Companies participate in trade shows for 4 main reasons (and usually a mix of more than one):
- Build Awareness
- Generate New Leads
- Launch a New Product
- Enter a New Market
A trade show is all about networking and connecting with (new) people, and building a long-term professional relationship with them as a result.
So your efforts should be focused on reaching every visitor that belongs to your target group with the right message in the best possible circumstances.
First drawing their attention (stopping power) and then keeping it long enough to plant the seed. You can even start doing this BEFORE the show opens!
How? Read on… 👇
1. Book the Best Spot – First Come First Served
There is a difference in quality of a booth location in every exhibition. The sooner you book, the more (and better) places you will be able to choose from. Understand the visitor flow of the floor plan. What company do you want as a neighbour (who is also attracting your target group?), or do not want (i.e. your competitor?).
If you are a late booker, the organiser cannot perform magic for you. It all depends on the availabilities at the moment of your booking. So book as early as you can and then pick the best spot where you will find your target group 🎯 passing by. Make sure that you use the extra promotion possibilities to direct visitors to your booth.
2. Stand Design
What is your budget, what are you willing/capable of to invest? What is your message and the goal of your participation?
Is a shell scheme (a small booth with walls) enough or do you need a naked space where you can build and design your own booth?
How much space do you need? Which products/services will you present? Do you need (a) meeting room(s) where you can talk privately? Do you want to have a bar, a sitting area, food?
Your stand should be the visualisation of your brand and your specific marketing objectives in that trade show. Define your goals first, then build the booth to achieve those goals.
Draw the attention. 👋 Make sure the stand is open and invites to interact. You need to stand out and attract (the right) visitors. Passers-by need to see and understand what your company is doing in the blink of an eye and how this is relevant to them. A trade show is, like all marketing communication channels, a constant battle for attention. And yes, your competitors are there too, so you must outsmart them. As a general rule, people that attend trade shows are more motivated, interested and inclined to interact. Lead generation is one of your main goals. Your potential customers are there, so you must attract them 🧲 to make a stop at your booth. And then keep them there to get your message across and build the foundation of your relationship.
The selection and briefing of your stand designer and builder is very important if you build your own booth. Remember that you can reuse a booth in other trade shows and even use the same booth for more editions of the same trade show. It’s an investment. 🪙
Talk with your sales team: who do they want to host, in which way (what do they want to show), for how long? Think about engaging the visitors (see point 6), both in a small shell scheme stand as well as in a big designed stand.
🚩 For Busworld:
- Check out the booths of previous trade shows in our picture library (Flickr).
3. Time Management Is Essential
Make all your preparations well ahead.
- Building and dismantling 🛠️ your booth needs to be organized according to the schedule of the organizer.
- Order your services in time (water💧, electricity⚡, suspension, furniture, etc.).
- Book accommodations and transportation for your staff. The sooner, the lower the prices and the higher the availability. Set up a schedule of activities in your booth and outside the venue.
🚩 For Busworld:
- We have a very complicated building and dismantling schedule, since we need to bring in big buses and coaches 🚌 in between the building of the booths in a very precise order. The timings have to be respected 100%.
- Use the help of our accommodation booking service (see hotels)
4. Promotion of Your Participation
Your promotional strategy should not be limited to the trade fair location and the day(s) of the trade show. Invest time to promote your trade show appearance, before the show too. 📢
- Via your owned media channels (website, social media, e-mailing,…): announce your presence – a trade show organizer can deliver you visual materials to do so.
- Via the signature banner in all e-mails: quick win – Imagine the number of e-mails that are being sent by your staff in the months before a trade show.
- Make sure your appearance in all available trade show channels makes you stand out: the exhibitor list on the website, the paper newspaper Daily Times distributed to all visitors every day, etc. Be clear and attractive, so (potential) visitors can find you when preparing their visit. (see point 7)
- Find out what the communication & advertising possibilities are before and during the trade show. Like newsletters, websites, platforms, press releases, social media, etc. 📱 The organizer is looking for content to promote their trade show to attract visitors. Your products and services can be that content. Use their communication power to highlight your presence. Book extra visibility in the venue and the communication channels used during the show.
- Invite your customers, capture them. A trade show can be a very efficient tool to concentrate meetings with your existing customers about current and future business. You might even want to organise a special customer event for them. Don’t just say ‘visit us at booth XXX’ but trigger their curiosity! ✨
🚩 For Busworld:
Here are the specific communication channels we are offering:
- Press releases – Busworld has a very strong relationship with the bus & coach press around the world and sends updates before the show ➡️ More info in point 9
- Busworld App – exhibitors + products + exhibitor staff + visitors + congress sessions + agenda (you receive an invitation to edit your profile) ➡️ More info in point 7
- Busworld Daily Times (incl. floor plan) – a newspaper distributed to visitors and exhibitors – (you receive an invitation to share your news + buy advertisements) ➡️ More info in point 9
- Busworld BUSiness – weekly newsletter to + 30,000 professional bus & coach contacts around the world, dedicated to Busworld Europe exhibitors in September 2025 - so share your news beforehand ➡️ More info in point 9
- Advertising possibilities in and around the venue of Brussels Expo (this can be reserved via the exhibitor portal where you order electricity, water, etc.)
- Social media (LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram)
- Busworld TV, our YouTube channel with all videos ever made by Busworld
5. Set KPIs - Manage, Evaluate and Follow-up
Set SMART GOALS 🎯 for your trade show participation. Your sales team needs to be encouraged and you need to be able to evaluate the participation afterwards. Track not just numbers, but also engagement/interaction levels and quality of interactions.
- SPECIFIC - define them in detail
- MEASURABLE -you cannot evaluate them if you cannot measure them
- ATTAINABLE - only realistic goals are motivating
- RELEVANT - sounds logic, wearing the most colourful tie or dress would not be a relevant goal
- TIME - define the timing – by when: per day, during the trade show, follow-up after the trade show
Some ideas to get you started🚀: Number of new contacts, quality of the contacts, number of participants to a game/activity in your booth, direct sales, follow-up sales, number of social mentions, … Per team member, per team, per day, end of the show…
Lots of possibilities. Think it through. Build some team spirit while doing this, it can be a motivation for your sales team to have some sort of contest or mutual team incentive. Gamification works.🕹️
Organizers foresee lead generation management tools to manage and monitor the daily interactions of your sales staff with the visitors. Collect the visitor contact details in a digital way (nobody should collect paper business cards anymore – and loose them), understand the quality of the interaction and use this database to follow-up after the trade show.
The trade show contact is only the beginning. Turning your leads into customers and long-term relationships happens afterwards.
🚩 For Busworld:
Check the Busworld App lead management tool, it can be used to scan the visitors, no extra costs involved.
Add the team members that want to make appointments and want to use the scanning! They can evaluate each scan and mention quality, time spent, level of interest, etc. Do this BEFORE the show starts.
Make sure you reply to messages and meeting requests (someone from the digital marketing team?). Add your most important products.
6. Plan Your ‘Engagement’ Activities in the Booth to Reach Your KPIs
Visiting a B2B trade show is business, so a rational activity. But people are people and also in B2B environments, they are still emotional beings that connect with other human beings they like. Never forget that business decisions are also influenced by emotions. And people are more likely to buy from someone they like❤️. Creating a good atmosphere is important, so you can wrap up the rational business conversation with a more convivial ending, the start of a personal relationship.
Catering in your booth might be the answer. People stay longer, when you offer them a place to sit and a drink🍷or snack🥨. It is still the most efficient way to win the battle of attention and create lasting impressions. It’s also the main reason why face-to-face networking has a more profound effect than digital networking. It’s all about people: your sales staff and the trade show visitors.
Next to the human interaction touch, think about interaction through senses (sight, touch, sound, ...). Your booth is a brand experience. Demonstrate your products and services in the best possible way, they are still the main reason the visitor is in your booth. Think outside the box📦 and make use of technological solutions to create interactivity in your booth: augmented reality, virtual reality, videos, interactive displays, stand games, photobooths, a robot, … 🤖
And last but not least: never underestimate the power of giveaways🎁if you want to create brand awareness. If not at the receiver, you might want to aim at the family members (like children). Imagine your visitor taking home a gift from your company and children being wild about it.
🚩 For Busworld:
- Check the outside test drive zones. The best way to demonstrate your (new) vehicle is to offer a test drive. That’s only possible outside of course. Ideally you have a vehicle inside (for all visitors to check out) and a vehicle performing test drives outside (for potential buyers). Contact info@busworld.org for more information.
- Busworld strongly believes in turning the rational B2B visit into a fun experience. So we foresee entertainment ourselves, at the entrance and in the corridors. We encourage you to do the same, but of course always in respect of your neighbours. Check with us what you can and cannot do. We will help you in any possible way. Contact info@busworld.org for more information.
7. Do Not Forget to Manage Your Digital Participation
A lot of trade shows are using a digital tool💻to enhance the in-person experience and some events became even hybrid, allowing people to ‘attend digitally’ in some way.
Make sure you are aware of these digital add-ons. They are an opportunity to grab the visitor’s attention before the show and thus a way to make him/her visit you in-person during the show. A well-prepared visitor uses this tool to see which exhibitors he wants to visit and which products and services he wants more information about. He will make connections and appointments with exhibitor staff beforehand. Somebody (extra) needs to manage this extra channel from the moment the tool is available for visitors and during the trade show. Be ready.
BEFORE THE DIGITAL TOOL OPENS
- Create a clear and attractive company profile – with pictures, videos📽️, correct product categories so visitors will be able to find you in the long exhibitor list, …
- Add products/services you want to put on show
- Book extra promotions in the tool
- Add staff profiles – also for your staff members a trade shows starts BEFORE the trade show doors are opened ➡️ if they do not manage this themselves, somebody else should do this for them
🚩 For Busworld:
We will inform you beforehand when the Busworld App tool will open for the visitors. This is ± a couple of weeks before the show opens.
But even before that time, the information in your company profile is visible for visitors via the Busworld website. So the sooner you update your profile, the better.
Have a dedicated person to do the follow-up of this application, before, during and after the show.
Check out what your profile looks like right now!
BEFORE THE TRADE SHOW OPENS
- Reply to requests for connections and meetings🤝, do not let these leads go to waste. If necessary, appoint a specific person to do the follow-up. Not all sales people are digitally engaged.
DURING THE TRADE SHOW
- Who manages the online requests & questions? Your staff members will not have the time. Be ready.
AFTER THE TRADE SHOW
- The digital platform stays open longer than the in-person show. Somebody needs to keep monitoring connection requests and questions. A digital lead is a lead too.🧑💻
🚩 For Busworld:
Use the Busworld App to its full potential, no extra costs, all at your disposal.
Busworld App tutorials for exhibitors (edit profile / add a product / add a team member / use the analytics) will become available.
Busworld App tutorials for team members (edit profile / use the lead scanning) will become available.
More information? Contact busworldapp@busworld.org
8. Study Your Market
A trade show is the ideal moment to get a full update on the industry you work in and on what your competition is doing. Prepare some time (or appoint someone in your team) to visit other booths and speak to / analyze your competitors.
9. Trade Press
The trade show organizer will attract as much trade press as possible. Be ready for them with a press package, press text, …
If you have news📰, you can share this with the trade show organizer. They will surely mention this in their pre- event press communications (and even other promotion – see point 4).
🚩 For Busworld:
1. Share your press information with press@busworld.org preferable BEFORE the show.
This will be used in:
- Pre-event press releases of Busworld Europe, announcing the exhibitor launches and other news which will be published by the many media partners
- Press releases published on the Busworld Europe website for the trade press
- The Daily Times, a newspaper that is distributed to visitors and exhibitors every day of the trade show
- Busworld BUSiness, the newsletter of Busworld sent to +30,000 professional bus & coach contacts around the world. In September this weekly newsletter is having a Busworld Europe make over, only publishing news of the Busworld Europe exhibitors.
2. We can share a list of registered press members that opted in to be shared with you once they are registered so you can send them your press release
3. Have a spokesperson ready to speak to:
- Members of the trade press visiting the show
- The Daily Times journalist – contact dailytimes@busworld.org
- The Busworld TV video team – contact press@busworld.org
- The social media team – contact press@busworld.org
10. Opportunities in the Knowledge Program
Almost every trade show has a knowledge program with keynotes, panels, workshops, … about relevant industry topics. Could your company be a speaker🎤to showcase your expertise? Does your company want to propose a specific topic that is not on the agenda yet?
This is an extra opportunity to reach out to your target audience and stakeholders and put your company in the picture. In the battle for attention, this is an extra weapon.
🚩 For Busworld:
Contact jan.deman@busworld.org if you are interested in a speaking slot in the Busworld Congress sessions. The program is regularly updated on the website here.
