A few months back we had a booth at a digital day conference and I thought I would share my thoughts on what I feel you need to do at a trade show if you have a booth and if you are attending. If you have a booth:
- Ensure your booth is professional and has some form of catchy look to it. We developed a custom flash movie for the trade show that was looping all day, it got our brand across and our core capabilities
- Have a contest, we had a draw for an iPad and we probably had 90% of the attendees sign up for our draw. This created some buzz around our booth.
- Arrive early, we made 2 solid leads at 7:20 am and the trade show did not start until 8:30.
- Never leave the booth unattended, we had 3 employees at the booth at times and ensured there was always one of us present at all times.
- Have something to hand out, prospects love information that they can review and take away with them, include a nice folder that gets your professional branding across.
- After the trade show, follow up on the leads quickly, do not wait a month to get back to them, by then they will have forgotten you.
Tips is you are attending a conference:
- Take notes
- Ask questions
- Take at least 2 actions items away and ensure they get done.
I am not saying we are trade show experts but the above strategy worked for us and likely it can work for you.
