A trade show booth can attract many potential customers -- an opportunity you should maximize.
An expo booth provides the opportunity expose a large number of prospective customers to your company and its products and services -- prospects who may be difficult to reach using other approaches. These prospects are likely to be highly qualified for what you are selling because they've come to the trade show for the specific purpose of meeting with exhibitors.
Here are several ideas for making your expo booth and booth marketing approach effective:
Attraction
Employ proven strategies to drive traffic to your booth. According to the website Trade Show Advisor, employ a colorful prize wheel or game of chance where visitors have an opportunity to win something. To assist in developing a list of prospects for after-show follow up, require that everyone who enters the contest leave their business card.
Promote your prize-winning opportunity by announcing it by mail to your existing customers since an expo also provides an excellent opportunity to connect with existing customers. Also consider advertising in the expo publication.
Incentive Gifts
Give out a premium item to everyone who visits your booth. The item could tie in to the theme of your booth, a season or could be something useful that would appeal to the majority of visitors -- for example, an umbrella.
Booth Design
In selecting the type of booth you need, consider the space size you will generally be renting so that the booth you design fits. Also determine how important portability and transportability is. If your company plans to exhibit several times a year at remote locations, portability is important.
Booth Management
To augment your booth's presence. Entrepreneur Online recommends that you consider sponsoring other parts of the expo. You could sponsor the expo publication, be featured as a presenter at any seminars, sponsor a lunch or, budget permitting, become a sponsor or cosponsor of the entire event.
When staffing your booth, make sure staff understands that one of the prime objectives at the booth is to collect names of visitors and noting what type of followup is required. Warn staff not to spend too much time with any one visitor if the booth is busy. Also make sure those staffing the booth have some basic knowledge of your company and its products.
Put in place an escalation procedure. If a prospect shows up at the booth who is highly interested and qualified, be prepared to direct that person to a more senior representative from the company.
Tags: your booth, your company, company products, existing customers, expo publication, make sure