Don’t Commit These 3 Expensive Errors During the Next Tradeshow

You know you are doing something wrong when the exhibition booth that you spent so much money on is being ignored by the majority of the visitors at a conference. There can be several reasons as to why this is happening despite good marketing effort made by your team.

You may be doing a lot of things right with your presentation, but all of the money that you have pumped into your presentation goes to waste if you are committing any of the three serious errors mentioned below.

1: Don’t be too busy

Visitors to your booth can get confused if there are too many different calls to action for them to take. It makes your life and that of your visitor’s a whole lot easier if you have a specific action for them to take that does not confuse them too much. Here are some things for you to keep in mind:

• Set one specific objective for your booth for that time frame. Whether it is to have people like your social page, or use your brand’s hashtag to check in to the conference. This may not be the best business objective, particularly not for all patrons, but it certainly does minimize confusion for your visitors to be able to know exactly what they need to do without being overwhelmed.
• Set up the booth to cater to this objective. This objective could be satisfied by providing a certain set up that will satisfy this requirement. For instance, if you want people to check in to your booth with a hashtag, you could offer them a photo booth where they can take a selfie. You can then either post the selfie to social media for them or ask them to post it using that hashtag to get a freebie. That makes it fun and simple to fulfill your objective.
• Teach your staff how to fulfill this objective. Your staff needs to know just what to say to each visitor to get the objective met. If a different way of saying it works better, you can always change the verbiage to reflect this.

2: Don’t deny your visitors some merchandise

Every visitor to your booth needs to walk away with something, whether it is material or virtual. That is a huge incentive for them to want to visit your booth.

• Get merchandise that has your brand logo and a tagline printed on it. This can be a laptop sleeve or a badge that people can actually use when they are on the move. This will get your brand attention from the person as well as that from people around them who will see this merchandise in use.
• Make sure the merchandise is something that will last for a while, instead of something short term like a snack that will soon disappear. It needs to be something that the person will notice your brand name on and after a while will come to associate your brand with.
• Display this merchandise on your booth. You can have your booth staff wearing this merchandise or have it prominently displayed so people are aware that they have something they can get if they visit your booth.

3: Don’t keep an untidy house

Sometimes, people don’t visit the booth for the same reason your friends choose to meet outside rather than come over: Your place is untidy.

• Organize everything in your booth so that it is neatly categorized into different topics or sections. There should be a flow to the way everything in the booth is organized so that people know in which direction to head if they need something.
• Clean up after each visitor. In case a visitor leaves brochures open all over the place, make sure these are tidied up soon after so that people don’t feel like they have stepped on someone else’s mess.
• Use only specific brand colors and imagery. Don’t overkill on any of your visual themes.
• Keep personal stuff out of sight. If you have your personal belongings or those of your staff’s around, keep them well out of the way. Nobody wants to see what you are having for lunch if they aren’t having a share.