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.

The fact is that although the actual show will be two or perhaps three days long, the reality is that the value that you eventually drive from the show will be determined from a much more prolonged period of activity - a whole host of deliverables - as simple as advance email footers for all of your team, simple organic social announcements, all the way through to post show editorial reflections, peer group blogs, digital assets for the BDM team to share etc - all of which can be utilised for a post show email lead nurturing program to both those "prospects" that you captured from the show, but in more general terms to those that you have included in both your near and far pipeline. Often, the show ￡value will come after the fact.

Be Prepared, Be Knowledgeable, Be Rested and Be Ready to give 100% of your time available. Could you give your information and be ready to collect the information from anybody who walks by your booth?

And don’t forget a successful trade show is at the same time a morale booster for your own sales force. This aspect - many times overlooked -helps making the cash drain worthwhile.

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.

A couple of key metrics may help in your booth design… 1. Keep 60% of your floorspace free for visitor access 2. Graphics should be readable from 15-20ft away 3. Focus your effort and lighting on your “hero” product 4. Have 1 staff member for every 6SqM 5. Ditch the furniture or limit it as much as possible 6. Keep counters away from front of stand as they are a psychological barrier 7. Use bold and bright colours 8. Have something moving as a visual aid 9. Less is more when it comes to text on graphics 10. Make it really clear what you do with simple messaging

On my opinion based on my experience an attractive booth can attract some audience. If you are in an advantageous place like in the front line near the café or the WC or the event area you may have some additional traffic of crowd. But is it the crowd and the audience that we want, or do we want to have those who might be our next clients to work for long years? Keep in mind that investing in good looking, attractive stand is an important investment, but does not resolve the full problem.

Location. Location. Location. Study the floor plan. Where is the main entrance? Where are the main aisles? Even if you are booking a 10x10 - look at what is positioned around you (food, restrooms, seating for meals, big anchor components of the show - like theater) to get a feel for what the traffic might be like it that location.

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.

Train your staff to network and help without being too sales-sy. Aggressive sale technique at a booth is the number 1 turn-off for attendees, no matter the industry.

Trade shows are the "hand off" between sales and marketing. Once the prospect leaves the aisle and enters the booth, the conversation changes from "look at what we can do for you" to "tell us about your experience and how you want it to be different." It's counterintuitive, but if you're going to have real salespeople in the booth, their job will be to draw out information from the prospect (pain, budget, and decision) and set the next step in the sales process. As mentioned before, having a clear, established sales process makes this easy.

And train your team to book the follow up meeting on the show floor (if possible) - I’ve seen this create a huge lift in post-show conversion through the funnel.

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.

Work the whole exhibition space: get away from your stand and speak to other exhibitors. You'll be surprised how collaborative most of the other exhibitors will be. Tips, ideas and introductions are often shared and made.

Create and execute a comprehensive, multimedia content calendar starting a few months before the event. This will give you a jump start on connecting your company and product with faces and names to start conversations BEFORE the event to accelerate relationships AT and AFTER the event. In these touchpoints: - Promote your presence at the event including sponsorship level, booth number, photos/video from last year's event to spark interest and grab attention. - Tag your staff, company, product, audience and the event for further reach. - Enlist your employees and attending staff to spread the word by reacting, sharing and reposting. - Leverage responses to further conversations and solidify meetings before, during and after the event.

The best copywriters don't write a word until they're sure the envelope will get opened. They never assume attention. Neither should you. Your existing customers believe they already know what you sell and how you can help them, so they have no reason to visit your booth. Your lost customers (and the rest of your competitors' customers) think they know what you have and are getting it better elsewhere, so they ignore you. And the rest of them don't know you - so there's no reason to visit you either. You have to win the battle for attention if you want to have a chance at setting an appointment, much less making a sale. Pre-show should create anticipation and curiosity, so that during the show you can stop aisle traffic.

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.

Make a connection with the attendee. Even if you're busy, maintain eye contact and show acknowledgment by saying, "I'll be with you in a moment." When engaged in a conversation with another vendor or on the phone, it can be a major turnoff, giving the impression that I'm not valued or important.

Process matters here. First, stop traffic and capture attention. Then deliver the pain/solution message, and finally deliver the call to action that sets up the next step in the sales process (ie: set appointment, scan badge, etc). All the engagement and entertainment should happen when the prospects are in the aisle. We want to stop everyone and deliver a message to the whole crowd. Then interested attendees decide to enter the booth, while everyone else moves on to the rest of the show. The prospect should only enter the booth to talk about their specific problem and how your solution would address it. This positions your salespeople for their highest and best purpose - qualifying and setting appointments with prospects.

Never. Leave. Visitors. Standing! Even if you are engaged in conversation, have someone available or break away to give out cards/info packets. It can sometimes get busy, but it's essential to work the room (booth) so you don't lose out on a potential customer that walked away because they were not greeted.

ROI is such a loaded term and is completely dependent on being able to set fully measurable objectives in the first place. So many exhibitors are focused on number of "leads" + $$$$ of sales = ROI. But almost nothing in marketing is that black and white anymore. Find a way to measure the QUALITY of conversations you have at the event (not just quantity). And ensure your "ROI" is not just weighted towards NEW sales. Events can really help you nuture existing leads through your sales funnel. They can also help you nuture your existing customer relationships to create deeper connections and even upgrades. Follow up needs to be personalised and link back to those conversations.

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.

The best success can be achieved when you start with defining your game plan at the start of your trade show preparations. Even before you go into the details of your stand design. You do this together with all internal teams that play a significant role during and post-show in the follow up. In this way everyone is ready and knows what to do. It is all about early involvement, alignment, collaboration and the most important one COMMUNICATION.

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.

A few ideas I’ve used to maximize value at a show: 1) Maximize every minute you’re there: consider booking your meals with prospects vs just relying on the provided show appointments 2) If you get access to some sort of app or list, you can find out who you know who’s going and invite them to a Happy Hour or other boutique microevent within the conference. 3) Use a QR code connected to your calendar booking link so your prospects can easily book a followup with you at a show. 4) Make sure your post event followups are highly personalized. Everyone is going to be sending email followups 48 hrs after the show to these prospects… stand out. Use video, or memorable moments.

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!

Take a stand! No really, stand up, smile, greet each person that passes by. This is a very expensive investment and is not the time to be passive. Be approachable and strike up conversation. Also don't forget networking events before and after the show hours, they can be great meeting spots.

- Trade shows are an excellent opportunity to network/collaborate with other businesses in your industry. Seek out complementary businesses and extend the value you gain from the trade show beyond leads and sales. - Think about the well-being of your booth staff. Trade shows can be physically and mentally demanding for them. Provide them with comfortable seating, breaks, and refreshments to ensure they can represent your brand effectively and with enthusiasm throughout the event. - Be prepared for the unexpected: shipping delays, technical glitches, staff emergencies, etc. Know where the nearest Best Buy and pharmacy are located and have a plan to get there and back quickly if needed. And don't forget to pack the duct tape! Good luck!