Best Marketing Strategy for International Exhibition – 2025

Summary:

 
Successfully marketing an international expo requires a detailed strategy, effective execution, and continuous optimization. At Blazed Web Studio, we handled the marketing campaign for Pakistan Livestyle Expo USA 2025, ensuring maximum participation from exhibitors, vendors, and visitors. This guide explains how we planned and implemented the marketing strategy to make this event a success. We’ll also discuss out of the box exhibition strategies and effective planning.

We have divided the table of content into 4 major sections and while discussing these sections we’ll also explain our case study of Pakistan Live Style alongside to make it easy to understand. Enjoy the reading.

Section 1: Pre-Event Planning and To-Dos

Define Your Purpose

Before organizing an international exhibition, clearly define your goals. Ask yourself:

Is your primary focus on sales or lead generation?

Well, we all know that the customer journey is the way every business adopts and goes through to get sales and leads. The first stage is Brand Awareness. But looking at the heading, if your purpose is to generate sales and leads, then I assume that you already got a lot of brand awareness and people know about you very well. If not, then going straight to a huge sale or leads target is not a good idea.  

Do you aim to create brand awareness and establish a go-to-market strategy?

If your focus is not to get sales or leads and only want brand awareness. Sometimes advertisements give you not enough brand awareness. So, many companies as per their scope set a KPI. Pakistan Live Style also assumed that if they got 4K-5K visitors in this event that would be a good starting point to get brand awareness in a new market.

Are you looking to facilitate B2B and B2C networking opportunities?

In B2B sector the events are crucial to build networking. As I said above, based on organization size, the marketing efforts should be defined.

Case Study: Pakistan Live Style Expo Purpose.

The primary purpose of Pakistan Live Style was to get brand awareness but they set a KPI of  4K-5K total visitors in a 3 day event. Besides visitors they also aims to establish strong B2B and B2C networking between Pakistan and US by providing a platform for Pakistani businesses to showcase their products and expand into US markets.

Before explaining what we did, it is important to clear that as marketers, we knew that it’s really hard to get such a number of visitors the first time. So, we had suggested our expectations, which is an average of 700-1000 footfalls per day.

Section 2: Preparing for the Event

Digital Marketing – Competitor Analysis Checklist

Okay now lets learn what benchmarks need to be set?

Social Media Platforms Analysis: 

1. Monitor Number of followers/Week.
2. Study avg comments on posts.
3. What is the best format of post (Video, Images).
4. Frequency of competitors.

Website Design Analysis: 

1. Assess the usability.
2. Content quality.
3. Conversion optimization.

SEO Analysis (Backlinking Profile): 

1. What are their top pages?
2. Examine backlink sources.
3. What keywords they rank on top.

Event Listing Websites: 

This one is most important because listing events on these special websites can give you a boost. But honestly some websites are not that helpful.

Here are the details of event listing websites that we tested and it’s worth for you to note.

• 10Times: We bought their paid plan. 140 people checked to visit the event (in just 1 month). But we couldn’t figure out how many actually visited the event. Importantly we came to know after the event, that our competitor didn’t use their paid plans ever. So, I think a good backlinks with some visibility is enough by using their free listing. But we shouldn’t neglect that many big firms use their yearly paid plans. 
• Eventbrite: We used free-listing. They platform had some sort of technical error for phone number verification. Once again and strong backlink with some visibility is enough.
• Facebook Events: Without any doubt Meta has proven to be the public platform. So, running ads for event post proved a good move. 300 people checked in
  
• Meetup: It seems totally dead. Few people responded. There was a time of its peak but I think it is not working with that potential.  
• Yelp: A huge classified website. We get benefits from it.  We used a free listing. You may need a VPN to list events if you are in Asia.
• AllEvents: 1.4M traffic, good website. We used their free listing.

Google Ads, Facebook Ads Analysis:

• We’ve seen both Facebook Ads, and Google Ads of our competitors. So, it’s worth it to use these paid marketing platforms. Especially. Google Display ads can give you a lot of visibility and attract visitors. It can also be good for vendors. Search Ads are better to target vendors. Google Display Network has 2 Million websites.

Case Study: Pakistan Lifestyle Expo’s Competitor Analysis:

Competitors Skills:
In our case, it was the Heritage India Festival, APPNA Convention, and ICNA Convention. They are the major competitors that have been working for a long time in the US.

Social Media Recommendations:
Post frequently (3 posts/week) about previous and new events. Vendors’ video testimonials are great to attract new vendors. 

Advertising Recommendations:
One key thing that we noticed is, all these competitors only spend more while the event is near (almost 2-3 months before). Advertising throughout the year is not a wise decision.

Run Google search and display ads in combination. Display ads work better to target visitors and search ads to target vendors. 

Event Listing Recommendation:
We recommend Facebook Event, Yelp, and Eventbrite as best event listing websites.It’s up to your budget if you want to opt-all other event listing websites but these three are best.

Your rivals can be your partner.
That’s true, don’t always think about being competitive. Rather get a way to collaborate. So, we suggest you shake hands with any of the event organisers and ask for support. The Pakistan Live Style collaborated with ICNA and got a shoutout on their social channel in exchange of 4 booth gifts in Pakistan Live Style Expo for ICNA organisers.

Traditional Marketing Strategies

In addition to digital marketing, leveraging traditional marketing can enhance outreach and credibility:

• Using PR (Public Relations): Engaging media and press to generate buzz.
• Calling Local Businesses and Associations: Reaching out to government, semi-government, and private sector entities for partnerships.
• Collaborations with Event Organizers: Partnering with local event planners to ensure smooth execution.
• Pre-Event Meetups: Hosting networking meetups to create awareness and onboard vendors early.

Pakistan Lifestyle Expo’s Traditional Marketing Initiatives:

Pakistan Live Style organized vendors meetup in key Pakistani cities: Sialkot, Karachi, Lahore, and Faisalabad, providing old and new exhibitors to connect and gain event insights.

Section 3: During the Event (The Event Day)

Important Event Segments

A well-structured event keeps attendees engaged and enhances the overall experience.

Starting Event:

• Opening Ceremony: Invite special guests, such as ambassadors or prominent industry leaders, to inaugurate the event.

During the Event:

• Lucky Draws: Engage attendees with exciting giveaways and prizes.
• Cultural Stage Performances: Showcase traditional performances to enhance the event’s cultural appeal.
• Kids Play Corner: Provide entertainment for families attending the event.
• Food Corner: Feature diverse food stalls to attract more visitors.

Ending Event:

• Certification to Participants: Recognize exhibitors, sponsors, and key contributors with official participation certificates.

Section 4: What You Must Earn at the End of the Event

To measure event success, focus on these key outcomes:

• ROI (Return on Investment): Track exhibitor sales, sponsorship revenue, and overall event profitability.
• Attendee Data Collection: Gather contact information through registration, surveys, and engagement activities to build future marketing lists.
• Strong Networking: Develop long-term business relationships and potential collaboration opportunities.

By implementing these strategies, we successfully marketed and executed the Pakistan Lifestyle Expo Sri Lanka 2025, ensuring maximum engagement and participation from exhibitors and attendees.
So, all our efforts came with reasonable results, not as expected but it was satisfactory.