Introducing Expo management

Hello everyone,

Associating yourself with brands that align with your event's theme can help you increase your event's influence and make it more tangible. Invite these brands or businesses to be exhibitors at your event and allow them to showcase their products or services. Exhibitors who want to be a part of your event can also approach you before the event. Having exhibitors at your event can be a way to draw in more attendees and engage them during the event.

We're happy to introduce Expo management in Zoho Backstage, with which you can invite or accept requests from exhibitors and display them on your event microsite. This new feature allows you to help exhibitors get integrated with your event and easily interact with attendees.

Set up booth categories

With Expo management, you can create booth categories that exhibitors can choose based on their needs from the Exhibitors tab in the Microsite Builder. Each booth category you create can be set up with related benefits, the number of booths under that category, and can be priced or free.

Once you create booths under categories, they are ready to be filled. You can manage this in the All booths tab. The booths that are free will be shown in the Available tab while those that are already booked will be listed in the Filled tab.

If you want to create a booth category that's exclusive for a particular sponsor category, you can do this in the Add booth category panel. Click the Reserve this booth for a sponsor category checkbox and select the sponsor category you want to assign. Sponsors who are in this category will be provided with an option to also promote their brand at your event.

Additionally, you can customize the exhibitor form in the Exhibitor request form tab to gather necessary information from exhibitors. Exhibitors who want to send in a request to you will be asked to fill out this form before submitting their application.

Manage exhibitors

Once you've set up all your booth categories, you can turn on the option to receive requests for exhibition from the Exhibitor settings tab in the Exhibitors tab. Next, publish your event microsite to make exhibitor information available for microsite visitors. Anyone who is interested can apply to be an exhibitor. These requests will be displayed in the Exhibitor requests tab under the Exhibitors tab in the Microsite Builder. In this tab, you can manage requests by approving or denying them.

Alternatively, to invite someone to exhibit at your event, you can click the Add exhibitor to booth button in the All Booths tab. Once a booth is approved for them, the primary exhibitor that is added to the booth first will be able to manage their booth by signing in to the event microsite with the email address provided in Backstage.

All communication to the exhibitors will be sent through email. You can handle emails that are sent to exhibitors under the Emails tab in the Manage Console. In the Emails tab, click Automated Emails and then click Exhibitors.

Engage event participants during the event

Exhibitors can access their booth from the event microsite. After signing in to the microsite, click the Manage booth option under the user avatar. The Overview tab will show a summary of your booth and meetings and leads. Access the Booth information tab to control how the booth page is shown on the microsite and update related details.

In the Booth materials tab, you can add related files such as brochures or videos, which can be shown to visitors who come to the booth to attend meetings and also when they're in the waiting room.

Primary exhibitors can add more booth members to exhibit along with them on the event day. This is based on the number of exhibitor passes you have for your booth category. Microsite visitors can share their contact information with exhibitors who are listed on the event microsite.

Exhibitors can then start a meeting to pitch their product or trade to those that drop into the booth during the course of the event. Once a meeting is complete, you can find a record of it in the Meeting history tab. From the meetings that were conducted, a list of leads is obtained and displayed in the Leads tab. This list includes people who approached exhibitors by sharing their contact details, as well as those who attended meetings. Exhibitors can then connect with them later.

Monitor exhibitor requests and revenue generated

Revenue generated through booths will be displayed on the Manage dashboard in the Overview tab. Click the Manage deals link in the Exhibitor module card.

Here you can see a summary of the status of all the booths, monitor exhibitor deals, and see an overview of the revenue generated by booths. You can also see the list of booth requests made and which member of the event team approved them. Deals made and revenue generated can also be viewed by day or for the entire period.

This feature is currently in the early access phase, so if you would like us to activate it for you, please get in touch with us by signing up here.

Create a space for exhibitors at your next event and let us know how it worked out for you by commenting below. You can also start a discussion about this in our community or write to us at support@zohobackstage.com for any product-related questions.

Happy organizing!

Zoho Desk Resources

Desk Community Learning Series
Digest
Functions
Meetups
Kbase
Resources
Glossary
Desk Marketplace
MVP Corner
Word of the Day

Topic Participants
Tina Samuel
Rhiannon

Sticky Posts
Important notice: Changes in sender domains
Hello Backstage users, This is a heads-up about a major change with sender domains in Zoho Backstage. In response to Google's new guidelines for email senders, Backstage won't be able to send emails with the sender domain "gmail.com" or "googlemail.com".
Announcing Backstage OnAir, our in-house virtual events solution
These past months have seen a huge rise in the number of virtual events with some of the biggest events of the year going online. Though there's little possibility for virtual events to completely replace in-person ones, COVID-19 has shown how flexible
Introducing the mobile app for event organizers
It doesn't matter if you're planning your first trade show or an annual executive retreat—organizing an event requires your undivided attention. This is especially true on event day, when things can quickly get out of hand. So how can you stay on top of everything happening at your event? Introducing the Zoho Backstage for Event Organizers mobile app, for Android and iOS—designed to improve and simplify your event management. Getting things started on time, checking in attendees on event day, following
Announcing Zoho Backstage: Your complete event management software
With just a few months till the event, you're still racking your brain. Did you advertise to the right audience? Is your event website design appealing? How will you keep attendees engaged and interested during sessions? It doesn't matter if you're organizing