Trade Show – how to stand out? Ideas to attract the crowds to your booth
Trade shows put you in touch with prospects you may never have met otherwise. It is a perfect opportunity to tackle new markets and grow your business.
But to achieve your goals, you first need to attract qualified traffic to your booth. How? 3 exhibition experts share their tips with us.
Your journey starts before the show
If you’ve done your job well, you have started your show organization a few months before the expo official opening. During this period, you have prepared your budget, organized your booth, arrange your products’ logistics, etc.
Have you thought about actively promoting your booth?
While you should definitely prepare some marketing campaign and contact your existing customers and prospects, there is something more you could do to drive the crowds.
To get the word out, you should start looking at influencers in your own industry – experts, spokesmen, bloggers… all those people that have an impact on your industry could potentially help you attract the right prospects to your booth.
Silvia Pellegrini, from Events Uncovered, explains:
Contact bloggers, vloggers, online influencers, and trade publications before the show and let them know of any interesting news, new products you have and maybe even invite journalists to interview your company spokesperson. Make sure your press kits are ready in advance and hand them out.
Proactivity is an asset
There are many elements that come into play when you exhibit at a trade show and that will influence the amount of traffic you get.
The size of your booth, its location, its design, the music you (may) play, the uniqueness of your products are all important elements that could positively or negatively impact the number of people stopping by.
For most of these elements, you had a chance to optimize them before the expo but once it has started, it is too late and you must accept the consequences.
Yet, there is still one essential aspect you can control and improve throughout the show: your behavior. You already know all the classic dos and don’ts of trade show booth, but do you know what you should actually be doing?
Manon Pleiter, trade show booth expert, explains:
Be inviting and help visitors to overcome their initial hesitation by walking in the aisle in front of your booth instead of staying in your booth and waiting for them to enter it. Now you can accompany them to your booth and already start the conversation before they arrive at the booth.
Train your team
You’re not the only one in your booth, and you must consider the rest of your team if you want to maximize the traffic in your booth.
It is essential to provide your team with a good booth training before the show: teach them how to greet visitors, how to qualify leads, how to capture leads, how to end a booth conversation, etc.
It is important to get all the pieces aligned correctly: ending a booth conversation at the right time frees a member of your team to then handle a new prospect. Qualifying a lead helps focus only on prospects with high potential, and so on.
Åsa Dahlqvist, reputable event consultant, shares her insights:
People draw people. The best way to draw visitors to your booth is to have booth staff that understands how to actively seek contact with visitors and fills the booth with meetings.
With all these tips, your next trade show should be a great success!
Do you have some tips and ideas to drive additional traffic to the booth? Please share with us below.
The Exhibitor.
