Preparing for an event as an exhibitor is no small feat. From setting up virtual assets to ordering swag and building a booth, event marketers deal with a lot to make sure their brands shine through on-site. Today we are sitting down with Victoria Rasmussen, Marketing Director at BW, to peel back the curtain and learn about her experience as an exhibitor at IMEX. PLUS don’t miss out on an awesome guide to help you organize your sponsorship at your next event.
Transcript:Â
Molly Welch [MW]: Hi Victoria. How was IMEX? Tell me all about it.
Victoria Rasmussen [VR]: For sure! It was amazing. So as you know, BW just participated as an exhibitor at IMEX America in Las Vegas for the first time, and I was making sure that our booth/virtual environment was ready to go for the event. IMEX America is the largest trade show for the business events industry, and it was a great opportunity for us to be able to participate in the event. I think there were at least 15k people there, so it is a really great opportunity for anyone in the events and meetings world to connect.Â
MW: So how was the lead up to this event? Do you feel like you were set up for success with the tools they gave you as an exhibitor?
VR: The IMEX group did a great job by providing this really clear step-by-step checklist for the exhibitors.I usually work out of Excel to track my tasks leading up to an event, and it was really easy to transfer the due dates from the IMEX exhibitor checklist into my own timeline. I worked backwards from the due date to make sure we were hitting everything we needed. It helped with the budget to make sure we were paying our dues on time. It also helped with just making sure we ordered things in time so that we didn’t have to pay any expedited fees.
Having a checklist made it easy to stay on target with planning. I was able to really take a step back from my responsibilities and clearly see how much time I had for planning. I was able to realize how much time I did have, and so that let me have a bit more time to be a bit more creative. We actually ended up having time to make and order custom stickers this year as well as on-site first aid kits to pass out people who visited our booth.
By being organized, I feel like that allows space for creativity; when you’re rushed and finishing everything up at the last minute, you’re just so focused on just getting the tasks done, verses when you have everything clear and laid out in the beginning, you can really focus on making it the best experience possible. So I really appreciated the PDF checklist that was sent to me.
MW: Was there anything else that you liked about your experience with IMEX America?
VR: I have to say, I really liked the exhibitor dashboard. INSERT SCREENSHOT OF DASHBOARD. It let me see how all of my teammates were doing in terms of meetings booked at the event, as well as on-site lead scans. I’m planning on feeding a lot of this stuff into my CRM, so the more leads I can have people scan that I can just upload into my Salesforce, the better. This dashboard made it really easy to offload all of that important information. This dashboard is great because it helps keep us on track. When there is a track instead of foraging your own way, it makes it a lot easier.
MW: Was there anything you would improve on your experience with IMEX America?Â
VR: One thing I did not love with the dashboard when you export the leads, you get duplicates because it exports a row for every interaction that person has with your brand. It’s a bit repetitive and wish it would’ve had multiple columns to indicate the stages of interaction.
MW: How was this different from other events you have planned for?
VR: IMEX made it all really easy. I hate when you have to submit everything for an event in a certain order. Sometimes you need to submit things piece by piece because you don’t have everything for the event all at once. I could upload the logo and add a description one day. Then I could come back the next day and add in our social media info. I was also able to send invites to our team members, and the invites automatically connected my team to the dashboard once they accepted the invite and registered. It was less overwhelming because I was able to tackle all of that over the course of a few months. The IMEX exhibitor dashboard let me get everything done in an order that worked for me. Having that timeline helped me drive my goals to make sure we had everything ready to go.
There was a lot to do for this event and if it had been really difficult or disorganized, I would question whether or not I wanted to do this again next year. Getting ready for one event is a lot of work, and usually, I, like other marketers, am balancing the demands of multiple upcoming events at a time. But having the dashboard and checklist provided by IMEX made such a difference in planning for this event. Providing these tools means that you are setting your exhibitors up for success and it makes them so much happier.Â
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Take away, Tips &Â Timeline
Making the lives of your sponsors easier makes your life easier. Investing in event tech helps improve efficiencies and keeps your sponsors happy. Your sponsorship team will appreciate it.Â
- Tip 1: Give your exhibitors a timeline to work from so they have a comprehensive outlook in a single source of information.Â
- Tip 2: Dashboard are a must! Increasing the transparency between sales and marketing allows better information flows.
- Tip 3: Give your exhibitors and attendees time to get to know one another before the event. Having comprehensive virtual space allows attendees to do the proper research before they get on-site to create a more productive environment.
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Looking for a tool to help your exhibitors or yourself for IMEX next year? Check out our Timeline Guide!
Want to learn why people loved our booth at IMEX America? Request a demo with BW Events Tech today!
