I use TSNN .com which bills itself as the ultimate trade show resource – not quite the ultimate but certainly a very good resource to use when you are planning and scheduling and something I’ve used for so long I’ve forgotten.

TSNN.com provides an excellent tool which will simply and quickly allow you to source trade show venues using a search engine targeting events only – you’ll find this on the home page of TSNN.com and I use it when I am scheduling. Scheduling is  pain the proverbial when we are in the planning phase of our business year and marketing promotional activity discussion – we exhibit at 18 shows a year for our main team and getting people and equipment from A-to-B through to around R takes a major logistical effort on our part while we run two main teams now so we have double the trouble.

We also subscribe to some of the services provided by TSNN.com notably the List Orbit which provides email addresses and telephone numbers for exhibition attendees and exhibitors.  Emailing attendees and potential attendees as well as your own customer and prospect databases is an essential part of increasing your exposure when exhibiting but don’t simply concentrate on attendees – do the same with exhibitors too; over 30% of my business through trade shows does not come from attendees but from other exhibitors.

This major minority slice of trade with fellow exhibitors should not be a surprise – we spend more time with regular exhibitors than we do with attendees because we keep running into each other at the run of shows we attend through the year.  If you want a takeaway from this post this is it – market to everyone and not just the attendees but include the exhibitors and the trade show management and organizers – everyone is fair game for selling into.

TSNN.com helps again because they also provide exhibitor data along with the attendees so help yourself.

Literally paying a flying visit to a US Navy buddy of mine in Anchorage, Alaska and something catches my eye in the local paper – an aviation trade show is kicking off here on May 2nd and 3rd but guess what – the organizers are experiencing what we’re all dealing with; lower attendance, slower ticket sales and reduced exhibitor activity.

Now aviation is not my line of business but it was interesting to see exactly the kind of promo activity they were hooking up with and a fairly honest assessment of what the problems were they were having.

It’s not every trade show that get’s the US Air Force exhibiting at with state of the art fighter jets (the F-22 Raptor) or huge C-5 Galaxy transports that can swallow my house and yard while still leaving space for the neighbors.  You have to admit it, planes are cool and who wouldn’t want to go to a glorified air show which in itself is nothing short of a marketing promotional exercise – big noise and big toys for big boys.

I was surprised that the top vendor at the show typically only grosses $100,000 in sales (aircraft tires) and frankly, that number is either ridiculously wrong or something seriously wrong is going on in Sarah Palin’s backyard.

The big issues the organizers are having centers around ticket sales – usually they are sold out by the end of the first or second day of the show tickets being made available but still, several weeks after the launch they are still having problems moving tickets.

The center piece for the show is the raffling of an aircraft – $220,000 of plane up for grabs for the price of $225 raffle ticket – with 3,000 tickets printed to cover the cost of the raffle, the organizers are worried they are not going to make the ticket sales they need to cover the cost of the aircraft itself.

I’ve touched on this before – tying your giveaways into the season and tapping into a festive mood as you seek to attract attendees to your trade show display and have them take away a giveaway they are going to use again after the show – this keeps you and your business fresh in the mind of the attendee long after the show itself as well as getting your brand and name in front of other people in the attendee’s business and private life.

Fourth of July is soon going to be upon us and already I’ve been stocking up on giveaways in keeping with the party mood this creates as one of the major holidays in the year.  Virtually everything I have has a US flag prominently displayed or in fact dominating the giveaway decoration while my company logo is integrated with this (we have a the company character holding the flag, wearing a shirt made of the stars and stripes or you guessed it, a model in a stars and stripes bikini).

It’s not just the 4th July that you have to work with – in a few days it’s “Secretaries Day” so a bunch of flowers are in order for she who keeps you on the right track – it doesn’t matter whether the day in question is acknowledged by all or something little more than marketing mush for a little known niche.

These special event days are very helpful in getting your giveaways into the minds of the attendees and spurring demand for them whiel at the same time, they are highly likely to be used after the show and so satisfy the need to keep being used and in plain sight long after the show itself has ended.

Here are a few events/celebration days coming up you can look to use with your trade show giveaways:

• 4th of July
• 22nd April – Secretaries Day
• 10th – 16th February – Cardiac Rehabilitation Week
• Easter – day varies in April
• 3rd – 7th March – Employee Appreciation Week
• 3rd Wednesday in May – Employee Health & Fitness Day

Take a look on any work calendar or internet site and you’ll find numerous other major and not so major celebratory occasions you can tie into with your promotional giveaways.

Trade show giveaways need to fulfill a couple of main criteria – they serve as an attractor at trade shows pulling in attendees and they also serve to help keep your name and business at the forefront of the attendee’s mind after the show is over.

Finding the right range of giveaways requires some thought and application but this is also a continuous process and not something you do once and forget about it.

Eco-friendly giveaways are helping to attract attendee’s attention more and more because green issues are so high up on the social awareness agenda and from a moral standpoint, they are a no-brainer – there is no downside to using eco-friendly giveaways.

Some of the best eco-friendly giveaways I have come across so far include storm radios – radios for use in emergency situations and usually doubling as a storm lamp with a hand crank to charge the battery and allow for continuous use in any given situation.  For me they are a great gift to have but just because you hear the phrase “green” does not mean you are restricted in what you are currently doing.

Think about your last trade show – what did you see available as giveaways?

Pencils, pens, mugs, bags, caps, t-shirts, novelty items, desk furniture, rulers, stickers, badges, credit card scraper, key fobs, bag clips, flyers – and many, many more.

Any one of the above items can be sourced as recycled or made from recycled materials – going green doesn’t mean you have to specifically choose green eco-products that look like a hippie fashion accessory, there are plenty of products available which have been made from green materials fro decades but the public simply hasn’t been aware of it to begin with.

Tapping into the green trend is not difficult – just ask your supplier about their green eco-range and look at the existing substitute products you can immediately include in your existing range of giveaways while at the same time, take a look at your existing stock and you’ll be surprised at how much of what you have already bought is already recycled and therefore “green” to begin with.

The issue will be how you make your attendees aware you are now ecologically friendly