Trade Show Marketing: How to Increase Leads and Sales

Setting up a trade show booth for an exhibition is one of the best ways to market your business to interested buyers.  Any business savvy entrepreneur knows that exhibiting at trade shows is a smart thing and can help increase sales dramatically.

Having a trade show booth allows for businesses to connect directly with potential customers and increase exposure that can generate more leads.The benefits of exhibiting at trade shows are obvious, however, merely setting up a trade show booth is only a small part of the marketing strategies needed to make any exhibition a true success.

The main priorities of your trade show booth is to generate sales and leads in which the physical space of your booth area and the overall display’s design are paramount in accomplishing these objectives.

It is important to know how to project the right kind of image for your business, something that will attract potential clients and keep them interested beyond the initial first impression.

Although it is important to draw peoples eyes to your booth, it should be because your image and display represent your actual products or services, and not because the booth is full of flashy lights and loud music.

It is important to create the right balance between reflecting your companies brand and market while offering that extra little edge over your competition’s trade show booth. This may sound difficult however, with a little pre-trade show planning this shouldn’t be very hard to achieve at all.

If you want to have a successful event, it is important to let your trade show booth show people right away what your business is all about and why it is unique and worth looking into. There will most likely be other businesses that are offering the same service or products as your company so just putting up a sign with your company’s name not be enough.

A good idea would be to put your best products around the booth with eye catching brochures placed around them. However, you don’t want to overdo it and come across as obnoxious, as this can turn people off.

You might want to offer discounts or money back guarantees on first bulk purchases or give away coupons for future purchases to show you have confidence in your products or services.If you offer products, you might also want to consider a giveaway of small samples of items that
may encourage potential customers to use your products and maybe wan to contatct you in the future if they are interested.

Another great way to not only attract visitors, but keep to them at your booth, is to use special  entertainment services such as hiring a shoe shiner for your trade show exhibition. This way your customers will get a great free service of having their shoes shined, and it will keep them at your booth for an extended period of time. This is a great ice breaker, especially for foreign clients who might have a tendency to be a little shy and can certainly give you or the sales rep an opportunity to talk on a more casual basis with potential buyers.

At the end of the day, however, it is your expertise, demeanor and profesional attitude that customers will remember the most, regardless of how great your display was. You must always sound fresh,excited and enthusiastic about your product or service. Enthusiasm is contagious, and every opportunity to interact with a customer is a chance to make a sale or generate a lead.

Remember above all, project confidence with every potential customer, always project positive energy, even when the day is long, if you can show how much you believe in your product others will pick up on that confidence and become exited about your product or service as well.

Knowing  your Trade Show Objectives

If you are thinking of participating in a trade show for your business, you should start your planning months in advance. Objectives need to be clear and carefully planned  in order to accomplish any degree of sucsess. Lack of proper planning can seriously harm your image, your brand name, and cost you dearly financially.

By planning your trade show in advance and ensuring that all details are taken into consideration, such as trade show booth design and marketing strategy are of vital importance and should not be put together haphazardly.

There are four main elements that you should look at when planning a sucsessful trade show.

1.) What is your goal for the trade show ?

2.) What image do you want to project?

3.) How will you attract visitors?

4.) How can you conserve cash flow?”

Lets look at the first question,

1.) Some exhibitors participate in trade shows to sell their products and take orders during the actual exhibition. Others are there to network with other trade show vendors and establish contacts. And there are still others who attend trade shows to meet with their customers and collect leads to follow up afterwards. It is surprising to know that many trade show exhibitors do not have a clear goal in mind for their exhibitions. If there is no clear objective, you cannot plan your trade show exhibit for maximum impact. How well you plan is directly proportional to the degree of success you will attain at your next trade show event.

2.) You are in total control of the image that you project to the attendees that visit your booth. The trade show graphics displayed at your exhibition booth must evoke an emotional response from visitors as they pass by your stand. Any trade show booth ideas that you have
must clearly reflect and support the products or services you may be offering. Using certain startegies to attract visitors such as hiring special attractions such as shoe shiners and other forms of entertainment are also a great way to keep people around your booth.

3.) Conserving cash flow is obviously a very important factor, assuming that your trade show budget is limited. Therefore it is important to research what type of booth your are going to use, what size of booth you need, structure, graphics,and lighting are all aspects of planning that you will have to consider. There are many companies that specialize in trade show services that can supply you with the proper booth and other promotional materials such as lighting and setups.It is always best to shop around to try to get the best deal possible.

4.) Attracting visitors to your trade show booth is what it’s all about. If you can’t attract attendees and keep them around long enough to engage them, then the whole concept of participating in a trade show is worthless. Remember that you only have approximately 30 seconds to attract and impress your visitors. The design of your booth, graphics, sound, and outgoingness of the booth staff all play a vital role in achieving any degree of success. The competition is going to be tough, many of your competitors will have great trade show marketing strategies in place, such as great graphics, multi-media presentations, entertainment and so forth. Your booth is going to have to stand out and make an impact.

Finding innovative ways of attracting attendees to your booth is at the heart of the whole purpose of a trade show. So plan wisely, consider the type of clientel you want to attract and look for ways to appeal to your targeted demographic.

How to Pull in Customers at your Trade Show Booth

You have finally been approved by the management and have the funding required for the trade show booth you have been brainstorming for weeks. Now the pressure is really on, not only do you have to organize and implement everything thats required to get a booth up and running in time, you also have to figure out a way to attract as much traffic to your booth as possible.

Participating in a trade show is an expensive venture and your boss wants to see results. You know that the competition is going to be fierce and you have to make a great first impression with those who will be passing by your booth. Ok so what exactly do you need to do in order to get the results you need ?

1. Bright colors; It is simply not enough to merely install a trade show booth and expect people to stop by. Just because you built a booth does not mean that you will drive traffic to it. The first thing that your booth has to do is pull the eye of possible clients and nothing attracts the eye better than bright sassy colors. Bright colors creates a statement and makes your booth stand out amongst the competition which is vital to your marketing strategy. This gives potential clients the impression that your booth is run by professionals who know what they are
doing.

2. Lights are also a very important factor for attracting potential visitors over your competition. Lights can transform a rather ordinary looking trade show booth into something spectacular. Think about how lighting effects are used in concerts and stage shows. There are many entertainment equipment companies that rent out special lighting effects systems that are easy to use and install for a reasonable price.

3. Another important contributor to your trade show booth success is sound. You may have seen some rather plain looking booths at trade shows that attract a lot of attention. It is certainly not the guy smiling behind the folding table that is tacked with cheap white vinyl covered with brochures, that is going to get anyone’s attention The reason why he is smiling is because he is attracting attention since he has some great music or some other type of audio promotion going on.

Lights, color, and sound are the very basic elements your company needs be successful at any trade show marketing event.

Nowadays having bright colors, lights and sound are only a part of the marketing tools used at trade show booths to attract customers.More than ever, entrepreneurs at trade show booths are becoming more and more savvy with their marketing strategies. More and more trade show exhibitors are incorporating entertainment such as  magicians, dancers and shoe shiners at their booths. However it is important to ensure that the entertainment is relative to your product. Dancers and magicians provide good entertainment, however it is important that the customer remembers your booth for the product or service offered and not only for the entertainment it provided.

One type of entertainment that attracts a lot of people and which also offers a great service at the same time is having a shoe shine stand at your booth as an attraction. This is always a crowd pleaser, and is an effective strategy to keep people at your booth. Unlike other types of attractions, where a potential customer is merely an elusive observer who can leave at any time, a person sitting in a shoe shine chair for a few minutes will give any sales rep an opportunity to break the ice and leave a more lasting impression about the company’s product or service in the customer’s mind. This makes for a great lead building strategy at the very least.

So if this is your first time, and your the person in the company that is responsible for organizing the next trade show event, these helpful tips should help you enormously in achieving a successful show.