Trade show participation is proven to build brand awareness and help marketers discover new business opportunities. But the companies that fare the best, and maximize their ROI are those that realize that simply showing up isn’t enough.  It is critical to build communications strategy that keeps customers and prospects fully engaged before, during and after the show.

1. Plan in advance
The first step toward trade show success is creating an engagement timeline to support your company’s strategic marketing plan.  It’s also important to link all forms of communication (advertising, online marketing, social media, public relations) together to achieve an action-oriented goal. Make sure your messaging aligns with your overall marketing strategy and clearly explains how your products or services can benefit customers and prospects. Value-added information, such as research data or company news that will help recipients solve a specific business challenge, is also helpful.

2. Build quality traffic
Having a tradeshow exhibit doesn’t necessarily ensure quality foot traffic. Engage customers and prospects well in advance of any event, and make it clear how they stand to benefit from visiting your booth. Incentives can include special show pricing, access to exclusive research or information, or an in-booth gift (or other giveaway) that provides a meaningful experience to prospects.  Promote these incentives well ahead of time through direct mail or email and on your website.  Try to co-promote with the trade show organizer to help boost traffic to your booth and buzz around your participation.  When planning a pre-show marketing strategy, ensure that the communication channels you choose are appropriate for your audience and industry. For example, if your target audience is young designers, then use social media, video and email. For targets such as manufacturing plant personnel, who are often away from their computers, consider traditional approaches such as direct mail or print advertising.

3. Engage on-site
To effectively engage and interact with show attendees, invest the time and effort to train your on-site staff. Be sure to underscore how much you’ve invested in the show, and explain that staff performance will have a significant impact on its overall success. Ask for a personal commitment from all staff to reach preset sales goals. If necessary, go as far as breaking down costs by the minute, per person. Consider using an incentive program to encourage your sales team to attain your goals.
During the training process, clearly articulate the criteria your sales team should use to qualify visitors and determine whether they are high-quality leads. Give the sales staff tips on how to disengage with unqualified visitors politely, but quickly.
To prepare, practice engaging various visitors; time the interactions to test efficiency. In addition, provide the staff with a list of key customers and prospects, along with protocol guidelines for ensuring a smooth process when VIPs show up.

4. Follow up
Communication with customers and prospects shouldn’t end when the trade show closes its doors. The show itself may be just the starting point of the sale, which could happen months later.  To ease follow-up, be sure to annotate the leads (list the actions you need to take) and rate them based on your sales and closing criteria to ensure the “hottest” leads get immediate attention. That could mean providing a quote or the additional information the prospect requested, or saying a simple “thank you” to those who aren’t ready to buy your product or service just yet.  All of your contacts should be organized into a centralized database (segregated by type, if needed) to facilitate regular, ongoing communication. Use the database to share company announcements, media mentions or relevant news to show that you’re engaged with their business. And remember: Never ignore a lead. You never know who will turn out to be the most beneficial connection.

As a child there was nothing more exciting than going to Disneyland.  The overall Disney experience is both extraordinary and unforgettable.  The memories still bring a smile to my face.  As much as I loved Disneyland as a kid (and still do!), I realize I pull from those experience all the time while planning tradeshow event and exhibits for my clients.  The best way to attract more customers to attend your trade show is to bring a "show biz" mentality to all your marketing and at-show strategies.

Think like Disney.
There was never a greater promoter than Walt Disney. Everything he touched was exciting, colorful, and bursting with energy. The Disney legacy continues as the Disney Corporation dazzles and entertains millions with its products, parks, and superb customer service.

What does Disney do that every trade show organizer should emulate? Disney injects a show business mentality into everything it does by creating an image that makes people smile and lets them know they're in for a first-class experience.

So when planning your pre-show marketing strategies, remember to think like Disney. Everything you do to promote and implement your show must be first-class, creative, and professional. Train your employees to provide enthusiastic and helpful customer service.

Make your trade shows interactive.
When people manipulate objects they often form an attachment to them. They get an idea of how the products work and are more excited about the possibility of buying them. So, set up audio-visual displays that attendees can easily operate -- they will feel like they are part of the show experience as they connect with your products.   Create an iPad app that attendees can download for themselves or interactive with in your booth.  iPad stands are a great interactive experience for your prospects and client’s.   Incorporate QR codes into your graphics and business cards.

Put the Internet to work for you.
You can interact with potential attendees through the Internet, both in your pre-show marketing and during the show.  Send out pre-show invitations.  Check to see if you can get a free link on the show website.  Post a “count down” on your website.  Use your company’s Facebook page to promote the show.  Tweet about the event and follow the show.  Pinterest is a great way to promote the products, services and exhibit you will be showing.  Carry all of these social media tools throughout the show and post show.

Make your shows unforgettable experiences.
How do you generate such an experience? Again, think Disney. Capture the imaginations of attendees by providing a wealth of sights, sounds, aromas, and entertainment, along with a high degree of interactivity.   Details are what create a memorable experience.  Imagine yourself walking down Main Street with all the details in the store windows, the costumes, and the smell of the candy shop.  Add those experiences into your exhibit.

Make your trade shows fun.
Live entertainment, educational seminars, clowns, puppeteers, and magicians are just a few of the tools you can use to make your show fun and informative. Don’t rely on your products alone to sell the show biz experience. Booths filled with inanimate objects are boring and won't capture the attention of your audience. However, if you inject a little excitement into the show, you'll have attendees in the palm of your hand.

Provide lots of comfortable space.
Design your booth so you don’t sacrifice comfort for hardware. Booths that are crowded with display items make it difficult for consumers to focus their attention on each item. Set up your booth so that attendees can see everything clearly in an uncluttered space. Booths should provide good lighting, easy-to-read signage, and attention-grabbing graphics.

Inject show biz excitement into your advertising and public relations.
Your advertising should reflect the excitement, creativity, and flavor of your event. Observe how the producers of movies and Broadway musicals advertise their shows and incorporate as many of those elements as are feasible in your own advertising.

Your exhibition space is your stage. In order to generate interest, you must put on a performance that will keep attendees riveted and eager to come back for the sequel!

Promotional items can increase tradeshow booth traffic, stimulate brand awareness and intensify client relationships.  Done wrong, they can waste booth staffers’ time, be a drain on your trade show budget, and spoil your reputation.  Here are a few wrong ways to use trade show giveaways:

1. Offer giveaways that have no tie to your brand

Find a giveaway that is appealing and can be tied into your brand or marketing message.  That way, you create a deeper, more significant impression your booth visitor will remember after the show.

2. Cheap giveaways

Don’t purchase the cheapest promotional item possible.  If you have a limited budget purchase for your clients only and offer candy to the other attendees.  The last thing you want is your logo on an inferior product.

3.  Treat your customers like strangers

Don’t give your loyal clients the same $1 giveaway you handed over to everyone else.  Make sure they feel how special you think they are for giving you their valuable business. 

4. Leave the giveaways out

The reason you offer giveaways is to talk to attendees and qualify leads.  Leaving the items on a table and walking away will get you nothing.   Instead, either put the giveaways further in your trade show displays, or out of sight. 

5.  Don’t tell your booth staffers about your promotions

Pre-show mailers inviting clients to your booth space are a great way to promote your products.  Not teller your staffers about the promotion…not a good thing.  Unprepared staffers won’t know about contest requirements, fulfillment expectations, or how to tie your giveaways to your marketing messages.  Be sure to train all staff.

5.  Offer a “big” prize

Want a big list of people who just want an iPad?  Raffle it off at your next show.   Require attendees to answer a few qualifying questions on an entrance form first, so you know who are the good prospects right away.  Better yet, only do broad-appealing raffles like this when most of the show attendees could be prospects for your products. 

6.  Don’t follow up

After you’ve invested $5, $10, $20 or more on a high-quality, memorable gift you let those valuable opportunities perish by not calling the clients and prospects after the show.  Be sure to prioritize your leads by quality, so your sales force can reach out to those top-level prospects while they are hot.  Tell your sales people what giveaways the leads received, so they can refer to the gift in the follow up call. 

If you have ever had the experience of attending a trade show, it can appear to be a relatively simple, pain-free procedure from the outside. You pack up your supplies and your team, head down to where the event is taking place, set up your exhibit and start connecting with potential leads!  While these are the essential tasks performed by trade show exhibitors, the details and plans behind these occurrences go much, much deeper.

If you have talked with a trade show exhibitor or walked past a booth which seemed comfortable and flawless in their execution, chances are they spent hours and hours prepping and practicing to appear that way. This is because there are so many details and plans that go into each and every trade show exhibit that you have to be completely on top of your game to ensure that no mistakes are made.

However, even then, it is easy to forget one of your confirmation documents or the pile of handouts back at your office. And as innocent and minor as these mistakes may seem, no business can afford to forget something that may have an effect on the success of their trade show event.

In order to ensure that you have all of your bases covered when it comes to your trade show exhibit, we have put together a list of simple things you should remember when preparing for your next show:

Create a Strategy

Perhaps the most important asset to the success of your companies trade show is your marketing and sales strategy. If you do not come up with a well-organized, effective plan for connecting with attendees and collecting leads, you will not achieve the goals that you have set up for yourself. This business strategy can have simple tasks such as talk with five industry leaders, or even ambitious goals such as generate thirty qualified prospects.

Connect With Attendees Beforehand

Sometimes it takes more than just one initial face-to-face meeting to connect with potential clients and land new business leads.  For this reason, it is good idea to connect and set up meetings with potential clients before you get to the trade show event.  Join the Linkedin and Facebook page associated with the show.  Join discussions with those in the group, as they'll be either exhibiting or there as an attendee.  They can become new clients even before the show begins.  Blog about the show and note your participation in the show on your company website and in your email signatures.

Organize All of Your Paperwork

When you are rushing to get all of your last minute business plans together, it can be easy to forget about the simple things, such as your confirmation paperwork or your rental agreements. Be sure that you have all of your necessary documents collected in one spot so that it is easy to locate when it comes time to leave. Also, it doesn’t hurt to make copies of all travel, trade show and hotel documents and hand them off to another member of your group, just in case.

After months and months of planning and preparation, the last thing you want to foil your trade show experience is a simple employee error or an unforeseen mistake. Following a simple trade show checklist is a great way to prepare for your event and ensure that all of your last-minute details are taken care of.