The lure of a tradeshow is almost irresistible to a marketing person. Lots of prospects all in one place who could use your product or service if they just knew about it.
You already know the challenge. How do you get all those people to stop at your booth and listen to your sales pitch?
Here are three things you can do to maximize your investment and dramatically increase your exposure and engagement at your next tradeshow.
1. Create your own traffic builder - Many tradeshows often have an option to participate in the main vendors traffic builder. There is often nothing stopping you from creating your own traffic builder to increase your exposure through another vendor's customers.
I have been able to make this one work so successfully that IBM was overheard to say they were thrilled to be next to my booth at a large event because they always have spill over from the amount of traffic I generate.
First, look at the show list of exhibitors. Find four or five that do not compete with you or each other. Call them up a month of more before the show and make your pitch. Usually the first year I sponsor a new tradeshow I offer participation for free, but after the first year, you can get the other vendors to contribute money to help make the traffic builder more successful.
2. Go Big, Go Rare, or Go Home - The spiff you give away at your show says so much about your company. Go big with your giveaway or go rare, but don't go with the mediocre. A mediocre giveaway will cause your booth to be avoided except by the guy looking to bring home something to his seven children and your booth has a bunch of squeaky toys.
Go Big - Combine this with a traffic builder. Rather than spending hundreds or thousands on landfill toys, take the money and invest in something big. We often give away 42" flat panel TVs because for less than $2,000 I get everyone's attention, especially if I'm competing against rubber ducks in the booth next to me. This big prize also increases the likelihood of participation by vendors in your traffic builder. They then help you spread the word.
Go Rare - I once attended a show with about 1,500 attendees. We had printed up some T-shirts that said either SPAM, VIRUS, or PORN in big white letters on a black shirt. This time, rather than having boxes of t-shirts, I only printed 50 and handed them out very subjectively. There wasn't any way to officially get one. We slowly handed them out to people who we knew would wear them. By the end of the show, nearly every single attendee had been by the booth, wanting to know how they could get a shirt. The event coordinators asked us to not do that again since their information staff were hounded about how to get this coveted shirt.
Find something coveted or rare and give them out sparingly. It has to be something high profile, otherwise the covet factor won't kick in.
3. When looking for a way to increase your exposure, oftentimes looking outside the show itself is a bonus.
At a tradeshow with over 200,000 people, I rented 10 Hummers. Not the H2, but the big wide military style H-1s. This was when they had just come on the market and caused people to stop in the street to watch you drive by. I then sent a postcard to the 800 press and analysts signed up for the show. On the postcard was my cell phone number and a promise that instead of them waiting in 2 hour cab lines, I would dispatch a Hummer to any location and take them anywhere they wanted to go. The catch was they had to listen to my company pitch for the 10 to 15 minutes it took to get them where they were going.
Over 600 press and analysts took me up on the offer. My small company got more exposure in the trade magazines than other companies that had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I remember John C. Dvorak in my Hummer with a writer from PC World who had already written two articles on my company and was planning a third. John was incredulous that I was getting so much ink as such a little company. He did appreciate the ride though.
The next time you have a trade show, take some time to think of these three things to maximize your exposure and have everyone talking about your booth and your products.
