Exhibiting at a trade show can be a great way to advertise to a target market and create brand awareness. This provides you with a platform to promote your product or service to a broader group that may have little or no knowledge of your products and services.
Being involved in a trade show or exhibition can provide you with opportunities to branch out to generate sales leads, make direct sales contracts and build up a sales database.
1) Select an ideal booth space and make it open and inviting
Booth location plays a critical role in the success of your trade show efforts. As part of your planning process, you should understand the layout of the exhibition hall and choose a location that will be best suited for high traffic and engagement opportunities.
If you get the choice, try to position yourself away from your competition and any other exhibitors with distracting booths. Likewise, positioning yourself amongst companies with lackluster exhibits may work to your advantage. This is something you might note down from attending the particular show the year prior.
2) Teach something
Many people attend trade shows in order to learn about new products in their industry and the companies making them. Or about the latest discoveries and developments in their specific fields. Why not lean into this fact and offer attendees a truly educational experience when they visit your booth?
3) Create a relaxing atmosphere
Attending trade shows is a lot of fun. It can also be hot, sweaty, and exhausting. To stand out, consider making your trade show booth have a more “homey” feel that invites attendees to come in and relax.
4) Use visual techniques
Virtual reality has been taking the world by storm over the last few years. Jump on the bandwagon and add a VR element to your event kiosk or simply add a screen on your stall and play video related to your products.
5) Schedule appointments ahead of time
If you have access to an attendee list or business matchmaking platform, reach out to anyone who seems like a qualified fit for your product. Provide them with a brief overview of your company or product and ask if they’d like to schedule 5 to 10 minutes of booth time. People will be less likely to skip your booth if they have a standing calendar invite to meet with you.
6) Hold a contest
Contests are an extremely easy way to increase attendee engagement at trade shows. The trick is to do something creative and offer a great prize to winners. Think of creative giveaways that’ll have enormous brand recall value.
7) Let attendees test your products
Remember, one of the main reasons people attend trade shows is to see and test new products. So make sure that your booth prominently displays your company’s offerings and allows event-goers to get hands-on with them.
8) Develop an engagement plan
Your booth should be staffed with energetic and enthusiastic employees that connect with trade show attendees and are implementing the strategy you defined long before they arrived. Working on laptops or tablets, scanning emails on smartphones and sitting down in chairs is sure to send negative signals to a passerby. Your staff is there to work the booth, so that should be the primary focus.
9) Set up a post-mortem debrief with the sales and marketing teams
After you return from a trade show, it’s critical to promptly set up a post-mortem debrief meeting with members of your sales and marketing teams. It’s important to get a 360-degree download of the show: successes, failures, shortcomings, the good, the bad and the mediocre.
