Visiting trade shows is a common undertaking by businesses looking to grow and expand their reach to clients and other professionals. A trade show is usually an exhibition that showcases businesses within a certain industry. You’ll have several booths set around the place to advertise certain businesses and allow guests to discuss business with those manning the booths. You can benefit from running your own booth as a business owner, especially if you’re looking to expand your network and boost the integrity of your company as a whole. Creating an effective booth, however, is no simple task and requires some significant forethought before you get started.
Set Goals and Focus On Targets
Before you get ahead of yourself with trade show planning and purchasing your décor, it’s important to consider exactly what your goals are for running a booth at a trade show. Figure out what you want to get out of this event, as it will require a lot of effort and resources. For example, are you trying to bolster the support of your current customers and keep them interested in your products or services? Are you trying to attract new customers to your business? Or are you trying to promote a new product or service? Once you understand exactly why you’re going to be at this trade show, you’ll be better prepared for the overall planning and execution of a successful event.
Advertise Beforehand
While having a great booth that is eye-catching and attractive to draw people in can provide you with some great success on the day, it’s just as easy for even the most interesting-looking booths to miss out on a lot of engagement with guests. Most exhibitions and trade shows will likely be quite large and difficult to navigate. With so much to see, it’s easy for some of the most interesting booths to simply get very little traffic, depending on their booth location, for example. This is why it’s important to reach out and advertise your booth and business to those who may be visiting on the day. This will encourage guests to look for you, specifically, rather than just happening to stumble onto your booth.
Provide Branded Freebies
Another great way to encourage people to visit your booth and bring more awareness to your business at the same time, is to offer freebies and giveaways to attendees. You could get branded beanies showcasing your logo and colours and things like t-shirts, sunglasses, or tote bags and pens. Many people enjoy visiting these trade shows partly because of all the free gifts they can get. This has become almost synonymous with trade shows, and people are very likely to take any free items you hand them simply because they’re free, and this naturally helps to market your brand.
Consider Your Engagement
It’s important that your booth engages with an individual. This means that you should be offering something exciting or interesting that someone can connect to and appreciate. The tools and tricks you utilize for engagement don’t necessarily have to be related to your business. Games and engaging tech like VR can work wonders for encouraging people to open a dialogue with you, and you can then lead the conversation towards your business offerings once that door has been opened.
