6 Tips to Prepare For Licensing Expo as a Licensor
While Licensing Expo is less than a week away, it does come around every year! Here are some things to keep in mind when planning to attend as a Licensor. As a follow up to last week’s post, we thought it appropriate to provide tips to Licensors who are exhibiting or even just walking the show. Even though you need to have already covered off on most of these points for this year’s show, it is never too early to start planning for next year!
1. Book your booth early – Obviously the best booth locations will be granted to those exhibitors who return year over year. But if you know for certain that you will be attending, contact LIMA early (maybe even at this year’s show!) and request a space. People move around or decide not to re-exhibit and a strong, central location is key to being highly visible when potential partners are walking the showroom floor.
2. Ensure your booth looks beautiful – Now that you have your booth space reserved, make sure that it is eye-catching and appealing with colorful wall graphics, video displays, product samples and maybe even a hanging ceiling banner. All of these elements can be handled by the show organizers; all you need to do is say the word and provide assets and direction!
3. Create informative sales materials – In order to ensure that you are maximizing your time at the show and fully educating potential licensees about your brands, it is critical that you create concise and instructive sell sheets, video trailers and sales decks. You may also want to develop some product concept artwork to give potential partners a feel for the best way to execute your brand in their category. Last, if you believe that giveaway premium items or costumed characters can add to the excitement around your brand, consider them as effective marketing tools as well.
4. Maximize show PR – There is quite a bit of Expo-exclusive PR that surrounds the show. If you have big news to tout, be sure to get featured in the daily Licensing Expo newsletters and special editions of other leading trade publications. You can also arrange face-to-face interviews with key members of the trade press to ensure maximum exposure.
5. Schedule meetings – Similar to attendees who are seeking brands to license, if you are manning a booth, you will still want to schedule half-hour meetings with potential partners. In this case, you have it a little easier as you will be conducting all of your meetings in one location so don’t need to worry as much about making it to your next meeting on time.
6. And once again, make sure that you bring lots of business cards!