Tradeshow Tips and Tricks
Advertising has been around for a long time and is used to promote items and products to people or, at minimum, to generate an interest in products and services. However, running advertisements and using the tried and true strategies of advertising aren’t restricted to the realms of goods and services. You can advertise everything, even events. Advertising your event is crucial for many reasons, such as helping secure participants and sponsors. You’ll also get more attendees than if you did not. What strategies for advertising your event are the most effective? We’ve got some great event marketing tips to ensure your next trade event is profitable.
Promoting Your Booth
As with most marketing event strategies, event marketing strategies that will help with your booth are:
- Improve brand recognition
- Increase ticket sales and convert them into clients
- Help acquire event sponsors
- Maximize event attendance
- Connect your brand and the target audience
But what are the most effective methods that you can employ to achieve these objectives?
18 Ways to Promote Your Tradeshow Booth
Event planners put in a lot of effort to design an exciting and memorable event. All that effort is rewarded when tickets are put for sale. However, to increase ticket sales, you’ll require a successful marketing strategy for your event.
We have compiled our best event promotional strategies to boost your marketing strategy before the event day:
1. Utilize Event Discovery Websites
Planning an event is not easy. It is important to ensure that people can locate your event by putting your event on calendars online and event discovery tools. However, using these tools usually comes at a higher cost, which makes them a high-risk and high-reward approach to help organizers get their event noticed by new audiences.
2. Offer Discounts for Early Bird Customers
The first to arrive gets discounts on the cost of tickets to your event. Offering something as attractive discounts as a component of your marketing plan can increase excitement. Discounts for early bird tickets are particularly efficient because they give your customers a sense of urgency to buy tickets.
3. Concentrate On the People You Want to Reach
Your intended audience will be the largest number of people to convert at an event. Find out who you are targeting using buyer personas, or making use of past event information to discover the people who attend, and promote your booth to similar people.
4. Be Aware of Your Spending Budget
Like many other items related to events, advertising can be a victim to the constraints of a budget. This isn’t necessarily negative, but a budget and having to hold your own to it in terms of event marketing could mean that you produce fewer advertising materials. However, it will force you to think about it and optimize your event’s advertising to the best of your ability.
5. Practice Email Marketing
Marketing via email is not outdated. It’s close to social media when it comes to its effectiveness in marketing. In some ways, it’s even more efficient.
If you’re searching for an effective method to promote your event, creating an effective email marketing campaign isn’t an unwise idea. Send event information, exciting information, the agenda for the event, and reminders into your contact lists’ inboxes, to gain some converts.
6. Make Use of Social Media For Your Benefit
In 2023, there were about 4.8 billion users on social media across the globe and that number is expected to rise to 6 billion by 2027. A large portion of the top websites on the planet are social media websites. Advertise your event online to benefit from that huge crowd.
7. Don’t Overlook Content Marketing
We’ve already mentioned social media. Although occasionally a simple Twitter (X) or Instagram post will suffice but it’s best put to use when you’ve got high-quality content to distribute. Content marketing also extends beyond social media and is an effective way to share it.
In your event’s marketing plan, be sure you create:
- Video
- Blog posts
- Infographics
- Email content
8. Repurpose Older Content
Older content does not mean dead content. If you’ve written a fantastic blog post that is relevant, and related to an event, consider recycling it in a different format. Maybe it could be an interesting infographic or video. In no time you’ll be expanding your event marketing materials using assets already in place and making it more manageable to expand.
9. Try Advertising That is Paid (Google Ads)
Google Ads is among the most efficient paid advertising strategies available today since it lets users focus on potential customers already looking for what you provide. Additionally, it offers the advantages of pay-per-click (PPC). This means you be charged a cost for each time someone clicks on your advertisement, it’s not a lump sum. Making payments for specific visitors to your event’s site has never been more simple.
10. Take a look at Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Remember how we talked about the importance of content marketing? Combine that with on-page SEO and you’ll soon be in the races for event advertising. On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your website’s content to be able to compete with particular keywords and search terms to ensure that your event’s page will be more likely to show on Google when people are searching for the keywords you’ve chosen.
Also, consider:
- Off-page SEO: This form of SEO is a term used to describe actions performed outside of your website to improve your ranking including backlinks, and guest posting.
- Technical SEO is the term used to describe the backend and the technical aspects of websites, including their speed, UX (UX), and accessibility.
11. Retarget ads to re-engage leads
Ad retargeting is a method that allows certain collateral, such as banner ads, may be targeted to people who have already contacted your brand. For example, if a person has visited your website for an event even once the banner advertisement to promote your event can be displayed to them as they surf the web.
Retargeted ads serve as a reminder and are 76 percent more likely to get clicked than a standard display advertisement.
12. Event Website Design
Event websites can be a great way to promote, particularly when technical SEO is in place. However, the event website is capable of more.
The website is where potential attendees go to find out more about the event therefore it must be comprised of all the necessary information as well as having an effective call to action as well as an integrated registration feature.
13. Engage a Social Media Influencer
Do you remember when we talked about the budget? Make sure to reserve some of your money for influencer marketing. Influencers are on the pulse of trends and can communicate with their followers at a professional level therefore, take advantage of this when promoting your event. 70 percent of people say that they’re more likely to purchase products from a brand when they are working with an influencer whom they know and are confident in.
14. Utilize Traditional Marketing Strategies
Traditional marketing techniques have been around for a reason. Anything that’s not online and considered advertising is covered under the umbrella of traditional marketing. Consider print ads in magazines and newspapers billboards, mailers, television, radio, and mail.
Strategies for marketing such as radio, television, and even bus sign-ups are to be particularly effective when employed in conjunction with a local promotional strategy for an event. Advertise your event on local television and radio stations where it’s being held. And if it’s fully virtual, don’t immediately discredit this approach–traditional forms of marketing can still be effective.
15. Create a Hashtag For Your Event
Each major platform for social media comes with hashtag features integrated into its digital content identification toolkit.
When you come up with a hashtag for your event it is possible to efficiently organize the event’s content under the hashtag, making it much easier for attendees to find and engage with. In addition, you will be more visible to potential attendees, too.
For instance, on Twitter (X), tweets with 1 hashtag are 55 percent more likely to be followed and retweeted than tweets without. Therefore, you should create an event hashtag or use the popularity of (and pertinent) hashtags when you’re planning your event’s advertisements to give yourself additional engagement opportunities.
16. Host a Social Challenge On the Internet
Contests and challenges are a great method of generating interest. Nearly three-quarters of all new customers come from contests. Although this particular statistic is for consumers of products, it is still proof that this technique is valid. Try it to generate interest in your event which could result in more sales or converted leads.
There are many contest types you can use however, the one that is most interesting for your audience is a raffle. Invite your followers to follow you on Facebook and share content related to the tradeshow for the chance to win free tickets.
17. Earn Media Through Viral Marketing
Earned media can be described as any type of public relations that was and is not paid for by the user. An excellent example of this nowadays is the fact that it has become a viral sensation via social networks. To stand the highest chance of receiving this kind of media that is earned your event’s advertising needs to be innovative, original, and captivating. You can also make the most of developments, social activities, and news by interacting with the latest subjects.
18. Get Your Audience Involved Through User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is viewed by the public as being the authentic type of marketing. 72 percent of brands say UGC can help them improve their engagement with their customers and establish trust. But what is UGC?
- Images
- Testimonials
- Social media posts
- Reviews
If you’ve been to tradeshows previously, get in touch with people who attended asking them to tell you about their experiences with you. Use their feedback on your event’s advertising collateral and on social media to attract more people.
What Will Event Promotion Look Like?
If you decide to choose some of these marketing suggestions and implement them, you’ll soon be on your way to reaching the following tradeshow advertising essentials:
- It’s intriguing. Event marketing should be enthralling. If you’re trying to convince someone to attend or even travel, your marketing strategies must give them a sense of what to expect during the tradeshow.
- It’s optimized. Particularly when it comes to online advertising with optimized content, a well-optimized website is crucial. A sound SEO strategy combined with engaging event marketing will draw the attention of potential customers.
- It provides a great user experience. If potential attendees interact with your event’s website – which is where the majority of these ideas for advertising will take them – it must be easy to navigate. To keep the attention of potential attendees, your event’s website should provide an excellent user experience to minimize headaches and increase the likelihood of a successful conversion.
- It generates excitement. Like most excellent ads and more, your tradeshow advertising collateral should aim to generate some buzz to create excitement and build anticipation for your tradeshow.
- It’s ubiquitous. Your ads for events should be widespread and broad to ensure the most impact.
Improve Your Marketing by Utilizing Event Management Software
Enhance your tradeshow advertising and marketing strategies by utilizing an event management system that has all-inclusive management capabilities.
If your campaign is successful (and we are sure that it will be! ). Prepare to handle the influx of ticket sales and registrations that are integrated, such as fully-branded registration pages and ticketing with flexibility.
