There’s always a section of trade show floors that is hard to get people to come to. Maybe your spot is in the back corner or your small booth has been overshadowed by a larger, eye-catching booth in your area of the tradeshow floor. The success of your brand at the next industry trade show is predominantly dependent on people seeing, visiting and interacting with your booth, or exhibit. While it is always important to make your booth both inviting and fun, you could never go wrong with using a little FOMO (fear of missing out) to help drive traffic over to your trade show exhibit.
Obviously, making your trade show booth visually appealing can help make it stand out amongst the other exhibits, but this is only half of the battle. Once people are in your booth space, you have to sell them your product, service, brand or vision. If you think about it, this process has to begin long before the trade show even starts. Some studies have shown that nearly 70% of people decide what booths they want to visit before they arrive at the trade show. In order to reach these people, you should try to identify the types of people you want to target with your trade show booth.
When you identify your target audience, you should ask yourself questions about your products. What do you think is most appealing to your potential customers? People will be looking up a list of what booths will be there and they’ll probably be making their own list of the booths they want to visit when they attend. Effective advertising before the show can build up some hype about not only your booth, but about your products and services as well. I mean, isn’t this the point of any marketing venture?
First, make sure your company or organization is signed up for the trade show well in advance. This will give people time to hear about your brand and you can use effective advertising to develop hype surrounding your trade show booth. Use vibrant, inviting, eye-catching imagery in your marketing efforts. This allows people to get a sense of what they’ll experience from your presence on the trade show floor.
Hopefully your brand is already using Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to promote your business. The trade show is the perfect opportunity to utilize social media channels to help drive traffic to your booth. Announce what you’ll have at the booth, without giving too much away. If you fully explain your sales pitch before people see the booth, you might give away some of the mystery, which can kill the buzz surrounding your exhibit. Instead, offer things like a contest, raffle or giveaway that people can enter if they visit your booth. This will definitely ratchet-up the buzz and hype, by offering a true sense of FOMO if they miss the opportunity to visit your trade show exhibit.
Make sure to include the location of your booth in social media posts and advertisements. Show photos of the map with your location highlighted or circled in red, so your followers can easily find you in real life, once there. If you’re planning on doing demonstrations or presentations, tell people what time they will take place. Make a Facebook event for the presentation. You could even offer a free sample, or gift or coupon for showing up. Say something along the lines of: “First 50 attendees will receive a coupon for 25% off their first order”. This will give attendees a real reason to take action and find your brand at the event.
Giving away smaller merchandise like stickers, pens or drink cups with your logo, website and phone number are great incentives that will help drive traffic to your booth. Of course, make sure any promotional giveaways are within your budget. A raffle is a great idea to generate interest in your brand, but don’t give away something so large that it breaks the bank.
Refreshments are very popular at trade shows. Even having a water cooler for thirsty attendees will get people to stop at your booth and look around. Candy, muffins, bags of chips or other small snacks are very successful at getting people into your area. If you think about it, the more people who are near your booth will attract even more people because no one wants to miss out on the most popular attractions at a trade show. If you’ve ever seen a crowd and wondered what was going on over there, that’s exactly what this technique can do for you.
These are all fantastic ways to get foot traffic coming into your exhibit or trade show booth, but once you get people there, it is completely up to you and your staff to make the experience a worthwhile one for your potential customers. Be professional when working the booth. You and your staff are the face of your brand. Learn about basic trade show etiquette, the do’s and do not’s of tradeshow exhibits.
Having the look of a professional trade show booth is what Rock Your Show does best. You can take a look through our custom-built and ready to go trade show booth designs in our online catalog here. We have options to fit any budget, large or small. We can make your next trade show booth really stand-out on the floor with our own graphic design team in house. We can help you through every step of the way. Contact us today!
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