Trade shows offer a prime opportunity for businesses to showcase their products or services, connect with potential customers, and boost brand visibility. However—as anyone who has attended a trade show can attest—the constant activity and fight for potential clients’ attention can be overwhelming. And, if you’re not careful, it’s easy to unintentionally waste your time and energy on the attendees who simply aren’t a great fit for your brand.
While standing out from the crowd and maximizing your return on investment (ROI) can be challenging, it’s not impossible! Being strategic about not only your booth aesthetic, but your promotional marketing and swag overall, can help elevate your trade show presence and drive measurable results.
As you can imagine, we’ve stocked our fair share of trade shows on behalf of our clients. Read on for some of our favorite easy-to-implement tactics to enhance your trade show ROI:
Create an Experience: Proactively capturing attendees’ attention in a sea of booths and drawing them to you will save you a ton of time and energy. One easy way is by incorporating interactive elements like games or demos that entertain and/or educate visitors about your offerings. For example:
- Construction industry tycoons: Create one or more branded Jenga building block sets. Let your guests play a high-stakes game of Jenga where the lucky ones walk away with custom offers, discounts, and swag prizes, and the unlucky ones play again to recover their honor.
- Healthcare heroes: Consider a digital game with fun health-related trivia and a real-time leader board. Encourage attendees to check back throughout the day to see where they rank—and collect their prizes if they finish at the top.
- Education aficionados: Host athletic contests with branded game sets. From foam basketballs to hole-in-one putting or skee-ball to cornhole and everything in between, making your booth “fun central” is a great way to draw attention.
- Financial services pros: Prove your company’s financial savvy by hosting mini-games where guests can earn and bank points. Then, they can spend their points on custom swag! The better they are at saving, the higher the value of swag they can afford.
By providing an engaging experience, you’ll create a booth where potential clients come to hang out—not simply stop by—thereby increasing your chances of having meaningful (and lucrative!) interactions.
Implement a Tiered Swag Strategy: Instead of offering generic giveaways to every passerby, we recommend leveraging a tiered swag structure to incentivize engagement and capture valuable leads.
If your big attention-grabber is a game, reserve premium swag items for attendees who play:
- Branded tech gadgets
- Premium apparel
- Luxury travel items
Then have another tier for those who provide their contact information:
- Drinkware
- Totes
- Mini flashlights
Finally, for those who simply grab and go, offer smaller yet still appealing swag items:
- Stationery (pens, notepads, sticky notes, etc.)
- Accessories (chapstick, sunglasses, lint sheets)
Rewarding engagement will help you create a memorable experience while not exhausting your entire swag budget on attendees who aren’t a good fit for what your company has to offer.
Be Authentic and Engaging: At their heart, trade shows are about one thing: making sales. And, as to be expected in a sales-driven environment, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by sales-y personalities. Authenticity goes a long way in building trust and fostering genuine connections with attendees. Instead of adopting a purely sales-centric approach, focus on:
- Building rapport and engaging in meaningful conversations.
- Being genuinely interested in attendees’ needs and challenges
- Being wiling to offer helpful insights or solutions without pushing for a sale
Positioning yourself as a knowledgeable resource rather than a pushy salesperson leaves a positive impression and increases the likelihood of future conversions.
Stand Out Visually: Visual appeal plays a crucial role in attracting attendees to your booth amidst the bustling trade show floor. Invest in eye-catching visuals:
- Dynamic lighting
- Tall and/or hanging banners that command attention from a distance
- Interactive displays
- Comfortable seating areas (who doesn’t love to sit down at a trade show!?)
- Refreshment stations (branded water bottles and candy bars are a thing!)
By creating a visually appealing and welcoming environment will encourage visitors to linger and engage with your brand while giving you a greater opportunity to make a memorable impression.
Utilize Social Media: Social Media is an extremely powerful tool to amplify your trade show presence and drive traffic to your booth. Create a content strategy that incorporates many engagement methods:
- Share teasers of your booth setup, promotions, or exclusive swag offerings
- Offering special incentives or giveaways for those who mention your social media posts
- Post time-sensitive contests throughout the day to draw attendees to your booth
- Crate an event-specific hashtag and host a post-event giveaway for attendees who use it
- Engage with event organizers, influencers, and fellow exhibitors on social media to generate buzz around your participation
- Set up a branded photo booth or selfie station to encourage photo coverage
Create Exclusive Swag Packages: Enhance the allure of your swag offerings by creating exclusive packages tailored to different attendee segments or levels of engagement. For example, design VIP swag bags reserved for key prospects or high-value leads, containing premium merchandise, personalized notes, and exclusive offers. Offer these packages to attendees who schedule a meeting with your team, attend a product demo, or participate in a focused discussion at your booth. Creating that sense of exclusivity and value incentivizes deeper engagement and increases the perceived value of your brand—always a good thing!
By incorporating strategic promotional marketing and swag tactics, along with authentic engagement strategies and visual standout elements, you can significantly increase your trade show ROI. From captivating booth experiences to personalized packages, each step contributes to creating memorable interactions and driving tangible results.