Before you design your booth, prepare your materials, and plan your presentation, you need to know who you are talking to. Research your target market, their needs, challenges, goals, and preferences. Find out what they are looking for, what problems they are trying to solve, and what benefits they expect from your solution. This will help you tailor your message, offer, and value proposition to their specific interests and pain points.
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This is not a one and done exercise, as you'll need to reevaluate your target for each and every show. Some events, for example, might attract more C-level attendees, while another might be focused on a very specific niche within your target audience. Bottom line, it's not just about knowing the general demographics of your average customer. Splice and dice to the point you know exactly who you're targeting at each event, and evolve your strategy accordingly.
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Completely agree. You must know who your target audience is. This is imperative to developing your strategy and messaging. In essence, a trade show is much more than a booth on a trade show floor; it's a full blown marketing campaign with many moving parts, all working in sync with each other.
Your booth is your first impression, so make it count. Use eye-catching graphics, colors, and signage to attract attention and communicate your brand identity. Display your products or services in a clear and appealing way, and use interactive elements such as demos, videos, quizzes, or games to invite participation. Avoid cluttering your booth with too much information or irrelevant items, and make sure it is well-lit, clean, and organized.
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Being compelling requires differentiation - it's very difficult to make your booth stand out based on lighting, color, signage, architecture, and other visual elements precisely because every other booth is using the same visual elements to make their booth stand out, too. Sometimes a stronger approach involves curiosity and anticipation. Attendees should feel that something important is going to happen at your booth, and they should want to know what that thing is and how it's going to work out. That helps to build a crowd of attendees at your booth, and that crowd naturally attracts a larger crowd. Your presentation can then identify your ideal prospects in the crowd and move them to the next step in your booth process.
Once you have drawn visitors to your booth, you need to keep them engaged and interested. The best way to do that is to deliver a powerful presentation that showcases your value proposition, demonstrates your expertise, and addresses their questions and objections. Use storytelling techniques, such as anecdotes, metaphors, or case studies, to illustrate your points and connect with your audience emotionally. Use visual aids, such as slides, charts, or images, to support your message and make it memorable. And use rhetorical devices, such as questions, pauses, or repetition, to emphasize your key messages and create rapport.
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Allow your customer the freedom to experience the booth their way. Each person has a mission of their own, and how you fit in as their next service provider can differ. Give them the space to roam, product touch points, QR codes for capturing data along the way. Let them get their hands on your product or service so they can have an experience and not just a conversation. Think of your booth as a book (that you author) that allows them to choose how the story ends (with you as their hero). It empowers them to reach the conclusion that only you can resolve their needs without feeling oversold. You achieve this by studying the personas of your audience and building a journey through your booth based on those personas and their needs.
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Live presentations, even in small booths, can be a great (and often overlooked) strategy for disseminating information or demonstrating a product in a one-to-many format. However, you'll want to ensure the format is appropriate, any AV/tech isn't going to give you fits, and that the duration of your demo doesn't exceed attendees' attention spans. If a full-blown presentation isn't feasible, that doesn't mean you're off the hook. You'll still want to develop key messages and an elevator pitch that succinctly explains what you do and why attendees should care. Additionally, consider staff training to ensure reps are thoroughly prepared to proactively engage visitors, answer their questions, document leads, and facilitate a good experience.
The final step in capturing and retaining the attention of your trade show audience is to follow up with them after the event. Don't let your hard work go to waste by losing contact with your prospects. Send them a personalized email, thanking them for their visit, reminding them of your offer, and providing them with additional information or resources. Invite them to take the next step in your sales funnel, such as scheduling a consultation, requesting a quote, or signing up for a trial. And keep in touch with them until they are ready to buy or refer you to others.
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Software doesn't follow-up leads. People do! And (sales) people should not have to make the laborious 'initial' contact of all the leads after the show to find out that most are not immediate prospects. Marketing departments and exhibit managers are stepping up to make the initial contact that 1. Responds to all leads. 2. Qualifies application and interest, 3. Gets the best leads to the sales force, first.
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Sometimes Marketing doesn't have the resources to fully qualify leads before they are assigned to sales, so make sure to use the qualifiers on the lead retrieval system and rate the leads based on attendee conversations. Add notes as well. In my previous role, our sales reps and product specialists worked the booth and typically entered their name or initials in the notes for the purpose of properly assigning the leads. The reps were truly committed and did a phenomenal job!
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Here is a sneaky secret we use for clients - Geotargeting ads Geotargeting is a type of digital advertising where you customize your ads for people based on their geographical location. The beauty of this approach is that it allows you to reach people who are most likely to be interested in your offerings, which in this case, are the folks attending the tradeshow. But it gets even better. If you can figure out where attendees are likely to be before and after the event—say, local hotels, popular restaurants, or landmarks—you can adjust your geotargeting to these areas as well.
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That's such a smart move. So few companies are using any form of geotargeting (which is shocking, really) that it's a great way to stand out. Plus, with a relatively modest and well targeted campaign, you can practically own that digital channel, given the lack of others' competitive noise.
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I have been working with some of my B2B clients to consider geotargeting and geofencing ads at trade shows to be part of their ABM strategy, and not just a show gimmick for better attendance at a talk or the booth. Events are part of a larger channel strategy. A strategy and measurement that should be part of the larger marketing plan. This puts the proper weight to implementing those kinds of specialized initiatives to show a higher ROI, than just a single show metric.
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