IFPA Global Floral & Produce Show: What You Need To Do Now

Last Minute Marketing Checklist For The IFPA Global Floral & Produce Show

Are Your Assets Updated?

Button up any last-minute website updates to ensure that anyone researching your brand before the show is getting the correct and most up-to-date information. The benefits, of course, extend beyond the show – you wouldn’t want a potential sales lead to end up with a bad impression due to outdated or missing information despite a favorable in-person interaction.

Make sure you have established a social media plan for the show. Think of social media as part of your tradeshow booth – highlight what you’ll have on display at your booth to entice people to stop by or show people what they’re missing if they don’t have time on the schedule.

Create an IFPA Gbloal Show binder. Go crazy with tabs labeled for all aspects of the show that require your attention. As you submit paperwork for various things, file them in the binder so that all your show information is in one handy place. This also helps you to easily look things up once you’re onsite and need to keep the booth setup moving smoothly. Some recommended tabs are Deadlines, Show Schedule, GES Orders, Catering, Booth Details, Budget, Hotel Confirmations, and Shipment Tracking Details.

Are Your People Prepared?

Identify a point person from all departments who will play a role in making your show a success. We also recommend committing to meeting weekly up until the show to keep the group accountable for all the balls in the air. It may feel like you’re the IFPA Global Show lone ranger for your company, but it should truly be a group commitment to bring all the pieces together for a shared outcome.

Get familiar with the most up-to-date version of this year’s schedule and be sure to save a copy everywhere for quick access. In the middle of the show, you’ll be happy to have key details of all events at hand. Our team typically makes a spreadsheet of all our planned activities and responsibilities to go alongside the official show schedule to help us coordinate. This approach allows us to better strategize who should be attending specific events and where we may need extra support from the team.

Spend some time with the exhibitor floor plan and make note of key locations for your brand. Personally, we love to know ahead of time where our favorite brands will be located—you know, the ones that will be clutch when it’s time to stop in and visit…and grab a quick snack while we’re there.

Begin outreach to key clients and other contacts you want to meet with at the show. This process doesn’t necessarily have to be elaborate or formal – a simple text, email, or phone call will do. Alternatively, you could consider a more involved email strategy to help automate your preemptive outreach (and use that extra time for something else on your pre-show to-do list), as well as your post-show follow-up.

We’ve found that our tradeshow secret sauce really hinges on team scheduling, personal and company goal setting, and strong communication prior to and during the show. For years now, we have utilized a team tradeshow schedule that outlines who will be where at any given time so that we know who is taking care of client needs, who is attending educational sessions, who is meeting with existing or potential clients, who is walking the show floor identifying leads and who is making notes about new ideas and best practices that we or our clients should employ. A wise man once said “plan your work and work your plan.” We couldn’t agree more – especially when it comes to tradeshow preparation.

Our best advice? Take a deep breath, take it one step at a time, and remember that the work will be worth it! Whenever the to-do list seems never-ending, we like to take time to remember how lucky we are to work in such a great industry full of empathetic and passionate people – people who also happen to know exactly what you’re going through as you prep for the fresh produce “Super Bowl.” And, if you need help getting to the finish line, give us a shout – we’ve got you covered!