Exhibiting at a trade show (and making it worth the investment) requires more than setting up a booth and showcasing products or services. Before you pack boxes and choose meaningful swag, take a step back and start asking questions.

What kind of experience do you want to deliver?

What do you want attendees to remember after visiting your space?

How can you make your booth impact successful?

As marketers with endless to-do lists, it’s easy to get mired in tactics. But to build a strategic plan, you need to understand the who, what, when, where, why before tackling the how.

To get your plan in motion, check off these fundamental phases and you’ll be on your way to exhibit success.

1. Mission merging

You set event goals, but what about your organization’s goals — do the two intersect? Aligning missions from the top down keeps you focused and ensures a more successful program.

• Outline key organizational goals
• Align event objectives to deliver on key business goals
• Cross-reference your event calendar to ensure each show contributes value

2. Audience appreciation

Profiling your audiences and their preferences makes you a better marketer. Knowledge is power may sound cliché, but it’s true. Understanding audience needs helps you create an exhibit that delivers relevant solutions. Personal attention turns visitors into customers.

• Identify core audiences and subgroups.
• Create audience personas to highlight their interests, needs, and pain points.
• Design personalized activations and demos catered to target audiences.

3. Representation matters

Every aspect of your booth plan matters — including the team you assemble to welcome visitors. Choose people who embody your brand and represent key functions (depending on your goals) such as sales, customer service, and marketing.

Next, check off the nuts and bolts. By determining the exhibit property (custom or rental), floor plan, graphics, and specific in-booth enhancements such as furniture, flooring, demo stations, etc., you’ll be primed to exceed audience expectations and call each show a win.

• Choose rental or custom exhibit elements.
• Determine booth essentials (e.g. size, demos, special requests).
• Assemble and train a diverse booth squad.

4. Memorable moments

Look for ways to make the visitor experience informative and compelling beyond a hard sales pitch. Mine your audience feedback results to create personalized approaches. Incorporating current tech such as an AI activation with interactive elements can help promote products/services while also creating experiences visitors remember.

Want to take your presence up a notch? Consider a sponsorship. Incorporating your message outside the booth extends its reach and provides additional touch points for attendee connections.

• Map out the visitor journey and align demos with target needs
• Choose event tech enhancements
• Research relevant sponsorship opportunities

5. Shout-outs

Now that you’ve selected the right show, arranged the perfect space, and filled it with informative, personal activations, you need to shout it from the event rooftops!

Think about your key message — what will entice visitors to find you? Do you have a clear call to action?

Reach out before the event, then keep the momentum going during and after the show so your message stays fresh.

• Strategize your messaging and call to action
• Select applicable marketing channels aligned to your audience
• Develop a communications action plan to deploy before, during, and after the show

6. Post-show reflection

Exhibiting is an investment, so make the most of the time and money spent by cataloguing what worked and what didn’t. Gather data externally (from your visitors) and internally (booth teams) to get big-picture feedback. And do the work to deliver your ROI: Track leads, follow up, and calculate impressions for the full scope of value delivered.

• Work with the show organizer to identify event impressions
• Select lead retrieval and tracking methods
• Design a post-show survey to capture feedback