Don’t wait until crunch time to start preparing your trade show marketing. Here’s 7 things to do before the event.
Trade Show Marketing Part 2:
7 Tips for During the Event
John Himes
July 25, 2025
After months of careful preparation getting ready for the trade show, the big day has arrived. It’s show time!
For marketers responsible for ensuring B2B tech companies maximize the return on their event marketing budget, it’s a lot of pressure. Although the work we’ve done getting to this point is largely about setting up the sales team, we’re not off the hook just yet.
Whether your marketing director is on the show floor or you’ve invited a trusted B2B tech marketing agency like Dynamic Tech Media (or both!), these are the seven things marketers should do during the event to generate leads, gain brand visibility, and drive results.
1. Maximize the Booth
You’ve spent precious time and resources during the preparation phase designing the booth, creating trade show marketing materials, and coordinating logistics. During the show, it’s the marketer’s responsibility to ensure the booth stays in top condition.
Presentation matters, so keep the booth tidy. Keep handouts and swag neatly organized, and if the team is leaving personal items like backpacks in the booth, try to tuck them away or line them up neatly in the back or in the corner.
The vibe should be well put-together, not disheveled.
2. Talk to Customers
So much of the marketer’s job boils down to understanding and communicating with customers. Well, here they are, right in front of you!
When current or potential customers stop by the booth, don’t feel like you need to hand them right off to a salesperson. Take some time to chat, and ask questions to pull out insights that will help you market more effectively going forward.
This is your chance to get an honest and intuitive sense of the customer’s pain points and aspirations.
If you have a great conversation, don’t forget to collect their contact info and push them toward the conversion mechanisms you prepared so you can continue marketing to them.
3. Host Events
Engage more deeply with your community by hosting targeted events.
This could be in-booth sessions like a technical presentation or happy hour. It could also be an off-site event, such as an exclusive dinner or cocktail reception at the end of the day.
Like most things in trade show and event marketing, the heavy lift is the planning phase. But on the day of, we still need to be on top of the logistics: running the show, MCing, and playing the gracious host.
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4. Post on Social Media
An integrated social media and trade show marketing plan combines prescheduled content with ad hoc posting. There are certain things you can prepare ahead of time—invitations to events, info about speaker sessions, etc.—but others have to be spontaneous to be authentic.
There’s the classics, like photos of the team smiling behind the booth and the subject matter expert speaking on a panel, but marketers who really know how to surprise and delight will get creative.
Especially if you’re planning any big announcements, this is a great opportunity to provide live coverage and build hype.
5. Make Media
Trade shows present marketers with a great opportunity to create quality, original media they can leverage during and after the event.
Take pictures and videos. Interview customers and leading industry voices in order to create clips and gather quotes. Host a live podcast, or get creative with user-generated content by involving visitors to your booth.
One of my favorite examples of this was when a company brought a polaroid camera, took pictures of their visitors, and asked them to place their photo on a timeline that showed how long they’d been using the tech platform. Over the course of the event, the display at their booth grew into a snapshot of the community, and they then leveraged the timeline for further content creation after the show.
6. Walk the Floor
Don’t get stuck standing behind the booth all day. Marketers should walk around the expo hall to get inspiration and gather intelligence.
Your competitors are probably at the same trade show. How are they positioning themselves? What language and imagery are they using? You can learn a lot from how they show up at a convention—even more so if you’re willing to stop by to ask some questions.
You might get great ideas that you can implement next time.
7. Explore Avenues for Collaboration
with Other Marketers
If your partners, vendors, or customers are attending the same trade show, join forces to extend your reach even further. By forming a good working relationship with the marketing folks at these organizations, you can collaborate on media, run cross-promotions, and amplify each others’ posts on social media.
Start by looking for ways to give and ways to get involved, then others will want to help you in return. It’s a win-win.
Work with Dynamic Tech Media
for B2B Trade Show Marketing
Do you need help planning your trade show marketing strategy? How about preparing marketing materials and logistics, or making sure everything goes off without a hitch?
Dynamic Tech Media is a marketing agency that specializes in providing high-tech B2B companies with an integrated marketing solution.
By combining event expertise with digital and print media production, we help companies in industries like quantum and aerospace grow their revenue and customer base at trade shows.
Want more of our insights? Read our post about how to prepare for trade shows, and stay tuned for our next blog about what you need to do after the event.
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