It’s trade show season – home and garden shows, health and wellness shows, industry shows.Dave Lavinsky of Guiding Metrics Executive Dashboard recently had his organization’s first booth at the Traffic & Conversion Summit. His six biggest takeaways from his experience and other things to keep in mind are summarized below.

1. Location, location, location

Like in retail, the location of your booth is critical.  At the 3-day event Dave’s booth was on the second floor by the break-out rooms.  They received some light foot traffic during the first two days at times when the break-out rooms were crowded but that’s about it.  On the third day some of the exhibitors on the main floor had packed up and gone home and they were allowed to move their booth to the main floor.  The results were incredibly different.  They has as many visitors to their booth on the shortened third day of the show as the first two days combined.

2. People may not behave as you anticipated

      Dave put 3 iPads in the booth so people could pick them up and test drive the executive dashboard product.  It turned out that virtually no one picked up the iPads.  Instead Dave and his people had to walk around the booth, pick up the iPads and walk prospects through the program.  Anticipate that you may have to adapt to how people actually behave when it was not as you expected it would be.

      3. Have something interesting to get them to stop

      Behind Dave’ s booth they had a 70 inch flat screen television showing the executive dashboard in action.  It got some people to stop, but others glanced and kept walking.  Next time they will invest in a video to “grab” people as they walk by.

      4. Choose the right event

      Event marketing is like direct mail.  The list of recipients is key.  You won’t succeed if the target audience at the event isn’t a good fit for your business.  When considering spending money to be in a trade show, review who will be attending and who the other exhibitors are before spending money and time in the wrong shows.

      5. Strike while the iron is hot

      Try to get visitors in your booth to take action while they are with you.  Excitement and energy at events is very high.  Take advantage of that.  If you can close the sale at the event, be prepared to do so.  Capture leads also.  At the event, schedule the next point of contact.  Dave’s group emailed all their leads after the event to set up phone meetings but less than half responded.  They realize they should have tried to schedule the follow-up meeting while they were at the event.  They believe they would have had a much better response.

      6. Get on stage if possible

      Dave was fortunate to have been selected to participate on a panel on the second day.  After that, when people walked by their booth they recognized him and many stopped to talk.  By being on stage he gained recognition and credibility and move up the scale of know like and trust.

The event was a great learning opportunity for Dave and his group.  Their next trade show booth opportunity will be even better.

Consider how you can use Dave’s tips to make your trade show participation successful this year.  Doing so could help grow your business!