Trade Show Promotions

Pre-Show Promotions
Pre-show promotion should be a planned campaign rather than a last minute thought. Arelatively inexpensive part of your budget, pre-show promotions almost always bring qualified buyers to your booth. Ideas for promoting your presence at a show should be considered just like new product introduction or special event pricing. Some ideas include:

• Personal invitations from sales force • Special advertising in newspapers or industry publications • Direct mail to pre-registered attendees and client base • Telemarketing • Billboards • Press releases to trade and local media • Tag lines on all outgoing faxes and emails • Enticement on web pages and emails • On-hold phone messaging

As you can see, there are many ways to “announce” your presence at a show beforehand and multiply the impact of your show dollars.

At-Show Promotions
Once at the show, attendees are inundated with gimmicks – from literature bombardment to useless, cheap giveaways. Remember, the idea is to get people into your booth space – to cross that invisible line – where they can become a potential client, not merely an attendee. How do you do that successfully?

The best activities are those that attract people you want, and no others. Games, presentations, giveaways and entertainment that attract too broad an audience clutter up your booth space with non-buyers and make it harder to satisfy your objectives and goals.

Create an activity that makes sense for your prospects and promote it ahead of time, via show package inserts, fax, email, or invitation only. Let them know what the “game” is and what they must do to qualify to win. If it’s a drawing, make them work for it. Have them answer three simple questions about your product to be eligible. Moreover, have them fill out a brief questionnaire about their needs before they can qualify to “win the prize”. Whether it is a raffle, a drawing, or a giveaway, make sure the information you gather will allow you to leave with a qualified lead.

Too often, companies over estimate the effectiveness of literature. Show visitors have been trained to expect literature, and the truth is that most of it ends up in the trash can. Therefore, what you dohand out should be your less expensive pieces, or pieces made specifically for the show. Whatever you hand out, do so personally, within your booth, in exchange for a business card. It is ok to keep a few pieces on a shelf toward the back of your booth, but putting a big stack out front makes it too easy for anyone to grab and run, and you lose that contact. Better yet, get the prospect’s information so you can follow-up with literature after the show.