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Tips for Planning Your
Tradeshow Budget

The amount to allocate to your tradeshow budget correlates to the scope of your efforts and the number, size, and location of shows you are planning to attend in a given year.

While exhibiting strategies vary significantly from one company to the next, the budgeting process is relatively similar and includes the following expense categories.

Marketing Before, During & After Shows... Creating a strategy to support tradeshow success requires extensive planning and a comprehensive marketing approach designed to drive traffic to your booth, convert prospects to buyers, and drive sales.

For more on trade show planning and marketing, click on these links:

Exhibit Hall Space Rental... The size of your display will dictate the amount of space you need to rent and, in turn, the dollars you need to allocate to booth space rental. To help with your budget planning, check with event coordinators to determine rental fees.

Utilities and Relateds Booth Expenses... This includes costs you may need to incur to have your trade show booth installed and dismantled (if you are not doing it yourself) and to cover any electricity, gas, water, and other related expenses that you may need at your booth.

Exhibit Display, Signage and Accessories... Everything from display production, graphics, and banners to booth furniture, literature racks and demonstration equipment need to be calculated for your tradeshow budget.

You may also include crating and storage costs in this category so you have a complete picture of your total exhibit-related costs.

Shipping and Drayage... Include in your tradeshow budget all expenses associated with transporting your exhibit and materials to each location. This involves a two-step cost allocation.

  1. Freight: Charges associated with shipping your exhibit, literature, accessories and other materials to the event location and back to your office or warehouse (where you are storing the booth).
  2. Drayage: Costs of having your items delivered to and from your reserved booth space from the loading dock of the show site.



Travel and Entertainment Costs... Forecast the transportation, meals and lodging costs for you and your staff to attend each trade show. In addition, add to your tradeshow budget any costs you may incur for entertaining prospects and customers during the show to help build relationships and solidify sales.

Trade show participation can be a highly effective strategy in your marketing mix. It can also be a costly one if not budgeted, planned and managed appropriately. For more information on tradeshow budgeting, click here.




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