Sandra O’Loughlin

Across the U.S. and around the world, trade show budgets are coming back, albeit slowly. As a result, trade show programs are getting refined and redefined as exhibitors try to make deeper connections and get more efficient with their spends. Here are five best practices for trade show marketers from two industry vets, Philips and Dell.

Go off the Show Floor

Truck and engine manufacturer Navistar on March 21 held a panel on a hot button issue for the industry—natural gas. The VIP event took place one day prior to the opening of the Mid-America Trucking Show, an annual forum for the heavy-duty trucking industry and the largest trucking show in North America, held March 22 to 24 in Louisville, KY.

Build it and they will come. That’s the idea behind SiMan, an 18-foot tall, 700-pound glowing behemoth built and decorated by attendees over two days at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) held this past September in San Francisco’s Moscone Center. It was a simple way to engage and inform attendees about a more complicated concept—intelligent connected solutions and embedded technology that is key to the future of computing. SiMan helped drive the message home.

Whether you’re activating a consumer event, a trade show or a conference, Twitter can be a highly effective way to generate excitement, increase awareness and keep in touch. But that’s hardly all the social media tool is capable of. Today, event marketers are pioneering ever more innovative ways to use the power of Twitter to broaden reach, boost consumer engagement, leverage strategic partnerships and drive trial.

Read on for seven fresh ways to transform Tweets into tactics.

To raise awareness for its free checking accounts, FirstBank has rolled out a “Heli-Bus” to shuttle skiers and snowboarders to and from Copper Mountain, a ski resort 75 miles west of Denver. FirstBank, a regional bank with more than 125 locations primarily in Colorado, is Colorado’s largest locally owned bank and has additional locations in Arizona and California.