Margins are tight, the economy is cold as ice and you have restricted budgets to worry about – accounting for every last cent is now vital if you are to maintain or improve on your return on investment (ROI) from exhibiting at trade shows. Watching the money and budgeting appropriately has never been more important than it is today in the current economic climate, so here are some ideas to cut your costs and improve your ROI.

Negotiate a Deal with Trade Show Management

This applies no matter what the economic climate, but is very apt for driving down exhibition costs right now. Event management want to sell space and the additional extras and remember, they are sales people too – so let them sell you a deal you can’t refuse!

Typically, trade shows are booked up a year in advance in many situations but that is not a universal constant and times have been hard across the board. Do your research on which events are still open for applications to exhibit and see what the event sales team can come up with to get you onboard. Look to leverage taking space, or even taking more space against the cost of a sponsorship package, or a VIP presentation deal, sitting on a Q&A panel during the numerous seminars and presentations which are given.

Remember there is more to the cost of a show than simply renting the space.

Share the Space, Share the Costs

You may not be able to cover the total cost of renting space, however if you look for a partner who is in allied, but non-competing market, then you can feed off of each other in terms of dealing with leads but most importantly, in reducing the costs.

Taking on an exhibition partner involves more planning and greater organization, however you are effectively halving the cost of exhibiting and yet will still gain access to as many attendees as if you had the entire stand to yourself. This will dramatically improve your ROI if handled right.

Forget the Paper!

Most of the paper marketing collateral is not going to make it to the office of the attendee because they will simply drop it in the trash. As much as 90% of marketing brochures are destined for the local landfill and yet they represent a significant cost item.

Prepare your marketing collateral as an email package or an online download and use this as a reason for taking email addresses and opt the attendee into your marketing program.

Similarly, trade shows are replete with promotional giveaways which are utterly worthless and fail to achieve fundamental sales and marketing goals. Instead of ordering more pens, t-shirts, baseball caps and stress balls, really think about how you are using your promotional giveaways and use less of them but in a more targeted fashion.

Cancellations

Many companies have booked space for the current exhibition season which was made over a year ago, however economic fortunes have changed for many, many companies. This means some companies are looking to get out of the arrangement they made as they suffer from cutbacks and decide to cut their losses by not attending the trade show.

Approaching trade show management to see if there are cancellations will let you identify opportunities which may be open but not widely publicized – after all, who wants to advertise that their company is experiencing financial issues?

Author Bio: Lawrence Reaves works with ExhibitWholesale, a leading provider of trade show displays and accessories such as Entasi displays and literature racks. ExhibitWholesale can be found online at: ExhibitWholesale.com .

Category: Marketing
Keywords: save money on trade shows, money saving for tradeshows, tradeshows