Trade Show Branding Strategy

I’ve changed my mind about trade shows. 6 months ago, I talked about how ineffective they were as a marketing tactic. - Booths cost £1000s - No one gets new business. - You get ignored by attendees. - Everyone is just pitching at you. - There are 100s of competitors there. - You get drowned out by other vendors. They’re a massive waste of time. Or at least that’s what I thought… Then I got sent the photos (below) from one of our clients’ booths at a recent trade show. That’s when I realised trade shows aren’t the issue. ↳ It’s how companies approach them that’s broken. The key: Create a campaign around your booth. Here’s the playbook for getting noticed at trade shows: 1/ Don’t Make Yourself The Attraction Our client hired Kaleb from Clarkson’s Farm to be at their booth. Crowds flocked for a chat, photo, or simply to see what all the fuss was about. They came for Kaleb. ↳ But then they’d chat to our client. —— 2/ Turning a Booth Into an Experience They ditched the usual trade show freebies and brought in a VR welding setup. Kaleb set a time. ↳ People tried to beat it. ↳ If they did they won a prize. This meant visitors weren’t just walking by—they were staying, engaging, and talking about it. —— 3/ Force Them To Remember You Here’s where it got clever: Our client offered a hefty reward for the person who won the VR welding game. But they wouldn’t find out if they won until the end of the day. That meant the last booth people went to was there. ↳ Keeping them top of mind on the way home. —— Don’t get me wrong, most trade shows are a waste of money. But if you go into them: - With a clear strategy. - An approach to get noticed. - A campaign around your booth. They can really make an impact. Definitely going to be doing more of this with clients. P.S. Follow me to learn how to get your company noticed Niall Ratcliffe 📚

Here’s a mistake I see a lot of companies make before a trade show.  They try to be everything to everyone. They walk into a show with a generic elevator pitch.  They hope people will just “get” what they do.  They use broad language to sound more flexible.  And then they wonder why no one remembers them. Let me tell you what works instead.  Pick one clear ICP for that show.  One message.  One problem you solve that matters most to that audience. If your ideal client at this event is operations leaders at mid-market manufacturers,  everything you say should speak directly to what keeps them up at night.  If your target is packaging decision-makers, your talk track should make them feel like you’ve been sitting in on their team meetings. The goal is not to prove you can help anyone.  It’s to become unforgettable to the right ones. You want someone to leave your booth and say,  “That’s the team that gets us. That’s who we need to talk to.” Not,  “What did they do again?” This is how you move from being seen… to being remembered.  From talking… to converting. Start with your ICP.  Then shape your message.  Then train your team to deliver it with clarity and confidence. That’s how you make a trade show worth it. If your team is prepping for a fall show and the messaging still feels fuzzy, this is something I help sales leaders tighten.    Getting crystal clear on who you’re speaking to and what you’re saying can change everything. 

🔥 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘂𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟯𝟬 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝘂𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝗙𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿’𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝘁 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝗖𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗲 If there were an Oscar for “Best Booth” at China Cycle this year, my vote would go to Factor Bikes. Bold. Red. Desirable. Edgy. And constantly full of people. I visited their booth three days in a row. At one point, I stopped observing and joined the queue myself. Here’s what I think Factor got right. 1️⃣ 𝗜𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝗸𝗲𝘀. The booth design obviously stood out. But the more interesting question is: why? A friend from Factor said something that stayed with me: “It’s never just about cycling.” That was exactly the point. The booth carried references from art, fashion, architecture, and culture — reflecting the multidisciplinary backgrounds of the people behind it. This was cross-industry thinking at its best. 2️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗮 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗵. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿. A beautiful booth is not enough. Many brands spend heavily on exhibition design and still struggle to attract meaningful traffic. Factor did something different: they created reasons for people to stay, queue, post, and return. You could queue for a personalized “Racing Licence” — complete with your photo, name, and rider category, printed in around 10 seconds. You could queue to meet 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮𝘦, four-time Tour de France champion, and David Millar, Grand Tour stage winner and now Chief Brand Officer at Factor Bikes. There was always something happening. And in a trade show environment, nothing attracts people like people. The queue became part of the marketing. 3️⃣ 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘄𝗮𝗴 𝗵𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲. Most expo giveaways are forgettable. Or worse — so covered in corporate logos that you feel embarrassed to use them afterwards. Factor’s cycling bag was different. It matched the visual language of the booth. It felt intentional. It was something I would actually use. When I asked how to get one, the staff told me: post on Xiaohongshu. Smart. UGC at its best. 4️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗮 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗮 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲. The Rapha x Factor Clubhouse party — with the CEOs of Factor, Zwift, and Wahoo in the room — made the point even clearer. That is not just event marketing. That is ecosystem choreography. Factor did not simply show products. They staged a world people wanted to enter. And that, to me, is the real lesson. In today’s cycling industry, the brands that win will not be the ones with the biggest product walls. They will be the ones that create desire, community, and cultural gravity around what they build. Congrats to Rob and the entire Factor team. You gave the industry something worth queuing for. - #CyclingIndustry #ExperienceDesign #FactorBikes #CommunityBuilding #ChinaCycle

Expo West is 7 days away. And every year I watch a few founders make the same expensive mistake. “We’re going to Expo.” “Great. Why?” The pause that follows usually tells me everything. Sometimes the answer is: “Because we went last year.” “Because we need more stores.” “Because it’s good visibility.” All reasonable. But I’ve watched brands spend $25K, $75K, even $250K on three days — and walk away without a clear answer to whether it was worth it. Because trade shows don’t create strategy. They magnify whatever intention you walk in with. If you’re there to raise capital, your booth, your meetings, your proof points should reflect that. If you’re there to win distribution, walk in with a target list, a clear ask, and a reason to say yes. If category position is the goal, decide what you want repeated—and what you’re not. So before you think about booth design, giveaways, or the perfect sell sheet, get your team aligned on one sentence: What would make this show actually worth it? Be specific. • Retail meetings in a defined channel? • A new distribution partner? • Investor traction? • Strengthening your reputation in a key category? If you can’t clearly name what you’re there to accomplish, you won’t know whether it worked. The brands that walk away saying “that was worth it” don’t necessarily have the biggest, shiniest booths. They have the clearest intention. If you’re heading to Expo West, what outcome would make it worth it for you?

This week at HubSpot’s INBOUND in San Francisco, I spent a lot of time walking the floor of Club INBOUND, the sponsor expo where brands big and small spend a lot of money to have a visible presence in front of INBOUND's 10,000+ attendees. Here’s what stood out: Most booths get it wrong. Too many companies treat their booth like a library shelf - lined with brochures, swag, and a few team members standing around waiting for someone to stop by. The result? Empty booths. Low energy. Poor ROI. The booths that worked? They built experiences. Crowds gathered where something was happening - where there was energy, interaction, and a reason to engage that had nothing to do with the product pitch. (Shout out to the teams at Vidyard, QuotaPath, CallRail and Computan, all of whom understood the assignment 😉 ) If you're a marketing leader or CEO who's thinking of making a big investment in a trade show or conference booth, here's my advice: ROI from trade shows doesn’t come from how much you spend on square footage, or how glossy your collateral is. It comes from the experience you create. If you want pipeline from an event, you need to: ✅ Give people a reason to walk over that isn’t your product. ✅ Create a moment they’ll want to share or remember. ✅ Use that moment as the bridge to a conversation. INFORMATION doesn’t draw people in >> EXPERIENCE does. The companies that understand this stood out. The ones that didn’t? They’ll be the ones questioning whether their event sponsorship was “worth it.” If you’re planning to invest in a booth in 2025 or beyond, stop thinking about it as “presence.” Start thinking about it as theater. To all of my marketing peeps who were at INBOUND this week, which booths did you think hosted the best experiences? #INBOUND2025 #kathleenhq

Walking the trade show floor last week, I was stunned by how many companies completely miss the mark with their booth messaging. Here's what I saw way too much of: - Generic platitudes: "We're here for you!" and "Your success is our mission!" - Ego-driven headlines: "We're #1 in [insert category]" — which tells me nothing about why I should care. - Stock photo disasters: Smiling people who have nothing to do with the actual solution. The result? I walked past dozens of booths with zero understanding of what these companies actually do or how they could help me. Here's the reality: Your trade show backdrop should work exactly like your website homepage hero. It has one job: get qualified prospects to stop. The three elements that actually work: 1. Lead with the problem you solve — not your product features or company accolades. 2. Show clear differentiation — explain why you're different from the 50 other companies claiming to solve the same problem. 3. Use visuals that matter — for SaaS companies, show your actual interface or data. For service companies, show images of real results or outcomes. What prospects don't care about while walking the floor: - Your mission statement - Your stock performance - How great your service is (before they know what you do) - Your pricing (All examples of things I spotted.) The best backdrops I saw communicated three things within seconds: the problem they solve, who they serve, and why they're uniquely qualified to help. The best example of communicating nothing? I took a photo of one booth (with the company name and logo removed to protect their identity). Take a look - can you even tell what this company does from their backdrop messaging? Your backdrop isn't wall art — it's your most expensive lead generation tool. Make it count. What's the worst (or best) trade show messaging you've encountered?

If you treat trade shows like brand awareness, They will feel expensive and underwhelming. Trade shows work when they are designed for conversion, not visibility. The mistake most teams make is assuming the booth is the start of the journey. It's not. It is the midpoint. Here’s how high-performing ABM teams treat trade shows differently: 🔸 They only care about a defined set of target accounts Not badge scans. Not foot traffic. Specific companies they already want to move forward. 🔸 They know the account already knows who they are ABM teams are already tracking engagement across LinkedIn, paid social, outbound, and content. These teams know what these accounts have engaged with. Now it's time to show them how their product addresses their pain points. 🔸 They design the booth for “show me” moments Live demos. Sandboxes. Use-case walkthroughs. Not swag and small talk. 🔸 They measure what happens after the event Follow-up meetings booked. Accounts progressing stages. Pipeline velocity from event-touched accounts. 🟢 Awareness happens by default at events. 🎯 Conversion only happens by design. If your success metric is how many people stopped by the booth, You are measuring the wrong thing. The real question is: How many of your target accounts moved forward because of that event? 👉 Are your trade shows built to generate awareness… or booked meetings? ______________________________________ Howdy 👋 I’m Mason. I lead Scrappy ABM. We’ve helped B2B teams generate over $100M in revenue in the past 3 years. If you want weekly ABM playbooks, frameworks, and real operator breakdowns, I share everything in the podcast and newsletter. 👉 ScrappyABM.com/newsletter

Merch doesn’t just create visibility at Exhibitions It shapes the conversations you have. One of the biggest shifts we see with clients is moving away from “generic giveaways" to using merchandise categories aligned to specific outcomes. Because different categories of merch don’t just serve different purposes, they attract different conversations. For example: 📢Brand Awareness Merch Keeps your brand consistently visible, building familiarity and recognition over time 📢Pre-Qualification Merch Designed to strategically engage the right audience, creating more focused and meaningful conversations 📢Door-Opening Merch Designed to spark curiosity and create conversations where there wasn’t one before. 📢Appreciation Merch Reinforces strong relationships with key clients by recognising their loyalty and ongoing partnership. 📢Video Brochures Designed to extend conversations beyond the initial interaction, creating a natural reason for a second meeting where the brochure is returned and the dialogue continues When used intentionally, merch becomes more than a product 🎯 It becomes a tool to guide the type of conversations you want to have and with who Because the goal isn’t to give something away, it’s to create the right interaction that leads to the right outcome How are you using different types of merchandise to influence the conversations you’re having? 🤔 This is exactly the thinking behind how we approach exhibitions using our Strategic Exhibition Preparation Framework 🤑 __________________________________________________________________ 🔔 Ring the bell on my profile Roy Kowarski 👉 Follow Out There Branding - Marketing & Branding Strategists for strategies that convert to revenue Subscribe to my monthly LinkedIn newsletter https://lnkd.in/gH4hNbcC

The biggest trade show mistake? Treating it as a 3-day event instead of a 90-day content engine. Every conversation. Every demo. Every presentation. That’s content waiting to be repurposed. I had a conversation with a prospect who was complaining about his leadership. “Our leadership was furious. We only got 40 leads from the trade show.” That’s what a prospect told me this week. 3 days. 40 leads. Only 2 were considered “warm.” Their average deal size was $100,000. All it would take is one closed deal, considering their LTV was over $1,000,000 They’d invested $60K+ on booth, travel, and team, and were labeling it a failure. But here’s the thing: Trade shows don’t fail because of attendance. They fail because of pre-booking, follow-up, and content strategy. Here's what I told him: "Don't give up so quick." The show isn’t the end. It’s the beginning of a 90-day content engine. (I was just featured in vFairs. Check out the full article "Why Trade Shows Are Worth the Hype" here: https://lnkd.in/e9kJkwga Thanks to their team for including me!) Here’s how the smartest teams turn one show into months of pipeline and engagement 👇 1️⃣ Film everything. Don’t just record the keynote, capture booth chats, behind-the-scenes moments, Q&As. Short clips = authentic LinkedIn gold later. (Even shaky iPhone footage works better than polished nothing.) 2️⃣ Collect “micro-stories.” Ask team members to jot one lesson or funny moment per day. Those become quick, relatable posts that humanize your brand. 3️⃣ Turn FAQs into lead magnets. The 10 questions prospects asked most? Package the answers into a PDF guide: “Top 10 questions we got at [Event Name], answered.” 4️⃣ Reuse your talks. Each presentation = 5 LinkedIn posts + 1 email + 3 short clips. Slice insights into snackable, story-driven pieces. 5️⃣ Create educational content that positions you as the expert. Break down your demo into a mini training — “Here’s the 5-minute version of what we taught at the booth.” Host a short LinkedIn Live or carousel recap: ➡️ Key takeaways from your session ➡️ 3 lessons the industry still misses ➡️ “If you couldn’t make it to [Event Name], here’s the 3-slide summary” That turns your trade show booth into an always-on classroom, not a one-off pitch. 6️⃣ Follow up with value, not “just checking in.” Send attendees a clip or quote from your booth chat instead. Feels personal. Builds trust. Converts faster. When you treat the show as a content engine and pipeline catalyst, those 3 days can drive growth for months to come. 👉 Curious, how do you repurpose trade show content after the event? ____________ #Sema #Fabtech #IMTS #MDM + Join 25k + people receiving tips via social and my free email newsletter, sign up here: https://lnkd.in/eRXtjQ_C ⚡ Need more leads from your trade show attendance and exhibits? Book a 1-1 free strategy call here: https://lnkd.in/eQDvNkRV

If you only do one type of trade show, you don’t have a strategy. You have activity. Most companies treat trade shows like isolated events. One booth. One budget. One expectation. And when it doesn’t immediately produce results, they question the entire channel. That’s the mistake. Because trade shows aren’t events. They’re a system. A layered system. Across industries, the companies that win don’t rely on a single show. They build presence across multiple layers of exposure, access, and timing. I’ve used a layered approach with great success in the hospitality industry, which looks like this: 1️⃣ Regional Shows → Coverage & Accessibility while budget friendly (I like the NEWH, Inc Regional Trade Shows) • Build early relationships • Stay visible in key regions • Support reps and local networks 2️⃣ National Shows → Brand Positioning (My go to shows are Hospitality Design | HD Expo and Boutique Design | BDNY) • Establish credibility at scale • Showcase product and capability • Stay relevant with top firms and brands 3️⃣ Leadership Events → Access & Trust (Build a solid mix, like HD Summit, NEWH Leadership Conference, or some of the new Stay&Gather events like Stay Gathering) • Build real relationships with executive level decision-makers • Have conversations you can’t have on a show floor • Position yourself beyond product 4️⃣ Targeted Events → Precision & Conversion (Stay Connect, BD Match, BITAC Events, Hotec Events) • Direct access to active buyers • Pre-qualified opportunities • Focused business development Most companies operate in one layer, maybe two... The ones who win operate across all of them. Because each layer solves a different problem: 🎯 Visibility 🎯 Credibility 🎯 Access 🎯 Conversion Miss one, and your system breaks. Trade shows aren’t a line item. They’re an integrated go-to-market system. And if you’re not thinking about them that way, you’re leaving deals on the table long before the project even exists. Ryszard (Rich) Paliwoda has created an amazing currated list of hospitality industry trade shows and events which you can find here: https://lnkd.in/gzM7qReK #Hospitality #SalesStrategy #TradeShows #BusinessDevelopment #Leadership