How to Build a Scalable Trade Show Planning Process
Introduction
With industry event and trade show event planning in full effect for 2023, it’s important to build a scalable planning process for your team. Sponsoring these events can be quite expensive, require a ton of logistics planning, and add pressure to bring home qualified leads. As a leader or individual contributor responsible for the success of attending these events, it is your duty to effectively plan and communicate the plan to all stakeholders involved. In this blog, we will walk through what to include in your trade show project plan to set your team up for success and execute an amazing event.
What are Trade Shows , and Why Do They Matter?
Before we dive into planning industry and trade show events, let’s take a step back. Trade shows are exhibition events that bring together hundreds of companies for networking, showcasing products and services, and lead generating. Event host companies offer sponsorships for companies to pay for an exhibitor booth. Sponsors can meet with attendees, show off their services, and gather potential leads for their sales team to follow up with.
Trade shows are new business and expansion pipeline generating events. They also allow companies to showcase their brand and be present with their competitors. If you haven’t noticed, trade shows can be quite beneficial for companies to attend. As the main planner, it is your job to make sure these events go off as successfully as possible. Let’s jump in on how to do this.
How to Plan for a Trade Show
It’s crucial to have a universal project plan that one can use across a team to keep everyone aligned.
Building a well oiled process allows you to scale events, onboard new team members, and stay unified through organized clarity. When making a project plan, we recommend keeping all the details in one centralized document or presentation. From there, transfer every team member’s project to a project management software. Below I will outline all the main components to include in your trade show plan and questions to be thinking about.
# 1 Event Overview:
What is the event description, audience, total attendees, date, and location?
# 2 Event Goals:
What are the specific goals for this event? Do you have lead or sales goals? Do you have any other goals that are important to include?
# 3 Booth Package:
What is your sponsor booth package? What does it all include? Have you been introduced to a main contact? Do you have a deadline sheet with due dates?
# 4 Speaker Logistics:
Does your package include a speaker spot? Is your speaking session live or prerecorded? Do you need a customer to speak? Do you need to align their session with a current company campaign? Does your speaker need a deck template? Don’t forget to schedule prep calls and dry runs.
# 5 Key Players:
What departments are involved in the event? Brand? Marketing Operations? Sales?
# 6 Event Agenda:
What is the event agenda? When are the speaking sessions? When are the key booth hours?
# 7 Design Needs:
What graphics do you need for your booth and any signage? Are you sending branded emails? Do you need graphics for social media?
# 8 Pre- Event Plan:
What is your pre-event outreach plan? What is your internal communication plan to all those involved?
# 9 Onsite Plan:
What is your day of run of show? Who is attending?
# 10 Post-Event Plan:
What is your post-event follow up plan for leads?
# 11 Social & PR:
Will you need to promote this event on social media? Will there be a press release about this event?
# 12 Email:
Will you need to send emails for this event? Do these emails need brand and copy support?
# 13 Event Logistics:
Have you built out your project plan in a project management tool? Do you have a timeline built out?
The Bottom Line?
Creating a scalable planning process for your trade shows is an essential part to the success of your event. Although creating a unified process and template for planning may be time consuming, this will save time in the long run and help keep everyone organized.
Not Sure Where to Start?
PlanWell helps small-team marketers bring their event strategy to life. We’d love to serve as the team within your team and help elevate your event experience. To learn more about our services check out our full list. If you are interested in learning more, you can book a call here.
