While seeing a sales bump from a trade show is nearly inevitable for any kind of business, you really want to see a year-round sales increase from your attendance. Rather than just showing up for the sake of showing up, it’s essential to get something of value from your trade show investment. With a few clever trade show ideas, you can turn visitors into leads like fish in a barrel.
Here are five tips that can ensure that your booth is super successful.
1. Work to Draw People In
Your booth needs to be approachable above all else. You need your look to be cohesive and your brand to be appealing but you shouldn’t overdo it. If you have a stone-faced attendant and a high-end minimalist design that leaves visitors scratching their head, they might walk on past.
Try a variety of display types to bring in a broad range of people. While some people want to see a video on an HD screen, others might like something they can hold onto and read. Having a piece of reading material will allow people who want to dig deeper to get more information.
Make sure you don’t repeat all of your information on every type of outreach or visual material. Repeat common themes but overall try to give each piece something new.
You know you’re doing well when people feel comfortable coming up to you and asking you questions. Make sure you’ve got adequate staff ready to mobilize at all times. Every person who stops could be your next big client.
2. Hire a Trained Host
If your staff has never participated in anything like this before, you should consider taking some of the pressure off with some trained booth staff. Hiring someone who knows the trade show circuit and can deal with people who have a variety of customer service needs requires serious talent. Finding the right person who can do this means that your staff can be on hand to handle technical questions while your hosts bring in people.
Think about having special guests host for your booth. If there’s a local celebrity who you feel connected to or who you know personally, reach out and see if they’re interested.
You could make it entertaining as well with a model, a small jazz ensemble, or a magician to do tricks as they serve your guests.
Leave no stone unturned when it comes to drawing in your guests.
3. Offer Limited Deals
When you’re at a trade show for several days on end, you and your staff might get bored. Even if you’re in from out of town, unless you’re in the heart of Las Vegas or Manhattan, you won’t have a lot to do at the typical convention center or hotel meeting room.
Make things interesting by offering specials, raffles, and deals. Use the entire day as an opportunity to offer lots of different prizes and promotions to visitors to the trade show. Your booth could be a touchstone for lots of people as they look for new ways to engage with your products.
If you’ve got a product that you made a lot of that isn’t selling quite as well as you’d like, rebrand it and promote it for the trade show. If you’ve got a new product that you want to test the audience for, offer it as a special deal and see how many people bite.
There are so many ways to make your trade show booth special for yourself and your guests. Check out other brands for more info on what you could be offering.
4. Food and Drink
Nothing attracts an audience like free food and drink. Rather than having prepackaged snacks to give away to people, come up with something more interesting to keep them around.
Depending on the type of products you offer, you could be making espresso drinks or cocktails to go with the conversation around your products. Pairing a food, cocktail, and product together is the best way to get people to think creatively about your products.
Use something familiar and local, like a locally distilled bourbon or locally roasted coffee beans. Every time your customers and clients see that brand or taste that exact flavor, they’ll think of you. Taste and smell memories are very strong for us and associating your brand with a flavor that people already like will bring strong positive feelings.
5. Show What You Know
Depending on what kind of industry you’re in, there could be constant research and conversations about how to develop your type of products. The best thing you could do to engage attendees at a technical conference is to show how much you know.
People are always looking for what the hottest trends are what’s going to be the next most exciting thing. If you can predict that or, better yet, provide that concept for them, you can engage them and earn their trust.
One of the most important ways for people to learn about your brand and become engaged with you is to teach them something. Once you’ve taught them a way to make money, save money, or have a better experience with your products, they’ll never forget you.
If you can build that kind of connection with clients, you’ll have their loyalty forever.
Trade Show Ideas Can Yield Sales
You don’t want your trade show ideas to merely get people to visit your booth and leave with your promotional swag. You want them to engage with you, have conversations, and leave with the intention of staying in touch. With a little finessing, you will turn every visitor into a customer.
If you want to ensure that your visitors have a truly unique experience, check out our guide for improving customer interaction.