As a trade show marketer, you often get mired in day-to-day tasks such as ordering show services, arranging exhibit staff travel, and handling other logistical obligations, leaving you with precious little time for strategic thinking.

So, it is exceedingly valuable to set all that aside at least once a year and take the 10,000-foot view of where you want to evolve your entire program.

This guide outlines 10 steps you can follow to organize those thoughts into a true strategic trade show plan.

1. Gather Input from Top Management and Key Stakeholders

Trade shows are a huge investment that impacts multiple parts of your organization, so collaborate with them to gather insights and understand their objectives:

  • Align with Executive Management’s Vision: Ask your top management:
    • What are next year’s strategic goals?
    • What do they value most about trade shows that you can focus on?
    • Do they have plans to enter new industries, geographic areas, or customer segments?
  • Engage Key Stakeholders Across Departments: Ask about the key objectives of:
    • VP of Sales
    • VP of Marketing
    • Product Marketing
    • Marcomm
    • Division or Partner leaders

Be mindful that different stakeholders will not all share identical priorities on key aspects like goals, show selection, and space allocation.

Incorporate their feedback into the overall strategy to create buy-in and ensure alignment. Especially since these are often the same people who pay for and staff your exhibits.

2. Evaluate Past Show Results

Review your trade show results from the previous year (or more, depending on your sales cycle) to identify areas for improvement:

  • Show Selection: Which shows provided a successful return on investment or return on objective, and thus should be continued or expanded, versus shrunk or dropped?
  • Effectiveness of Key Success Drivers: How well did your exhibit, promotions, and staffers attract, engage, persuade, and convert your prospects?
  • Logistics: What logistical challenges arose and how can you solve them going forward?
  • Competition: What did your competitors do with their exhibits, show selection, strategies, and products that you want to respond to or emulate?

Conducting post-show debriefs and analyzing data from previous events can inform smarter decisions for future trade shows.

3. Define Exhibiting Goals

Your trade show goals should be rooted in the priorities set by your top management. Examples include:

  • Executive Goals: Supporting new market expansions or achieving revenue targets.
  • Marketing Objectives: Increasing brand awareness or driving traffic to a product launch.
  • Sales Targets: Generating a specific number of leads or scheduling meetings with key prospects.

Set SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Based) that reflect the company’s broader objectives, such as, “Generate 200 leads in our target industries and schedule 50 follow-up meetings.”

4. Set A Strategic Budget

What is a strategic budget? One that prioritizes spending towards expenditures that best achieve your strategic goals and a higher ROI. Consider your:

  • Budget Size: Start with your previous year’s budget, then consider:
    • Anticipate a cost increase – you won’t get the same thing for the same budget.
    • Has your company revenue grown or shrunk?
    • What do you need to invest to beat your competition?
    • Do next year’s additional company goals require an increased investment?
    • How well does your trade show program compare to other marketing methods in achieving your company goals?
    • Are your current budget levels by expense area realistic compared to industry averages? This is also helpful if you are creating a budget from scratch.
  • Boost ROI: Ask for money up-front for measurement, exhibit staff training, and promotions – investments that can pay for themselves many times over.

What if you don’t get the full budget you requested? Have a Plan B ready that scales back lower-ROI shows, or other spending.

5. Select the Right Trade Shows and Space

Using input from key stakeholders and your past show research, evaluate trade shows and prioritize those that are most aligned with your objectives and have generated the greatest past success. Consider:

  • Cost vs. Benefit: Are you investing more in the shows that have already generated the greatest ROI in previous years?
  • Audience Fit: Will the show attract your ideal customers and partners?
  • Relevance to New Strategic Goals: Does the show target a new market or industry identified by executive management?
  • Process: What criteria (executive sponsor, budget approval, audience evaluation) do you require before adding a new show to your schedule?
  • Space: Can you scale up into larger booth spaces at top performing shows? Or reduce space at poorer-performing shows you aren’t ready to drop yet?

6. Evaluate And Update Exhibit Design

Does your current exhibit design still match your updated trade show goals? Or do you need a refresh, new components, or an entirely new design?

  • Work with your exhibit house or experiential marketing agency to combine multiple strategic design priorities into a single balanced exhibit experience.
  • For example, if your goal is to build stronger relationships, have ample space for meaningful meetings.
  • If you are emphasizing your new products, ensure space for a demonstration or display area.
  • If your trade show strategy will lean into experiential marketing, ensure your exhibit design will facilitate the experience.

7. Craft a Clear and Compelling Message

Collaboratively define a message that resonates with your audience, integrates with internal messaging, and aligns with internal goals.

  • Branding: Ensure your exhibit messaging aligns with your current and upcoming brand messages.
  • Solutions: Showcase how your solutions address real, important customer pain points.
  • Graphics: Determine which exhibit graphics you can reuse (for consistency and saving money) and which to change for different audiences (to better tailor your messages).
  • Digital Messaging: Continue your consistent look and messaging on presentations, videos, and touch screen interactives.
  • Activations: If adding engagement activities to your exhibit, ensure they reinforce and amplify your exhibit messages.

Ensure the messaging is visible throughout the booth, on promotional materials, and during presentations.

8. Create Engaging Activities

Create activities that make your booth a must-visit destination that engages attendees on a deeper, more personal level and make the experience more memorable:

  • Align With Your Goals: Chose activities that advance your main goal, such as building your brand, generating leads, building stronger relationships, or introducing new products.
  • Bring the Best Exhibit Staff: Engagement depends on your exhibit staff, so develop an ongoing process to recruit, train, and evaluate them.
  • Expand Your Engagement Tool Box: Consider adding proven engagement activities such as product demonstrations, educational presentations, gamification, and interactive technology.
  • Lean On Your Exhibit House / Marketing Agency: Call on their deep expertise for new ideas about effective experiential marketing strategies that could work for your company and help achieve your updated trade show goals.

Verify your exhibit design provides adequate space for hosting these engagement activities.

9. Plan for Pre-Show and Post-Show Engagement

Too often promotions are left to the last minute, and then either done poorly or simply skipped. Maximize trade show ROI by planning your pre- and post-show strategies months in advance:

  • Pre-Show:
    • Promote your presence using campaigns that reach out via email, social media, direct mail, ads, text or phone.
    • Schedule meetings with high-priority leads identified by sales.
    • Offer incentives to drive traffic, such as hands-on demos or exclusive giveaways.
  • Post-Show:
    • Follow up promptly with leads by fulfilling their at-show requests and having your sales team contact them about next steps.
    • Conduct post-show debriefs with your at-show team, exhibit agency, and relevant stakeholders who did not attend, and use that feedback to refine future strategies.

10. Measure Success and ROI

Collaborate with stakeholders to define metrics that reflect their priorities. For example:

  • Marketing Metrics: Track brand awareness, impressions, media mentions, or digital engagement.
  • Sales Metrics: Measure leads generated, pipeline growth, meetings held, and sales closed.
  • Executive Metrics: Assess how the event supported strategic goals, such as generating a profitable ROI, entering a new market or increasing awareness in a key industry.

Analyze results and share them with stakeholders to celebrate successes and identify areas for improvement.

Conclusion

Creating a strategic trade show plan ensures your trade show presence is intentional, effective, and aligned with company objectives.

Soon enough you will be back to the grindstone on tasks such as figuring out which booth staffers are going to which shows.

For now, invest the time to put all your best ideas into a living document and thus enable your company to maximize its trade show investment and drive meaningful results.

Contact us if you would like help developing or refining your strategic exhibiting plan.