By Jennifer Barham

When it comes to our booths and how we design & outfit them, we are usually prioritizing function and practicality. Yes, we want them to be attractive and comfortable, but beauty and imagination may not be our first ideas when we think of our bottom line. And there's probably a good argument that they shouldn’t be.

Trade shows are BACK!  Buyers are eager to see products in person, meet and talk with business leaders face-to-face, and experience the full-sensory show of exhibits. As buyers rush back to the exhibit floor and trade shows burst back onto the scene, don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because you may have survived the past 2 years without showing up at a trade show, you can do that in 2022. Nope! And this year’s return of trade shows offers you a chance to revitalize your business with this ever-important avenue of marketing. Is it worth your time and your budget? Absolutely!

By Sofia Troutman

We are living in some strange days for sure and the landscape is constantly shifting under us.  As event and marketing professionals, we are basically circus performers spinning all the plates – we are accustomed to managing people and schedules and events, keeping all the moving parts moving, and all while managing ourselves. We, too, have social lives, families, personal budgets, and individual goals. Much of the time, these two worlds run nicely parallel. Occasionally, though, the two worlds collide and a personal crisis interferes with work life.

By Shawn Lacagnina

I’ve always loved music, and growing up in the 80s, I was singing along to the best music ever as I cruised our small town in my Oldsmobile Cutlass. I don’t remember a time in my life when I couldn’t belt out “Dream On” at the top of my lungs. Back then, we couldn’t believe we’d make it to 2020. So, for old times’ sake and a little fun, here are the top 10 ways to Aerosmith your way to a great trade show.

By Matt Bohar

Do you love watching those smart, fun videos on social media? Of course you do! Everyone does. They are so creative, and what’s more, they’re effective. A whopping 87% of video marketers say video has increased their website traffic and 83% say video helps them generate leads. And perhaps most importantly, 80% boast increased sales because of video marketing. For this reason, 95% of video marketers plan to increase their video marketing budget next year.

By Mike Thimmesch

If your company wants to build its brand at trade shows, your company is in good company. In survey after survey, exhibitors tell us that building brand awareness is their number one (or at least #2) goal in trade show marketing.

By Michael Criscuolo

In times of unforeseen catastrophe – the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2008 financial crisis, 9/11 – businesses are confronted with unprecedented challenges, from plummeting revenue streams to navigating employee retention and potential furloughs, even paying the rent. Sales and marketing teams are quickly finding their previously planned trade shows and meetings are postponed or cancelled. How, then, can sales leaders, marketing teams, and product managers support business continuity and continue to meet with key clients and prospects under such challenging circumstances? One way is by engaging in strategic, alternative meeting planning. The purpose of this article is to outline four ways to meet when attending your trade show or conference is no longer possible.

If ROI is the name of your exhibiting game, the real product of your trade show is leads. If you ask almost any exhibitor why they attend trade shows, you’ll most likely hear the number one answer (or at least number two) is lead generation.

Just when you’ve purchased and acclimated to the latest, greatest new innovation in technology – BOOM! – a new trend comes on the scene and your technology is old news. Because of the ever-changing nature of technology (and remember, this is a GOOD thing! We want to be improving and growing!), trade show managers can be hesitant to get on board with the latest hot item. But just imagine if we’d resisted such early innovations as badge scanners or marketing automation software – technology that has vastly improved the trade show experience. The trick is to pump the brakes on the here-today-gone-tomorrow trends and to rev up to the ones with staying power. Pay attention to these three advancements in trade show technology that are sure to be around for many, many years.

By Chris Rowe

Occasionally, I’ll read a really great article on LinkedIn or a blog post by an associate in the trade show business about what sounds like a new and fantastic idea to attract attendees into the trade show booth. I’ll daydream a bit about what it would take to pull it off. I’ll wonder if it would work for our booth. I’ll wonder if it would truly generate good leads. And then . . . I’ll wonder if it worked for THEM. Drawing a big crowd to your booth is exciting. An active booth feels energizing and smells like success. But does it actually mean that you’re having a profitable show?

Is it really worth it? All the time and money and energy and set-up and tear down and time out of pocket. Are trade shows really all that great?

Turns out, YES! Yes, they are. Exhibitors value trade shows for lots of reasons, from helping them meet their objectives to just making their jobs more exciting.

Looking for some FREE and EFFECTIVE resources to help you reach your marketing goals? Look no further! We’ve compiled a list of websites and helps aimed at assisting anyone with  business objectives, a tight budget, and plenty of focus. To help maximize your trade show ROI and surpass your event planning benchmarks, read on!

25 Business Travel Tips

What are the risks of exhibiting with the health threats that are currently looming?  We have put together a few travel tips to address the Corona Virus outbreak.  More people are taking pause before booking their travel to their next event. This is a unique situation, and hopefully will be over soon. However, as trade show and event professionals you may wonder what you need to think about when preparing to travel or organize your next event. If you are not the event organizer, do you even go? Recently, Amazon, Sony and Ericsson decided not to exhibit at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona because they did not want to expose their employees to the Coronavirus.

Expectations Have Lowered...Keep it Simple

There was a time when wining, dining, and entertaining clients with concerts, ballgames, and other luxuries would strengthen business relationships and woo new customers. Win the client, write off the expense. However, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act took a major bite out of that piece of the marketing pie. Even though you’ll no longer be able to woo customers with playoff tickets or front row seats to Wicked, you can still connect with them on a personal level and treat them in a style that adds value to them. No matter what experience you’re hoping to offer clients, the following tips will help you create it.

It's All Going to Work Out!

Steps to Take When Life Throws You a Curve Ball

It’s happened to all of us. We’ve dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s and micromanaged every piece of the trade show to perfection. What could go wrong?! Right? Wrong! Inevitably, some minor (or major) mishap will cause a kink in your plans: part of a shipment got lost, the exhibit is held up in customs, someone put a forklift through one of your boxes. While these are concerns and they have to be handled, they are no reason to panic.

For those of us involved with trade shows, we know that a high priority is managing the budget. The budget drives where, what, and how we exhibit. And it adds up quickly. There’s the cost of the booth itself; the cost of show services like Wi-Fi, shipping, and drayage; travel and lodging costs; and collateral costs such freebies and giveaways and drawings.

By Jon Althoff

I have loved being challenged in business for over 35 years. In CPG B2C (consumer packaged goods, business-to-consumer); in B2B (business-to-business). Manufacturing. Design. Chemicals. Food (my favorite was candy).

I’ve seen a lot over the years; made objectives most of the time, but many times I, and my organizations, did not. The reason why was occasionally something as obvious as the economy, but most often there was a controllable miss: bad planning and bad alignment.

6 Digital Display Options for Small Digital Displays

Part 2:

In Part 1 of a Buyer’s Guide to Trade Show Digital Displays, we discussed the pros and cons of using tablets, computer monitors, kiosks, and TVs for digital displays. In part 2, we will break down the features and benefits of using larger displays -- projectors and entire video walls.

6 Digital Display Options for Small Digital Displays

It’s a no-brainer to use a digital display in your trade show booth – it offers endless possibilities to convey information and encourage interactivity with your visitors. Besides that, your competition is using it, so you’d better get on board. When it comes to choosing your digital displays, the number of options can be a bit overwhelming. From small tablets to multi-panel display walls, the choices are staggering. So, to help you pick the best choice for your budget, venue, and audience, we’re discussing the features, benefits, and how-tos of each kind of display in two handy articles. This first article will discuss the smaller of the digital displays – tablets, computer monitors, kiosks and TVs.

“You gotta spend money to make money!” We’ve all heard this old truism, and while it definitely is, well, TRUE. . .businesses have to make sure they aren’t outspending their profit. There’s a delicate balance between spending enough (and in the right places) and spending too much. On top of that, the balance is always shifting – more like a wobble – as businesses break into new markets or experience an economic downturn or just grow lax in carefully budgeting where their dollars go..

Last week, I had a day of back-to-back unrelated meetings, and I realized that at every single meeting, one of the topics that predictably came up was money. Whether the meeting was administrative in nature or about implementation or planning or advertising or education, considering the financial side was inevitable. Seems like a shallow, obvious thought, but I had this epiphany about how money is intrinsically related to every need and want we have.

This was kind of a bummer. As a creative, out-of-the-box thinker, I don’t want to consider monetary limitations. It seems like a budget sucks the fun right out of an idea.

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If 2019 was any indication of how trade shows are trending, then 2020 is going to be a banner year. Below is a highlight of some spectacular upcoming trade shows, organized by industry and date. Based on the 2018 Top 250 US Trade Shows by Trade Show News Network, 2019-2020 is sure to please and there a few, in particular, you’ll want to look forward to.

As the old saying goes, “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” You actually have no idea what is going to happen at a show – what could go wrong or who you might meet. There are a LOT of moving parts to a show – from the travel to the hotel to the display setup to the tech. Anything could happen. So, why even have a solid plan? Because the actual planning of the trip helps you think through all those moving parts. Even if you’re a veteran exhibitor, you need a checklist and a plan to help your trip go smoothly. Here’s a quick list to keep you from stressing out about the details and to help be plan-savvy about the parts you CAN control.

Recently, two separate studies were conducted involving hundreds of exhibitors to determine exactly what works and what doesn’t when it comes to trade show practices. Skyline Exhibits and Access Intelligence Research & Consulting asked over 400 exhibitors how to get better results from their trade shows.

3 Surefire Questions to Get Your Booth Attendees Talking!

It’s no surprise that the most important goal at a trade show is also the biggest challenge – getting people into your booth space. Obviously, the first step is to have an eye-catching exhibit. Many companies try product demos, professional entertainers, and giveaways to attract visitors. But what if your budget doesn’t afford professional corporate entertainers? What if your exhibit is more subtle than dazzling? What if your product or service doesn’t lend itself to a demo?

In the event and exhibit industry, airline travel is frequent and common. Usually, it all goes off without a hitch. You grab your stuff, get to the gate, board the plane, and off you go. However, if you’ve racked up millions of frequent flyer miles, there’s a chance you’ve also racked up an airline delay or two. And despite our best efforts at managing delays, layovers, connections, and other unforeseen stresses, we might even be faced with an overnight airport stay due to weather or airplane mechanical issues.

“Safe travels!” We hear it all the time when someone’s wishing us farewell for a trip, and we say it to each other, too. In fact, it’s SO common that we handily dismiss it without even really thinking about what might help us actually HAVE safe travels.

Managing a trade show is not a job for the faint of heart. It is a demanding job with a lot of moving parts, which we’ll discuss below. A trade show manager might work for the sponsor or the organizer of a trade show; or they might work for a company participating in a trade show. If a business is smaller and only occasionally participates in trade shows, the trade show manager hat might be worn by the marketing manager or to someone from the sales team. No matter where the trade show manger comes from, their job is to provide an experience benefits the company and satisfies the customer.

Less Obvious Trade Show Do's and Don'ts

You probably wouldn’t talk on your phone or blow bubble gum or eat a Subway sandwich while manning the booth at your tradeshow. These are egregious errors in protocol that none of us would commit. However, have you ever skipped an opening event? Overlooked a surly-seeming booth visitor? Been too tired to give a client your full attention? These more benign breeches in etiquette might not strike us as that unbecoming, but to a prospective customer or client, our behavior matters. A LOT. If you think you’re above slipping up in the area of manners, look over the following trade show etiquette tips and judge for yourself.

Ice Breaker Questions for Trade Shows

With actual human connection going the way of the dinosaur recently, people have to work harder than ever to see (literally!) eye-to-eye. Think of your day to day life. You’re at work and you see people over the top of a computer screen or listen to them as you work on your iPad or device. You’re in a public space and people are just head down, ear buds in, face in phone. You’re in your car at a stoplight, and chances are all the people around you in their cars are on their phones; not that you’d notice, because you’re checking Instagram.

Tips for Staying Afloat at Work When Life Gets Messy

Most people think their jobs are stressful, but some may be more entitled to complain than others.  As it turns out, the number 6 most stressful job in America is Event Planners.  That said, we need to take a breath and unpack some ideas to implement when life gets messy.

Empower Booth Staffers and Drive Better Staff Interactions

Albert Einstein once said, “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”  If he said that over 80 years ago, I wonder what this brilliant scientist would have to say about technology and human interaction today.

Ways to Control Freight Costs

“The only certainties in life are death and taxes.” When Benjamin Franklin famously quoted this, trade show freight costs weren’t an issue or he surely would’ve included them.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that freight costs are rising. If you haven’t, you soon will. And not just by a small increment, either. Freight costs have been significantly rising in recent years, and the trend looks to continue. As of early 2019, the freight market was seeing record high prices and there seems to be no immediate relief in sight.

Don't Be That Guy At The Show!

Nobody wants to be “that guy.” You know, that guy that talks too loud. That guy that tells dumb jokes. That guy who wears too much Axe body spray. “That guy” is doing all the wrong things, and people are noticing.

Go Beyond Selling Products or Services  

Facing the trade show season can be daunting for the experienced and first-timers alike, because the whole of trade shows are just such a large undertaking and incredibly detailed. Not only do you have to pick the best events that are the best fit for your product or service, but you also have to attend to the myriad details involved in actually pulling it all off. One thing to keep in mind to keep from getting overwhelmed is to remember that trade shows are not really about your product, your service, your booth, your giveaways. Sure, that matters.  A LOT.  Still, what’s MOST important in the trade show world is {drumroll, please}. . . the PEOPLE. You already knew that, but it bears saying.  The connection between your company’s booth staff and your booth’s visitors is primary in every interaction. As you begin to think about how to connect with your attendees, remember the 5 Es of the trade show world. The 5 Es are based on research found in “It’s Not Your Father’s or Mother’s Trade Show Anymore – Engage with Caution,” an article hosted by CEIR Industry Insights Series.

 10 IDEAS TO GET YOUR EXHIBIT NOTICED  

Some things take a larger amount of time and money to implement.  Here is a list of 10 fast and simple to implement ideas to get noticed.  Look to these quick, easy ideas to spruce up your booth environment to get the attention of attendees and set up for the best trade show yet.

by Mike Thimmesch

Trade Show Marketing Wars: Twitter vs LinkedIn  

With over 575 million users, LinkedIn is every business’s go-to social network. For connecting with like-minded business owners and people locally, nationally and globally, it seems to be the obvious choice. Since it burst onto the professional scene in 2003, it has seemingly made networking faster and more powerful in the business world. However, a closer look at LinkedIn, its user trends, and its current growth reveals even more that affects your marketing dollars and clientele.

We all rely on our trade show partners/suppliers, and the approach to this critical relationship needs to be part of your strategy. Most every company - regardless of if your company is product-centric or service-oriented - can’t function without solid partners/suppliers. Some organizations seem to get this relationship a bit backwards. The misconception is this… because they sign off on a project, they're in the dominant position and can leverage the relationship with unreasonable demands of all shape and form.

If you tend to think that living in a technological era isn’t really that big of a deal outside of cell phones, heated car seats, and Netflix, read the following statistics:

* Over 3.8 billion people use the internet daily; that’s about half of the world’s population.

* More than 570 new websites are created every minute.

* 340,000 tweets are sent a minute.

* 90% of the world’s data has been created in the last 2 years.

* Digital marketing and AI marketing are among the fastest growing new careers.

And THIS is why you need to get yourself to a trade show. If you don’t display your products at a trade show, you are out of the running for potential buyers who make their buying decisions primarily at those venues.

Supporting The Value of Trade Shows

Maybe you’re hesitant about showcasing your company’s products and services at a trade show. Or maybe you’re even leery of just attending one. Well, don’t be. As they say, “The proof of the pudding is in the rising.” And this year, a LOT of rising happened at trade shows nationwide. If you need proof that trade shows are an excellent marketing medium, we’ve got it for you. If you need cold, hard, factual motivation to get you to the next event, you’ve come to the right place.

Using Trade Show Promotions

Trade show promotions are a no-brainer. The basic 3 categories you can break this down into are pre-show promotions, at-show promotions, and post show follow up.  Overlaying all promotions are the goals you have for the attendee experience and what we want accomplish as a company.   There’s no better way to DRIVE people to your booth and draw attention to your company and products.  What’s more, there’s an endless variety of ways to do it!

50 Things a Booth Staffer May Do...

When I was in college, I worked summers at our city’s publishing house. I had the lofty title of “Office Staff.” I always hated that title because it conjured up images of a slothful slacker who was hard on the rolling chair they were plopped in all day. Anyway, another reason I felt disdain for the title was that I was so much MORE than “office staff.” I had so many jobs in that office – errand boy, social planner, events coordinator, warm body to guard the phones and the office, and more – that I sometimes wondered how on earth they operated when I was away at college! I figured I was the hardest working person in the building. I’m not sure what I wanted my title to be, but whatever it was, it needed to cover a LOT of areas!

As we are settling in to 2019, it is always good to look back at what worked in a “2018 Year in Review.” I always love the year-in-review posts that flood the online world this time of year. Some are fun, but they offer a real look at what actually happened in the year that just flew by.  Here is a year-end recap of the marketing world’s best tips and trends.  Read on to discover (or remember!) the year’s best trends and takeaways.

It's time for a bit of lighter side humor in trade show booth staffing. On occasion we will go to trade shows and see some of the following personalities. Some of them are easy to recognize because they act just like their animal kingdom counterpart. Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly of the beastly world of booth staffers. See if you recognize anyone you have observed on the show floor?

Rules, rules, rules.  What about the rules that no one tells you about?  Rules are necessary to keep trade shows and events running smoothly, and they help businesses and clients manage their expectations. However, as important as it is to know the show hours, the drayage costs, the convention hall requirement particulars, and more, it’s equally important to know the “hidden” rules (that no one tells you about) that inevitably accompany every show.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just pick which trade shows we wanted to exhibit at, make the decision final, and keep it that way forever and ever amen?! Yes, it would. But no, we can’t. Choosing the trade shows that are a good fit for your business is important, and equally important is the decision to return to a trade show or to ditch it. So much time and effort and energy (and resources!) are dedicated to exhibiting at trade shows that they must be worth the effort. And unfortunately, sometimes they aren’t.

So, how do you know if the shows you’re frequenting aren’t worth your marketing investment? Read on:

How 10 Experts Define Marketing

Nashville Trade Show Installations With Skyline Customized Rental

At Exhibitor Source in Nashville, trade show installations with Skyline Displays customized rental come with total support. From planning your display to graphic design, we're here to ensure that your trade show marketing efforts are effective and efficient. Customized rental pieces feature your company's own custom graphics, so every piece in your booth reflects your unique brand image. You don't have to settle for a generic look in order to rent large, impressive display pieces.

Exhibitor Source has received a letter of congratulations from Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam commending our winning of the American Business Ethics Award.  We are honored to receive this recognition by our state leader!