The end of 2024 is upon us! Its been a great year for trade shows, however 2025 is going to be a year to remember! Booked events, backlogs in orders, and economic enthusiasm are all setting up for a great event season! Year end is a great time to prepare for the upcoming trade show season. Our 2025 Trade Show Preparation Checklist is a simple, yet effective reminder of how to prepare for the event season. Just like spring or fall cleaning, its always a great idea to take some time every year and take inventory on your products and re-asses your marketing approach. We will go over 5 simple steps to prepare you for 2025!
Step 1 – 2025 Event Goals and Objectives
Take a moment to reflect on your 2024 events. How did they go? Did they produce ROI? Did they increase your brand exposure? Why or why not? Right now is the ideal time to assess your goals and objectives for 2025. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. By reflecting on the past years results, you figure out what worked and failed in 2024. Its also a great time to asses your competitors and if you are keeping up with the industry. Your goals and objectives shape your entire event strategy. The methods of advertising, promotional products, and booth assets are affected by the goals of the marketing campaign. Our infographic on “How to attract trade show attendees” is a great resource on different event marketing strategies that increase booth traffic.
Here are a few questions to help you ensure your event goals and objectives are in line with your event marketing strategy:
- Are events for increasing overall business revenue? Is so, how much?
- Do we use events to increase brand awareness? If so how do we measure the results?
- Is the goal to increase our email list or social media subscribers?
- Do we use events to create our own marketing content from the event itself?
- How do we stay competitive with other exhibitors in our industry?
For more information make sure to check out “5 critical components of event coordination” to expand further on achieving your event goals! If you find that your business is using events to fulfill multiple marketing goals, make sure to prioritize each goal to ensure each one is given the appropriate amount of resources.
Step 2 – Event Marketing Strategies for 2025
Take a moment to look over your marketing strategies as a whole and specifically for your events.
- What currently works for you?
- Are there any marketing activities with a diminishing return?
- Are our competitors doing anything different from us?
Make sure to do some research online to see what is working in the current economy. Creative Imaging Displays offers a wide variety of free resources to help you succeed at trade shows! Our infographic “using social networking with trade shows” is a great resource to level up your trade show marketing. Post event marketing strategies are one of the most effective ways to land new clients and increase subscribers. We covered this topic in great detail in an earlier post. Although this post is related to outdoor events, the same concepts apply for all events. 5 Ways to get noticed at outdoor events goes in depth with event marketing strategies that will work for you in 2025! Additionally, this fantastic article from Hubspot offers stats and breakdowns on all the current event marketing strategies for 2025!
Step 3 – Promotional Items and Trade Show Giveaways
Many companies have become complacent with their promotional items and trade show giveaways. It is easy to order the same pens and water bottles that you have been using for the last few decades and never think twice. However, the main strategy behind a giveaway is to offer an item someone will use everyday so they are constantly reminded of your businesses products and services. It is also important to stand our from your competitors. Creative Imaging Displays now offers promo products that are unique, high quality, and will set you apart at every event! Some companies are even investing in high quality back packs, North Face jackets, and tumbles to giveaway to their biggest clients. They also use these high quality promo items to offer a “free raffle” to attendees. It costs them nothing but their contact info, and in return they could win a high quality branded item!
Step 4 – Booth Assets and Design
How is your booth set up looking? It is important to browse the show floor at every event you attend. Look at every competitors booth and see what they are offering. A trade show is a competition, and the most exciting booth usually attracts the most traffic. Things like backlit display systems and printed trade show flooring are trending in our industry because they make your booth stand out! In some cases, it may also make sense to start renting your trade show displays. Renting allows more bang for your buck, especially if your plan to switch up your booth at each event. Digital and interactive displays continue to gain in popularity! However, they are expensive so make sure to do careful ROI analysis to ensure this is right for you!
For more exhibitors an updated graphic is a great, low cost way to updated your booth for 2025. Our wide variety of replacement graphics for trade show displays makes it possible to rebrand any booth for a low cost. We even offer custom replacement graphics which means you can send us the hardware from any display and we will create new graphics for it!
Step 5 – Brand Image, Design Aesthetics, and Messaging
The final step in the 2025 Trade Show Preparation Checklist is your overall brand and messaging. Right now may be the perfect time to tweak your logo design, update your messaging, or do a complete redesign of your entire brand theme! A brand evolves like everything in life and its important to keep everything fresh. Even the most popular brands will slightly modify their iconic logos to shake things up. As you assess your entire event strategy for 2025, make sure to consider this critical point. If you plan to purchase a new trade show booth, promo items, apparel, and business cards, right now may be a perfect time to refresh your branding! Ask yourself the following questions:
- How long has it been since our last brand update?
- Is our messaging still consistent with our companies goals?
- Do our customers quickly understand who we are and what we do?
- Is our color theme modern? Is there room for improvement?
- What are the cost implications to update our branding?
After carefully assessing all the implications of a brand and/or messaging refresh it will be clear if this is the right direction for 2025! If you need additional help make sure to consult with a marketing agency or talk to a supplier like Creative Imaging Displays to get multiple opinions and recommendations!
Did you find the 2025 Trade Show Preparation Checklist helpful? Take some time during the holiday season to refresh, rest, and contemplate a great event season for 2025. Make sure to prepare so you are not left behind, great economic opportunities are right around the corner!