Conventions, trade shows and exhibitions give you the chance to promote your brand and display your products. They can be a fantastic promotional tool, and good for making new contacts, but they are also often expensive. Just paying for the space at a convention is likely to cost you a lot of money. You will then need to set up a display and any necessary technology, pay your staff, buy marketing materials and promotional items, and perhaps take time out of your usual work day. It can get very expensive, but it's also possible to find ways to save money.

Choose Only the Right Events

You might have a range of events to choose from if you want to promote your business. However, not all of them will be the best options for your brand. You can start saving money by avoiding the trade shows that aren't going to benefit your business. It's important to weigh up the cost with what you're going to get out of it. If you're not going to be able to hit any targets by attending the event, it could be best to give it a miss. Instead, focus on the ones that you know will be a success.

Rent Your Booth

One of the most expensive things for conventions is having an impressive booth. They can be used to display products, give you somewhere to welcome people, and promote your brand image. However, they can also cost a lot of money, and you might not want to commit to the expense. If you're not ready to buy just yet, renting the booth that you need is another option. By renting convention booths, you can reduce the amount you have to spend and you can save space too. Once the show is over, you won't need to find somewhere to store your booth. Many services will also deliver, install, dismantle and remove their booths too.

Represent Your Own Company

You could hire reps for these types of events. They will have the skills needed to promote your company, and it will mean your own staff can keep doing their usual jobs. However, this could be a more expensive way of doing things. It may be cheaper for you to train your own staff, equipping them with the skills and knowledge they need. They're already familiar with the business too, so they can even make better representatives. Or if you want to keep things super cheap, you could do it all yourself.

Reconsider Your Promotional Items

Promotional items can be good to give out at events, but they can also get expensive. Many of them could end up simply being tossed away too. If you want to save yourself some money and save the environment, you might want to rethink the promotional items you're planning on buying. However, you can discover both cheap and useful promo items, which you could experiment with to see if they're a hit.

You need to account for the cost of attending trade shows and conventions, but you can still save money. Set a budget and try to stick to it to make it more affordable.