GlobalShop was consistently the biggest trade show for our Plexiglas® Sheet business. We were there every year in a 40′ x 40′ booth and, as the sole coordinator for end-to-end execution of all our trade shows, I truly enjoyed having everything come together so cleanly.
My first year planning GlobalShop led to a 40% increase in actionable leads, with a consistent 10-15% increase in the years that followed.
Click here to jump to a specific portion of the trade show timeline:
Designing Before – Organizing Before – During – After
Before the show, preparation is key:
From a design perspective, I spent most of my time managing numerous vendors to ensure that our booth would have everything needed for a successful show including:
—⸎ Designing displays that highlight products we were promoting or launching at the time.
—⸎ Designing and prepping brochures, samples, and other marketing collateral, but most of this was set up digitally to decrease our paper consumption and reduce what attendees had to carry around.
—⸎ Ordering plenty of swag and giveaway options that are a blend of brand-appropriate and culturally relevant, while maintaining affordability.
—⸎ Clear and consistent branding throughout the booth, app, brochures, and giveaways.
—⸎ Creating an app specific for the GlobalShop event so that we could enhance our lead generation in a more specific way, and also promote increased focus to our preferred products and new Color App (more information on these in the app section, here).
—⸎ Ordering fresh Plexiglas® branded shirts and lanyards and creating a daily dress codes to ensure a clear and consistent look among our people.
—⸎ Including hidden storage areas for personal belongings and overstock of brochures and giveaways.
—⸎ Ensuring our booth was fully stocked with everything our team could personally need: water, electricity, wifi, mints, ect.
From an organizational standpoint, I ensured that everything was pre-planned to prevent any surprises from arising:
—⸎ Pre-show e-mails, social posts, and physical mail campaigns to let current and potential customers know where we’ll be in the show. This is best done in segments starting months before the show, and increasing in consistency as the event approaches.
—⸎ Working cross-functionally with management, sales, and technical to ensure a consistent message.
—⸎ Itineraries covering when our sales reps would be working the booth vs when they would have personal time to explore the rest of the show and work with current customers.
—⸎ Hotel reservations for everyone attending to ensure we’re all in the same hotel and have easy access to the venue.
—⸎ Dinner reservations for some nights so we were all able to celebrate a successful day, wind down, and increase team building. Most nights were purposely left open so they could meet with customers, catch up on emails, or just have some personal time to recoup.
—⸎ Schedule for set up, breakdown, and transportation of all parts of the booth with all our vendors and the venue to avoid any surprises (which I was also physically there to help with).
—⸎ Maintain the budget, stretching ever dollar as far as possible, and ensure all invoices are paid on time.
During the show, it’s all hands on deck:
I always included myself in all-day coverage for the show. I was always in attendance for all shows to help in any way possible, but especially:
—⸎ To help set up to ensure everything is accounted for, in perfect condition, and in the right place for optimal foot-traffic.
—⸎ To help run the booth during the show. I would typically schedule myself as the only person working the booth all day to ensure I was there to help talk to attendees.
—⸎ To help break down everything at the end of the show to make sure everything is packed up safely and being shipped to the correct locations.
After the show, there’s still plenty to do:
—⸎ Review and follow up with all new leads.
—⸎ Create e-mail marketing opportunities with call-to-actions specifically post-GlobalShop.
—⸎ Connect with our vendors to ensure safe delivery and storage of our displays.
—⸎ Start planning for next year!
A Jak of All Marketing Trades 