here to ensure their resources are spent over there. This stigma is simply bogus and the battle for tradeshow sanity can be won if you commit to the battlefront with a proper strategy. Avoid your small oversights and negligence to grow into a nasty representation of your exhibit brand.
Have a Service Team – If you’re a event marketer for your company, nothing would be better of your time than to do that. The saddest thing to see is a marketing strategy that has been killed because of the hours a company has spent simply getting to an event. Enlist members from your company to handle the logistics and services, while you can focus on making your event a success.
Exhaust your Resources - Are you working with an exhibit company? If so, let them take some of the pressure from you and your team. Many exhibit companies will coordinate service logistics and many have ties to best management practices. Is your event in New York but you live in Phoenix? Ask your exhibit company to assist with recommendations for carriers and local labor if you’re in unfamiliar territory. Often times their knowledge and relationships with these service providers means cost savings for you.
Detail your Shipments – There’s one undebatable waste of dollars – Time. Your time, employee’s time, laborer’s time is not meant to be utilized tracking down your newly printed set of brochures on a floor of crates a boxes. Take the time to itemize every box as to its content, and develop a system to easily identify items for quick and easy access. If you’re missing a critical component for your exhibit success, that success may take a vacation.
Don’t Sacrifice Quality for Quantity - Be wise with your budget. Having a large 50×50 island is nice, but does little good if you’ve sacrificed accurate brand representation to get in that space. Instead, construct a vision for your brand and identify it through all levels of representation; exhibit structure, graphics, colors, lighting, etc. Let your brand dictate the space and not the other way around.
Chances are, you’ve been successful in building an image, a brand around your company. People associate your company’s name with an identity, be it quality, service, professionalism, etc. Afterthoughts are little gremlins who attack those attributes and even the littlest one can overshadow the most firm strategy. Destroy those gremlins with proper planning and systematic execution.
![Social Media in the New Event world [infographic]](http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4083/5060058185_423722f2e7.jpg)
Excellent analogy Eric. I’m not much of a car repair guy either, although my parents told me as a two-year old, I was a whiz with tools. I’d secretly take all the screws out of everything possible including door knobs and handles. Sometimes my parents didn’t realize what I had done to a door knob until they tried to exit the bathroom or bedroom. Then it was too late. I would laugh and enjoy my day without one parental unitl in tow until the other came home.
Reminds me of the ways some people plan their tradeshows. They forget some of the move pivotal pieces, like the screws in the door knobs I used to remove. Those crucial pieces don’t show up missing until you’re on the tradeshow floor and you realize that you forgot the critical elements you needed to discuss your new services.
Time to take the tradeshow transportation in for a check-up! Then the before the next show, you can just check-off all the needed elements before you arrive and in as much advance notice as possible.
Eric: Great analogy.
We tell our clients over and over that it is the overall plan that makes a trade show successful. It is all about developing a strategy and sticking to it. The more prepared you are, the more successful you will be.
I will be tweeting this later today or tomorrow.
Great piece.
Ben Baker, President
CMYK Solutions Inc.
Incentives that WORK!
twitter @cmyksolutions