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You have an exciting exhibition or trade show coming up, but you haven’t filled all your available booths for the event yet. With deadlines approaching, your team is wondering how to get more exhibitors to commit and promote the opportunity to brands and professionals who may be interested. Trade show floor visibility can make all the difference in conversions.
At Cadmium, we’re here to provide you with the tools necessary to ensure the success of association and nonprofit events. In this guide, we’ll walk you through proven strategies for attracting and engaging exhibitors and show attendees—plus show you how event management software can make the process easier and more effective.
How To Find Exhibitors For An Event
Finding exhibitors for an event often requires refining your networking, marketing, and offers to get organizations or industry leaders interested. Some top strategies include connecting with booth visitors who have engaged in past events.
Tradeshow booth setup and presentation are also major selling points when reaching out to potential exhibitors.
Connecting With Industry Networks Or Associations
Start by researching any industry networks or associations in your area. They may have networking opportunities where your team can attend and connect with their members. Otherwise, you could reach out directly to association leaders and see if they can connect you with members who might be interested in hosting a trade show exhibit.
Leveraging Social Media Channels And Groups
Post about the opportunity on your social media accounts. Your followers already know your association and the value you provide, making social platforms a natural place to generate interest and engagement. Posting photos of your available trade show booth space helps bring visibility to open opportunities.
You can also leverage relevant groups. For example, if your association offers continuing education for the performing arts, you could join and reach out to performing arts Facebook groups. Many members of social media groups are highly passionate about what they do and receptive to offers that will help them connect with others at events. Use the group forums to promote your trade show event and generate buzz.
Hosting Virtual Info Sessions
A virtual info session is an efficient way to grab the attention of potential exhibitors and sponsors. It’ll help you connect with multiple industry leaders and organizations at once while providing essential information about what your organization does, your impact, and why participating in your upcoming event is a good idea. You can even record this session so those who can’t attend live can still watch later. Virtual engagement plays a key role in overall event success.
Create Sponsor or Exhibitor Referral Incentives
Referrals are an excellent way to build trust with potential sponsors or exhibitors. Offering extra rewards encourages those who’ve had an excellent experience featuring a booth at your events to share their experience while directly impacting what your organization is doing. Incentives you could offer for referrals are:
- Discounts on booths at future events
- Free or discounted products or services
- Prominent booth placements
- VIP treatment, such as faster check-in or booth setup assistance
You could even set up a loyalty points system where continued referrals lead to more benefits.
Offer Appealing Exhibitor Packages
When your team has promoted exhibitor opportunities and you aren’t getting many signups, it could indicate that your offer and packages aren’t appealing enough. Some ways to improve your offers include offering special deals before your upcoming trade deadline.
- Offer exclusive discounts for association members or early registrants.
- Include tech-enabled tools like an event app that simplifies networking and boosts exhibitor visibility
- Create sponsorship tiers that give exhibitors prominent exposure in programs, emails, and signage.
- Showcase your event’s impact by sharing key stats, like past attendee numbers or testimonials from successful sponsors.
Anything you feel will resonate with prospective exhibitors and make the opportunity more exciting is worth testing.
How Do I Get More Attendees To My Event?
Another big component of successful event marketing is ensuring you get enough attendees to register. The more attendees you have, the easier it is to get potential exhibitors to sign up for your current event and any future exhibitions you host. Understanding your target audience is key here.
Some great strategies to get more attendees are:
- Offer early bird sales or group discounts. Many people will want to jump on special deals. Early signups that raise your initial number of registered attendees also help promote the opportunity to exhibitors. Consider offering incentives right from your event website to boost traction.
- Have influencers spread the word. Influencer marketing is a great promotion strategy to connect with audiences who might not be aware of your association. You can either pay for influencers to promote your event or connect with influencers who are passionate about your mission and ask them to spread the word. Influencers are particularly effective in campaigns designed to attract attendees.
- Send email newsletters. Members already signed up for your email list are aware of and interested in your organization. Send newsletters so they know about your upcoming event and why they should attend.
How Do You Get Vendors To Come To Your Event?
Securing vendors for food, beverages, and other event materials is another essential component to ensure success. Sometimes, you may need to offer some event incentives to negotiate good deals or convince them to sign up. Sharing the number of booth number requests already received can help build urgency.
- Create attractive booth packages and sponsorship opportunities. Similar to exhibitors, you need to ensure your booth packages for vendors are appealing enough. That could include featuring vendors at high-traffic locations of the venue, extra sponsorship opportunities, or discounts for committing early. Vendors also want assurance they’ll be collecting leads at your event.
- Highlight networking opportunities. Vendors are more likely to participate if they know they’ll have meaningful interactions with attendees and organizations that align with their business.
- Share data and results. Use metrics from past events—such as average foot traffic, vendor ROI, or attendee satisfaction scores—to demonstrate the potential benefits of participating.
- Form partnerships. Building strong relationships and partnerships with vendors can make them feel more secure about working with you and will help you avoid scrambling to find vendors for future events.
How Do You Attract People To Your Booth At An Event?
After vendors invest in a booth at your event, you want them to have a positive experience. To ensure enough event engagement for vendors, consider sharing the following key to success:
Standing Out in a Sea of Booths
When attendees are walking past several booths, vendors need to give them a reason to stop and pay attention. Interactive displays and eye-catching designs are great ways to ensure booth attraction. Some examples of fun interactive elements to attract potential clients include:
- Live product demonstrations that showcase features in real time
- Educational games or quizzes that tie into their offerings
- Giveaways that encourage foot traffic and lead collection
- Photo contests displayed in a live ePoster gallery to boost interaction
- Social media challenges that encourage attendees to share their experience
Each of these gives attendees a reason to stop, and they can get vendors some good word of mouth across the event from guests who enjoyed their activities. These strategies often lead to more potential leads and lasting impressions.
How Eventscribe From Cadmium Helps With Exhibitor And Event Management
All the elements involved in promoting and managing event exhibitors require the right technology to organize everything. Eventscribe is an event management system that helps at each stage of event planning and execution, including exhibitor management.
Eventscribe’s exhibitor management features include:
- An organized exhibitor portal for communication, content collection, and task management
- An easy display of available booths, pricing, and sponsorship opportunities
- Lead activity tracking to manage promotional efforts
- Secure payment processing
Additionally, Eventscribe offers tools for each stage of the event lifecycle. That includes a smooth registration process, logistics planning, attendee engagement, and speaker and presentation management. Click here to learn more.
