Purpose of this article: To provide guidance and tools to help exhibitors build up an exhibiting budget that the business can use for future financial planning and budget allocation.
Summary
A well thought through and realistic exhibiting budget can be a useful planning tool for any business as they look to allocate marketing spend and forecast their financial position for the coming year.
In this article you will explore the elements that make up the costs of exhibiting and, find guidance and a budgeting calculator to help you build up a realistic budget for the business to use in the next planning cycle.
The key costs that make up an exhibiting budget are:
Space
Physical stand
Marketing pre/during/post
Travel and accommodation
The rest of the article will explore how you can estimate the costs in detail. You can put your costs into the W7 budgeting tool (Download here) to build up your next exhibiting budget.
Cost elements
Space
Exhibition space is bought by the square metre and varies across exhibitions. There are two types of stand space offered by exhibition organisers:
Space only
The exhibitor is just buying a space on the exhibition floor and is responsible for organising and paying for any walling, stand fittings, utilities and flooring.
Shell scheme
Shell schemes provide structured stand spaces that generally include walls, nameboard, flooring and a basic electrics package.
The exhibitor can create a stand by either, attaching their own graphics directly to the shell scheme walls or, provide a self-supporting exhibition stand that fits in the space that has been bought.
How to build up a space cost:
Identify and list the exhibitions to attend in the next budgetary period
List the intended space type and stand size for each exhibition
Email each exhibition organiser and request their stand cost per square metre
Put the figures into the budgeting tool to estimate the space costs
Physical stand
The costs for a physical stand will consist of:
Structure
Graphics
Experiences e.g. video screens, interactive displays, demonstrations
Design
Set-up/Breakdown
Utilities
Thought should be given to both the physical stand and space at the same time, as you should be looking at costing the type of space that will fit your existing or proposed stand(s).
How to build up a physical stand cost
Write down a vision of the stand or stands that you would like to use noting:
Size(s)
Graphics
Experiences
2. Contact one or two stand suppliers with your vision and ask if they can give you an idea of the cost of producing a suitable stand structure and hardware for any experiences, such as TVs
If they do the graphic design then ask for that estimate too
3. If you require a set-up/breakdown service then ask the stand supplier(s) to give an estimate for each exhibition
4. Ask your design agency for an estimate for the graphic design and artwork, based on your stand vision
5. Put the estimated figures into the budgeting tool
Stand utilities
Now that you have an idea of the exhibitions you want to go to and the stand experiences that you want to achieve at those exhibitions, you will have an idea of the utilities you will need at each exhibition.
Utilities include:
Electrics
Water
Wifi
How to build up utilities cost:
Estimate the utilities you need by exhibition.
Contact the exhibition organiser and get estimated costs
Put figures into the budgeting tool
Marketing
There will be marketing costs to consider that are specific to the exhibitions you intend to go to.
Your exhibition marketing should aim to:
Encourage your target audience to visit the show and your stand
Draw visitors onto the stand at the show
Promote your products and services to stand visitors
Capture prospect details
Engage prospects post event
Marketing costs can include:
Uniforms
Collateral
Samples
Giveaways/premiums
Advertising
Design
Placement
Direct marketing
Email
Direct mail
Social media
Creation
Placement
How to build up marketing costs
1. Research the information below and input the figures into the budgeting calculator
2. Uniforms
a. Google ‘Promotional clothing’ to look at one or two suppliers of the type clothing you want and get an idea of the likely unit costs involved
b. Think about how many items you might need
3. Collateral – If you want to produce collateral for the show(s) then formulate roughly what items you want over the year. You can then use those ideas to get an idea of the costs involved:
a. Design – Talk to your agency to get a rough cost for creative and artwork
b. Print – Talk to your printer or go on a couple of printers’ websites to get an idea of unit costs
4. Samples – You will know how much a sample of your product costs, so you just need to think roughly how many you might give away at each exhibition
5. Giveaways/Premiums – If you are going to want to give away branded promotional items then you can get an idea of cost by:
a. Googling ‘promotional merchandise’ to find the sort of item you might want and an idea of likely unit costs
b. Think about the likely number of items you are going to give away over the events you are intending to exhibit at
c. Talk to your agency about any likely design costs
6. Advertising
a. Decide on the formats and the media for placement
b. Get an idea of placement price from the media sellers
c. Decide how many ads you are likely to place
d. If you are creating specific ads then talk to your design agency to get an idea of creative costs
7. Direct marketing – This will include emails and direct mail
a. Think about the format and numbers of people you will be sending to e.g. Direct mail, email
b. If you are using an agency to produce the content then talk to them about potential design and set up costs
c. For printed item costs, get an idea of unit costs from your printer
d. Get costs ‘per item send’ from your email platform and/or postal service
8. Social media – If you are using an agency for your PR then talk to them to get a rough cost for a campaign for each exhibition
Travel and accommodation
The teams manning the stands will need to travel to the venues, often stay in hotels and may also be entertaining customers.
These costs may vary considerably by exhibition depending on the size of your stand and location of the venue.
How to build up travel and accommodation costs
1. Group the exhibitions you want to attend by the likely common travel and accommodation costs for the stand team plus the number of likely people on the stand. For example:
a. Local, 2 days, 3 people
2. Note down the number of events in each category
3. For each category, make an estimation of the travel and accommodation costs as follows:
a. Travel
i. Make an estimate of the average distance each person will have to travel to and from the venue
ii. Make an estimate of the likely cost per mile. This can be done by deciding which will be the main choice of transport and applying a realistic cost per mile. In the UK that might be 45p/mile for a car, 30p/mile for a train
b. Accommodation
i. Note down the number of nights required to stay for each event category
ii. Do a quick google search to estimate the cost per night of suitable accommodation near the venues
4. Put your figures into the budget calculator
For more information or for advice on how to build an exhibition budget please contact Simon Baxter. Email or tel. 07753600031