Your investment in a healthcare event presence has to pay dividends for your brand. You’ve leveraged your deep healthcare experience and marketing best practices to tell your brand’s story in an immersive way so that tradeshow attendees leave your booth eager to continue the relationship. However, eye-catching graphics, engaging materials, and well-trained team members in your booth can’t guarantee a successful show if you make logistical mistakes. Healthcare marketing professionals know stale experiences when they see them, but they react just as negatively to logistical hiccups that disrupt the professional tone of an exhibit. According to Slate360, success at healthcare tradeshows and other events requires a combination of engaging materials, skilled staff members, and flawless execution.
Many Moving Parts and Hidden Complexity
Companies new to exhibiting often understandably see “getting there” as the easy part. You just need to apply labels to some crates, hand them off to a carrier, and look forward to the shipment being delivered without incident.
However, the truth is much more complicated, and when companies try to manage logistics internally, they often lack a full picture of the moving parts involved. A single tradeshow presence typically includes the physical booth, graphics, audio-visual equipment, printed materials, and flooring, which often come from separate sources. Coordinating when these assets ship out and arrive is a massive task, as some items go to an advanced warehouse while others are transported directly to the venue.
You might find yourself managing five or six different bills of lading from different carriers for just one event. This level of coordination is tricky, and it is very easy to drop a ball if you aren’t an experienced tradeshow logistics professional. The vision of your team happily greeting booth visitors and having productive conversations can quickly evaporate if you fail to understand and address the complex sequence required to get to that point.
And, of course, from a planning perspective, the logistics for the end of the show are just as critical as those for the kickoff. It’s not uncommon for inexperienced exhibitors to simply walk away at the close of an event without a plan for repacking or shipping assets, especially printed materials and other takeaways.
If you leave items behind, they won’t just find their way back to your office. This is where the nightmare of what’s called “forced freight” begins. If you don’t have your paperwork in order, the general contractor will likely pick a shipping solution and a rate of their own choosing to move your materials.
This can result in a triple whammy where you pay for an attempted pickup by your original carrier, pay the high rates of the contractor’s carrier, and lose control over where your assets are actually sent. For example, the contractor might ship them back to their point of origin when your plan was to forward them to the location of the next show.
Why Choosing the Right Partners Protects Your Budget
Selecting the right partners is about more than just finding the lowest price. We have seen cases where a client used the “most affordable” (i.e., the cheapest) carrier they could find, only to discover the driver had no experience with convention centers or transporting goods to tradeshows.
In one instance, a carrier didn’t know how to handle crates and actually nailed the feet of the crates to the floor of the truck to secure them. When the forklift tried to unload them at the venue, the feet were ripped clean off the crates. Whatever that company saved on shipping was immediately burned by the cost of repairing their custom booth.
Professional logistics partners understand the unique rules of the venue and the city. There are several common logistical pitfalls that can be avoided (and advantages that can be gained) with the right expertise.
- Marshalling yard requirements. Many inexperienced drivers show up at a venue without realizing they must first check in at a specific marshalling yard before they can deliver.
- Targeted move-in windows. If your mission-critical equipment arrives too early, it will likely be turned away by the venue, which creates a frantic scramble to recover it before the show opens.
- Union labor regulations. Some destinations are union cities where you must order specific labor to handle AV equipment or electrical drops, even if you brought your own vendor.
- Rigging and equipment separation. Ordering a hanging sign often requires you to coordinate between three or four different departments to manage the lighting, the rigging, and the labor.
- Advanced incentive deadlines. Most general contractors offer lower rates for services like drayage or cleaning if you submit your orders by a specific date.
Marketing Beyond the Booth
Modern healthcare marketing often goes beyond the booth to include ancillary events like symposia or off-site meetings. These events are entirely different animals from a logistics perspective.
A meeting room just two aisles away in the same hall has different logistical requirements than a private room in a hotel three blocks away. Hotels often have smaller elevators, smaller doors, and limited loading docks that cannot handle large crates. You also have to consider the installation schedule, which might be completely different from the main show floor.
Staffing for these off-site activations is another area that requires careful coordination. Someone must orchestrate the schedule of hired help, the contractors, and the internal team members to ensure everyone is in the right place at the right time. Also, without a proper site inspection, you might find yourself in a room with an inadequate electrical supply for your displays. A logistical partner handles these details so you can focus on your presentations instead of on how and where to run extension cords.
Navigating Healthcare Compliance in a 3D World
In the healthcare industry, logistics and compliance are deeply intertwined. Companies that don’t use a specialist like Slate360 may get tripped up by the rules regarding medical and commercial separation. For example, a company that is new to exhibiting might not realize that their medical and commercial booths must be in two separate spaces or have specific partitions.
Our team members see compliance not as words on a page but as critical details in a 3D world, so we can help you map out line-of-sight issues before you even get to the show floor. We ensure that you won’t discover a compliance violation, such as being able to see a commercial booth from a medical information space, just hours before the show opens.
This attention to detail extends to how you handle leads after the event. Logistics planning should include using separate devices to capture medical inquiries versus commercial inquiries, for instance. This reduces the risk of several types of potential miscommunications. For example, it might prevent you from mistakenly sending information about off-label uses to the wrong contact. By segregating leads based on where they were collected, you protect your company from regulatory risks.
The Unique Challenges of International Exhibiting
Going to international shows can be a double-edged sword. While the rules and regulations affecting tradeshows outside the U.S. are often more black and white, and consequently easier to follow, the process of shipping items from the U.S. to an international location can be daunting. You have to deal with customs clearance, serial numbers for equipment, and power supply compatibility. Even your paper size is a consideration, with A4 being the standard in many other countries.
Cultural aspects also play a huge role in your international success. We have seen companies show up to an international event with a booth and materials entirely in a language not spoken there. Even in a location where English is well understood, attendees appreciate seeing graphics and collateral in their own language.
Additionally, hardware codes vary significantly around the globe. We know of a company that insisted on shipping a heavy wood structure into the U.S., but the riggers refused to hang it because the eyebolts didn’t meet American safety codes. Hiring a seasoned team means you can rely on our expertise to avoid these expensive nightmares.
Why You Should Delegate All of Your Tradeshow Logistics
You might think it makes sense to delegate just certain parts of your tradeshow logistics. However, everything in a tradeshow environment is intertwined, and often in unexpected ways. For example, a company might decide to order coffee service on their own but fail to tell their logistics partner, only to find that there isn’t enough power run to the booth to accommodate it. This type of “gotcha” is why letting logistics experts handle all of the details for a tradeshow is a wise move.
Marketing managers have enough on their plates with planning symposia, managing staff, and coordinating sponsorships. Logistics should be the last thing you worry about.
Our team at Slate360 has seen it all, and we know exactly how to “herd the cats” to ensure a seamless experience. That includes understanding the importance of lead time. We advise clients to think about how much time they believe is necessary to prepare for a tradeshow and then double it—at least. The bigger the project, the more prep time you will need to guarantee success.
About Slate360
Our team of seasoned healthcare industry pros crafts unique, immersive exhibit experiences that attract attendees and create lasting impressions of clients and their offerings. We work as an extension of a client’s team to streamline strategy development, execution, and analytics and to ensure an onsite or virtual trade show presence furthers their marketing objectives. https://slate360inc.com/
Slate360 Media Contact
Pam Laferriere, 657-204-1916