Why You Need a Tradeshow System

Trade shows continue to be one of the most effective ways to market a business. They’re an opportunity to showcase your products and services to a targetted face-to-face audience that has specifically chosen to visit your booth. But if not executed properly, trade shows can also be a drain on your marketing budget with little to show for your efforts. 

According to SpinGo Event Management, 72% of exhibitors participate in trade shows to get leads from new buyers and prospects. But according to Exhibitor Magazine, research shows that less than 70% of exhibitors have any formalized plan or process in place for how those leads are followed up after the show. 

Given the costs of being a vendor, which can easily run into the 5 figure range, it’s incredibly important to have a trade show system in place.  As part of your overall marketing strategy, your trade show system is something you should develop and fine tune so that it becomes a high converting, high ROI experience for your business. 

Maximizing your trade show investment has many challenges:

1. 1. How do you attract the attention of visitors so they stop at your booth?
   2. How do you qualify prospects and avoid wasting time with tire-kickers?
   3. How do you keep visitors engaged and develop good conversations?
   4. What are the best giveaways and how do you avoid wasting money on them?
   5. What are lead magnets and how do you make the most of them?
   6. How do you create a high performing team in your booth?
   7. How do you ensure leads are followed up effectively after the tradeshow is done?

Like your website, you have precious little time to grab a visitor’s attention and keep it, especially with so much vendor competition just steps away. So you want to make sure you have a well laid out booth that attracts visitors and holds their attention once they stop by.

As the creator of the Blockbuster Tradeshows system, I help exhibitors address these challenges and make the most of their time exhibiting at tradeshows. One of the many things I do is audit display materials such as banners with a critical and objective eye. 

One of my favourite trade show stories is about a vendor who asked me to audit his exhibitor booth, and his banners in particular. I gave him several suggestions for improving his banner so it would attract more visitors to stop at his booth. He contacted his sign designer that morning and had a new – and improved – banner by the afternoon. He told me he noticed a marked improvement in his traffic numbers at his booth with the new banner. 

Less is more with banners. Use an attention grabbing headline and bright colours.  The question I ask at the top of my banner is a great conversation starter with visitors to my booth.

Your display and marketing assets are just one component to a tradeshow system. Think about who will be staffing the booth and their individual roles and accountability. How will you track your expenses and sales to determine your ROI? What sales process will be implemented in the booth and after the tradeshow is done?

I created Blockbuster Tradeshows to help businesses dramatically increase the traffic, leads and sales they generate from exhibiting at trade shows. Book a time below to discover how The Red Carpet Method™ generates qualifying clients a minimum $100K and up to $1M from your next tradeshow, guaranteed.