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by Madison Frye on September 26, 2024
When it comes to trade shows, the key to increasing attendance is through effective marketing tactics. One of the most underutilized strategies in an event manager’s marketing toolbox is the ability to leverage the content created by exhibitors. Let’s explore how trade show managers can strategically use exhibitor content to broaden their marketing reach, engage attendees, and create a more dynamic and successful event, as well as tools to utilize to encourage the creation of exhibitor content.
The Value of Exhibitor Content
Exhibitors invest significant resources in creating valuable content to showcase their products and services at trade shows. This extensive content covers a variety of formats, such as engaging videos, informative blog posts, in-depth whitepapers, compelling case studies, attention-grabbing social media updates, and so much more. 
By leveraging the wealth of existing exhibitor content, trade show managers can effectively save time and resources by reducing the need to create original show content from scratch.
Moreover, this strategic approach enhances the credibility and value of marketing materials provided to attendees, solidifying the exhibitors' brand and offerings in the eyes of potential clients. It also allows for a more diverse and comprehensive content strategy, catering to the varied preferences and interests of the target audience.
In addition, exhibitors themselves stand to benefit from the heightened promotion of their content to a highly targeted and concentrated audience, leading to increased visibility, engagement, and potential business opportunities. This enables exhibitors to maximize the impact of their presence at trade shows, effectively reaching and influencing a broader audience of potential customers.
Steps to Effectively Use Exhibitor Content
Build Strong Relationships with Exhibitors
In order to effectively utilize exhibitor content, it starts with prioritizing building strong relationships with your exhibitors on an individual level.
By fostering open communication and collaboration, you can create a supportive environment where exhibitors feel valued and understood. This can lead to a more successful partnership, as you can align your goals, share insights, and address any challenges together. Building these solid relationships can also provide opportunities for feedback, allowing you to tailor show content to meet their needs and expectations better.
You can start with the following strategies:
1. Regular Communication
Maintaining regular communication with exhibitors is key to ensuring 
they are well-informed about the various sponsorship and marketing opportunities available to them. This communication also provides an opportunity to address any needs they may have regarding the event. By maintaining an open line of communication, exhibitors can better understand the potential benefits and exposure they can gain from participating in the event. This approach also fosters a positive and productive relationship between the organizers and the exhibitors.
2. Exclusive Sponsorship Opportunities
Offering unique sponsorship opportunities for exhibitors to feature their content in event promotions is the easiest way to get them to engage more with the event and increase the opportunity for stronger bonds to form. It’s also crucial that your exhibitors are well-educated about what opportunities are available, which the Map Your Show Exhibitor Engagement team can easily assist your team in this process.
3. Providing Measurable Insights 
Ensure you supply your exhibitors with data, insights, and feedback on how their content performs with your show’s audience once promoted. This will allow them to make more informed decisions and provide insights into potential changes that can be made in their unique marketing strategy.
4. Curate High-Quality Content
When selecting content for your event’s marketing campaign, it is crucial to understand that not all exhibitor content will meet the criteria. To overcome this, giving your exhibitors the tools to create engaging and exciting content that aligns with your event’s goals and audience interests is essential.
An effective tool that you and your exhibitors can utilize comes through Map Your Show’s partnerships with two of the top event media sources: Cision PR Newswire and CNTV (Convention News Television). These unique partnerships assist exhibitors with content creation, such as press releases or event video content, which event managers can then repurpose for their event’s marketing strategy.
You can learn more about these unique opportunities below:
- Map Your Show Announces Strategic Partnership with CNTV
- PR Newswire Unveils New Partnership with Map Your Show for CES 2024
Creating a Content Calendar
Something often overlooked is the pre-planning that goes into a successful marketing campaign. A content calendar is a schedule that outlines the type and timing of content to be distributed across various marketing channels. For trade show management teams, using a content calendar is crucial when planning to utilize exhibitor content because it helps in organizing and planning the distribution of exhibitor-generated content effectively over the entire span of your show’s lifetime. By creating a content calendar, trade show management teams can maintain consistency in content distribution, aligning with key event milestones and ensuring a diverse and engaging mix of content types to keep the audience interested and informed. This sample content calendar (provided by HubSpot) can help schedule and manage content across multiple channels.
Here are important tips to remember when creating a content marketing calendar for your next event:
1. Identify Key Dates
Mark important dates such as your event’s early bird registration deadlines, keynote speaker announcements, and other important milestones to mention to your audience. Ensure you create both initial announcement posts and reminders of the upcoming milestone within your content calendar.
2. Content Mix
To engage your audience, plan a mix of content types, such as videos, articles, guest-featured blog posts, webinars, and assorted social media posts. This is where utilizing exhibitor content can come in handy. Integrate exhibitor content into your content mix to generate excitement and ease your team's overall load of content creation.
3. Distribution Channels
Identify the most effective distribution channels for every piece of content, whether it’s through social media, email newsletters, or your event website for optimal engagement and reach.
4. Collaboration Opportunities
Remember to create opportunities to collaborate with industry influencers and strategic partners in order to expand your network and reach.
5. Content Optimization
Schedule regular reviews of past content performance and optimize your calendar based on past successes
However, when working with events, it can’t be stressed enough to be flexible with the timing of your calendar’s content. During the event, scheduled posts may often need to be rearranged to be the first to capture an “in the now” onsite experience.
Utilize Multiple Marketing Platforms and Tactics
Pre-Show Marketing Tactics
Social Media 
Social media is a powerful tool for amplifying exhibitor content and reaching a broader audience. You can leverage social media for your event with the help of:
- Hashtags: Create and promote event-specific hashtags that exhibitors and attendees alike can use.
- Tagging and Mentions: Tag exhibitors in posts, such as their content you have repurposed, and encourage them to do interact and engage. Your team can utilize a social media management platform, to assist with pre-scheduling and managing your social media content.
- Catering Content to Each Platform: While there are many social media platforms, the standard for industry events continues to be LinkedIn, X, Facebook, and Instagram. Decide what sort of content should be available for each platform and how each one varies from another. LinkedIn is traditionally used as the “authoritative content” for B2B, while Facebook and Instagram are great for creating connections between your followers and your brand.
Don’t forget that social media content can build relationships with your audience from anywhere in the world while increasing brand awareness. Utilizing social media as a key marketing tactic can also help you reach other members of your specific audience.
Email Marketing 
Email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to reach your direct audience. You can incorporate the following styles of emails into your content marketing plan:
- Newsletters: Feature exhibitor content in your regular newsletters alongside your show content updates.
- Dedicated Emails: Send dedicated emails highlighting exhibitor content, such as new product announcements or special offers. This can also be a source of additional sponsorship revenue.
- Personalization: Use personalized email content based on attendee interests and behaviors.
Event Website
Your event website is a central hub for information and engagement around your trade show. You can incorporate exhibitor content throughout your landing pages to make it more dynamic and informative. Consider these approaches:
- Exhibitor Spotlights: Create dedicated sections or pages for exhibitor spotlights, showcasing their content and offerings.
- Resource Library: Develop a resource library where attendees can access whitepapers, case studies, and other valuable content from exhibitors. This can be utilized on the webpage for your trade show.
Video Content
Video is one of the most engaging forms of content. You can use exhibitor video content to create excitement and provide valuable information to attendees. Video content can also be adapted to the needs of your other marketing tactics, such as email marketing, social media, and more. Here’s how to make the most of exhibitor video content:
- Promotional Videos: Share exhibitor promotional videos on your social media channels and website.
- Product Demos: Feature product demo videos to give attendees a sneak peek of what to expect at the event.
Post-Event Follow-Up
As a trade show manager, you know that marketing efforts don’t stop once the event ends. Post-event follow-up is essential to maintain engagement and build long-term relationships with attendees and exhibitors. Here’s how to use exhibitor content post-event:
- Event Recaps: Create event recap articles and videos featuring highlights from exhibitors.
- Thank You Emails: Send thank you emails featuring content and takeaways from the event to attendees and exhibitors.
- On-Demand Content: Make exhibitor presentations and content available on-demand for attendees who couldn’t attend live sessions.
Best Practices for Using Exhibitor Content
1. Obtain Proper Permissions
Make sure to have the appropriate permissions before using exhibitor content for your show marketing materials. It's crucial to have clear communication and agreements with exhibitors regarding content usage to avoid any legal issues. One effective way to address potential issues is by stating that any exhibitor content uploaded onto an exhibitor profile can be repurposed by the show within the booth application process.
2. Maintain Consistent Branding
While using exhibitor content, maintaining a consistent branding strategy for your event is key. You will need to verify that the content aligns with your event's branding guidelines and messaging to maintain a cohesive and impactful representation of your event.
3. Avoid Favoritism
To maintain fairness when featuring vendor content at a trade show, establish clear, transparent criteria and commit to rotating features with even hands. Prioritizing content quality and involving neutral parties in the selection process ensures a neutral approach, fostering trust and demonstrating your dedication to all participants.
4. Track and Analyze Performance
Monitor the performance of exhibitor content to understand what resonates with your audience. You can use Map Your Show’s reporting software to track engagement metrics and gather insights for future marketing efforts. Using exhibitor content should also be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Ensure that exhibitors see the value in participating by providing them with metrics gained by the content they provide.
Enhancing Exhibitor PR and Video Content: Map Your Show's Strategic Partnerships
In the ever-evolving world of trade shows and events, visibility and effective marketing are key to success. Recognizing this, Map Your Show, a leading provider of event management technology, has forged two powerful partnerships to enhance the promotional means of exhibitors and organizers alike.
PR Newswire Partnership: Amplifying Event PR
Map Your Show's recent collaboration with PR Newswire introduces the Exhibitor PR Boost, a feature designed to make event PR more accessible and practical. Through this partnership, exhibitors can now promote their event participation using PR Newswire’s industry-leading press release distribution platform, with a reach of over 440,000 newsrooms, websites, and influencers worldwide.
The Exhibitor PR Boost offers discounted web distributions and user-friendly press release templates directly through the MYS event dashboard. This seamless integration allows exhibitors to efficiently announce their attendance while event organizers benefit from enhanced engagement with their event community. This collaboration enhances exhibitors' visibility, attracts more attendees, and drives better outcomes for all involved.
CNTV Partnership: Elevating Event Video Content
In another strategic move, Map Your Show has teamed up with CNTV, a premier video production company in the exhibitions and events industry. This partnership aims to provide affordable, high-quality broadcast content that helps trade show organizers and exhibitors boost their brand recognition and engage prospective clients.
Exhibitors can now create short-form video clips before the event, which are professionally branded and edited by CNTV. These videos, designed to promote attendance and highlight product offerings, can be featured in press releases, email campaigns, and social media channels. Additionally, CNTV offers onsite video production, allowing exhibitors to showcase highlights from the show floor, further enhancing their marketing efforts.
This partnership with CNTV not only simplifies event marketing but also sets a new standard for dynamic and seamless event coverage. With videos available within 24 hours, exhibitors can quickly leverage their content to attract and engage attendees.
Check out MaxHub's Exhibitor Video Clip from the 2024 InfoComm Show, developed by CNTV:
The New Era of Event Marketing
Through these strategic partnerships with PR Newswire and CNTV, Map Your Show is leading the charge in transforming how trade shows and events are marketed. By integrating powerful PR and video content solutions into their platform, MYS is helping exhibitors and organizers maximize their exposure, streamline their marketing efforts, and ultimately deliver more successful events. Whether it's through a well-crafted press release or an engaging video, these collaborations ensure that every exhibitor has the tools they need to shine on the global stage.
Conclusion
In conclusion, leveraging exhibitor content can greatly enhance trade show marketing. By building strong relationships with exhibitors and using their diverse content, event managers can boost engagement, attendance, and create a dynamic event. This approach saves time, adds credibility, and appeals to a wider audience. Practices like regular communication, exclusive sponsorships, and a content calendar maximize this collaboration. Partnerships with PR Newswire and CNTV further enhance visibility and engagement. Embracing exhibitor content benefits both exhibitors and attendees, leading to more successful events. Contact Map Your Show to amplify your trade show's marketing strategies.