According to our friends at Exhibit Surveys, healthy expositions will have at least 20% of their exhibitors invest in additional marketing activities (beyond the booth) to help drive attendance and booth traffic. If you're not already tracking this metric, it's a good one to add to your list, .
Traditionally these marketing investments are a la carte purchases of the attendee mailing list, advertising or sponsorship. With the shift to digital marketing, increased email opt outs and the boom of attendee mobile apps, these revenue streams and booth activation strategies are shifting from push to pull marketing.
Progressive organizers are packaging these marketing assets across web, print and mobile channels and selling as check-box upsell option(s) on the exhibitor contract. We like to call this "would you like fries with that booth" upsell strategy. Often they include enhanced listings, logos on the floor plan, top of page listings and banner ads.
Less progressive organizers are selling these properties in silos vs. packaging. Exhibitors hate getting hit up for multiple asks. If you want to optimize this revenue stream and add value to your exhibitors, bundling these is highly recommended.
We're continuing our new webinar series at 2:00 PM EST on Wednesday February 10th. This one will be on Forecasting The Future: How to Pick Forward Thinking Conference Topics by Jeff Hurt. If you're interested in participating, click here to review and/or register. All webinars are promotion free, progressive learning opportunities.
Attendees are changing the way they plan and consume trade shows. If you're still using static PDF floor plans and exhibitor listings, you're missing out on the opportunity to upsell - and to connect buyers and sellers. According to research conducted by CEIR, nearly 75 percent of young professionals (40 years old and under) create a must-see list of exhibitors before coming to a trade show. That staggering percentage has opportunity - and win/win/win - written all over it:
While your conference may not need to purchase an enhanced profile on Yelp, you can apply their marketing tactics to increase your own enhanced exhibitor listings. We especially like how Yelp uses a WIIFM (What is in it for me) approach to their reasoning. What would exhibitors gain from an enhanced listing at your event?
Managing an exhibition is a time consuming and complex process, so any technology that can streamline the process to achieve greater efficiencies will be of interest to any exhibition manager. This review is specifically focused on how the product can help with the top objectives of any organizing team - bringing in more revenue, maximizing the promotion of exhibitors and sponsors and marketing the event to attendees.
Increase Your Online Exhibitor Presence, and You'll Increase Your Face-to-Face Show Traffic. Recently, I reviewed some very telling analytics from several of the largest tradeshows. Here's what I learned: 1. Exhibitors that completed an online booth profile received twice as many page views as those that didn't. 2. Exhibitors that purchased online booth upgrades received four to five times more online views than those with basic listings....
For many show management teams, the task of selling out an exhibit floor is an all-consuming process, so the idea of additional revenue generation falls by the wayside or lands squarely in the lap of the sponsorship team. Allowing exhibitors to enhance their online listings is a great way to give your exhibitors extended coverage and improve the attendee experience.
