What are the most important things to keep in mind when exhibiting at a Trade Show?

From my perspective, these are most important things that yo need to keep in mind when exhibiting at a trade show: 1. Who is your target audience, and how will you attract them to visit your booth? 2. What does your prospect to customer journey look like before, during and after the exhibition? 3. Who are the best people from your team to man the booth and proactively engage your target audience? 4. What are the key metrics that will determine your success or failure? 5. How will you bridge the gap between saying goodbye on the booth to the next step in the sales process? Trade show success is all about knowing your outcomes, perfecting your engagement process and manning the booth with the right booth staff.

You cannot establish a worthwhile objective for a trade show without getting alignment from both sales and marketing. Some companies are even creating a hybrid role for a content marketer that floats in between both departments because they can understand what each needs to have a successful show. Figure out who your ideal attendee is, then figure out what messaging will speak to them to draw them into the booth and engage with you. Lastly, make an effort to understand the attribution aspect of your event. This will make it easier to understand its place in your sales cycle and the impact on ROI.

When looking to engage your audience it is important that they are enticed by your visual communications and overall presence. The easiest conversation starter is 'Wow - that's a great image' and expand on the content that the booth is already displaying. Simply splashing your logo and color at a passerby will not do it - start by engaging them 15 or 20 feet away.

"Attractive" means "stops traffic and makes people focus their attention on your booth." It does not mean "pretty." This is worth significant thought and investment because nothing can happen until the people in the aisle pay attention to your booth. The biggest mistake exhibitors make is trying to "attract qualified prospects" by using a sales message to stop traffic. Unfortunately, they never get the attention of people in the aisle, so the message is never communicated - and the lead gen process never starts. Efficient exhibitors stop crowds of people and focus their attention on the booth. Then, they deliver a qualifying message, and let qualified prospects self-identify by participating in a lead collection process.

In my experience, premier trade shows attract high-level decision-makers. Ensuring top management is present at the booth and having staff guide trade visitors to the appropriate management team has a significant impact. Strategically planning visits from key buyers, who are received by senior management, reinforces the effectiveness of participating in a quality trade exhibition. Successful trade exhibitions unite senior management, owners, and technical experts from both sellers and buyers under one roof simultaneously. This substantially enhances the potential for serendipitous connections.

An underrated element of trade shows - prepare your staff. Talk to your staff about how to engage attendees walking past the booth. It can be as simple as making eye contact, smiling, and saying hello. Supply qualifying questions to determine (quickly) what stage of the sales process and WHO would be best to talk to at your company. Talk about how to collect information/take notes and what happens with that information next. You should talk through every element of staffing a booth because working/selling at a trade show is very different from the normal process of selling.

If you do not have an event marketing plan that involves promoting your participation and reason for being at the event, you’re likely wasting your money. Absolutely, the organiser does need to organise and facilitate ways for you to proactively promote yourself to people already registered to attend the event with meeting, but not planning and executing your own marketing plan to your ICP and existing customer base, you are leaving your success to luck.

We often refer to having a booth at a trade show as hosting your own micro event within a larger event. You MUST think about pre-show promotion, at-show activations, and post-show follow-up. Set up appointments in the booth. Host a dinner one night. Have your team record videos for social media saying how excited they are to be at the event. There are so many things that can be done - but ultimately it is up to you to drive traffic to your booth.

Gamification can be a great tool to engage attendees and function as a sales tool. A fun quiz with a prize at the end that builds in qualifying questions can help save your sales team time while following up with leads from the show. Many buyers attend shows in small groups, so a competitive game can entice them to engage with your brand.

If we are in a trade show please keet in mind that the average length of a quality meeting will not be longer than 20 minutes. Build and practice your short invitations, introductions, presentations. But be aware that before giving oceans of information first you need to understand: Why the customer has come? What is the customer interested with? How you can help him/her? Be short. Be precise! Be joyful! Be entertaining, enthusiastic! But short! Be ready to be interrupted in these 20 minutes, and be aware how to reconnect immediately.

If you set your intentions, objectives and goals clearly PRIOR to the show; Meetings, Scans, Demo's, MQL's Sourced Pipeline, and Influenced Pipeline it will make it much easier to understand if the show was worth the investment. You should also be looking at your net new contacts to make sure you are still meeting new contacts and new potential customers and it's not the same people year over year who aren't buying.

This is where you put those metrics to work. You've documented the objectives - now it's time to use the metrics to analyze the success of your investment in the show.

I talk about one word when I’m working with Exhibitors….it`s a big one…and as you see the word you may go wtf?! But there is a relevance… The word is TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA- the fear if the number 13. Well that word is lucky in exhibition terms because it is made up of three numbers that at their core define your tradeshow success. 3. (Pre-Show) Set THREE clear and measurable objectives 4. (During Show) You have FOUR seconds to make an impression when exhibiting 6. (Post Show) Chase up every lead within 6 days 3+4+6 = Winning Formula for Exhibitions. Don’t fear the number 13…EMBRACE it.

Use a checklist. The 10,000 hour transatlantic pilot and the 100 hour small plane pilot both use checklists to start the engine, taxi, take off, land and shut the engine down. It is the same task over and over again and they use a checklist. With all the moving pieces of a successful exhibit: Use a checklist!