Logistical Vacation, Anyone?
Marketing departments spend a good bulk of their budget on trade shows. Few other line items demand such a great investment. While the logistical concerns in the course of organizing a successful exhibit program are immense, there’s an oft-ignored “elephant in the room” of every trade show coordinator, or marketing manager.
The marketing department is primarily concerned with trade show logistics, instead of MARKETING IMPACT (the aforementioned elephant).
Suppose your company were investing heavily in a direct mail campaign. Would you obsess with how the direct mail vendor planned to print the postcards? Perhaps you would ruminate incessantly about how the addresses were collated?
Ok, so of course you wouldn’t worry about those things. You’d probably focus on the message of the mail itself, how your company is perceived by the recipients, and the call to action. Marketing strategy’s the name of the game, correct?
WHY ISN’T THAT HAPPENING FOR YOUR TRADE SHOW EXHIBIT?
For being the largest expenditure in the marketing budget, it seems that the only strategy involved in planning trade shows is:
1. Pick a booth design that you like,
and
2. Figure out how the logistics and expenses will mesh with reality [your marketing budget and exhibition schedule]
Marketing strategy should drive every “booth decision,” period. It shouldn’t just be a piecemeal graphics change, but rather an honest evaluation of what your booth communicates about your company, your product, and your positioning amidst your competitors. Your display should be fine tuned based on an expo’s attendees and competing exhibitors. So let’s just take a little vacation from logistics while we straighten this all out…
Tags: trade show blog