Healthcare exhibitors choose to use our interactive trade show games for many of the same reasons as their exhibiting peers in other industries.  But not always.

The most common reason exhibitors use our games is to drive more booth traffic, and in that respect, healthcare exhibitors are similar – our games help fill their booth with attendees.  Those attendees can then become leads and sales, or stronger relationships with influencers:

While many healthcare exhibitors are concerned about rules limiting the value of gifts and giveaways they can offer, not all healthcare exhibitors limit their gifts. Some healthcare exhibitors are interacting with audiences that fall outside healthcare’s complex, stringent rules, so they can still offer substantial gifts.

These less-regulated shows can be because the audience is not considered providers, or because the event is held in another country, or because it’s a healthcare company’s own sales meeting, or for other reasons.

In these two examples, Amplifon offered headphones as a prize, and Starkey offered a smart phone:

Why healthcare trade show attendees play games, even without major prizes

We’ve also seen exhibitors still use our games to boost traffic and interaction, even without offering valuable prizes (to abide by their industry gift rules).

Our Challenge Bar Trivia Game attracts healthcare professionals who want to compete against their peers for top-score bragging rights.  They also want to test themselves on their knowledge.  Because our Challenge Bar Trivia Game includes a Leaderboard that prominently lists highest-scoring game players, competitive healthcare exhibition attendees still strive to win.

Healthcare exhibition attendees play trivia to learn

Some attendees play trivia in healthcare exhibitors’ booths to learn.  Each exhibitor writes their own trivia questions, which tend to be about a company’s products or services, but can also be about the subject matter of expertise of attendees.

For example, Thermo Fisher Scientific enticed attendees to play their customized trivia game to “raise their neuroscience IQ” (this is a screen shot of the game splash screen players see when they start).

Our client Bio-Rad went even further to encourage booth visitors to compete for recognition instead of prizes of monetary value, by awarding trophies to top-scoring game players:

Healthcare exhibitors, we’re eager to get started

Interactive trade show games are still a popular promotional choice for healthcare exhibitors, even though they are more limited by their industry rules about what they can offer their booth visitors. Games can help healthcare exhibitors get more booth traffic, visitor interaction, and relationship-building.  Healthcare exhibition attendees are still motivated to play games, even in the cases where the exhibitors are limited in the value of the prizes they offer.

If you’d like to see more about how you can drive more booth traffic and get more qualified leads with our interactive trade show games , feel free to contact us with questions or to discuss your event with one of SocialPoint’s Digital Strategists. We’ll help you generate excitement, crowds, and leads.

“I want 100% of the attendees to participate in this activity!”

It’s a phrase that I hear from meeting planners all the time. They are convinced that the attendee engagement experiences won’t work if only 60% of the people do it.

I have an alternative point of view.

First, understand that there really isn’t any single activity that will get 100% attendee participation:

5 attendee engagement activities that never get 100% participation:

1. Your Audience Poll: Most of you will achieve 60-85%. The people who don’t participate either are not interested or didn’t get the tech to participate.
2. Your Scavenger Hunt Game: I recently heard about a game that got 90% participation but most participation rates are much lower. More like 20%-30%.
3. Your Trivia Game: I have some clients who get 50-70% of attendees. We do have clients that get more – but those are exceptions.
4. Your Social Media Wall:  The level of participation depends on the audience demographics and the calls to action that the event organizer creates.  Many get about 20-30% participation in a conference or event – without encouraging participation or showing the social screens in large public places. However – the people that are into it are really into it.
5. Your Mobile Event App: Because it will only be used for a few short days – I have never heard of any event getting 100% of the attendees to download the mobile event app. It’s a huge effort to visit the app store to download, install, and login. I am constantly surprised by the low numbers of usage of these apps.

6 attendee behavior types – and how many you have at your events:

Second, I believe that there are different types of attendees that have different types of preferences in your event. Here is a list that we adapted from the book Groundswell years ago. The list has held up pretty well:

1. Creators
2. Critiquers
3. Collectors
4. Sharers
5. Joiners
6. Inactives

These different attendee types have different needs from technology and your audience engagement experiences:

Creators – This is the person that can take a white piece of paper and make something magical out of it. They represent about 10% of your audience.

Critiquers – These are the people that couldn’t do anything with a white piece of paper. However, they are more than willing to write 40 pages of reasons why the creators creation is really bad.  You have them all around you. They represent about 30% of the audience. (In an event – you can use this skill to your advantage.)

Collectors – These are the people that like to collect a set of something. You know they want all the badges, or to get to all of the stations, etc.  These people are about 25% of your audience.

Sharer – These people prefer to share the ideas of others, rather than come up with their own.

Joiners – These people like to join. Sign up for this, that and the other thing.

Inactives – These people don’t want to get involved. They want to try and hide. They represent about 20% of your attendees.

Now the percentages are just rough estimates – some crowds vary in size. In our experience – if you use these numbers as a guide post – you can increase your outcomes.

Knowing that, if only 10% of the audience willing to create videos and other content, you’re winning!  Even though almost everyone carries an astounding content-creating tool called a smart phone in their pocket, they won’t all want to use it.  Sure, they’d love to see a picture of themselves with their arm around their friend’s shoulder, but 90% won’t go to the effort to create videos.

You can increase your overall participation rate by giving opportunities and rewards for attendees to behave the way they prefer, whether it’s to create, critique, collect, share, or join.

Also, rather than trying to get maximum involvement within a single session or workshop, instead go for layered engagement.  When designing your meeting, we have different types of activities that appeal to these different audience behavior types.  Sprinkle these different kinds of engagement activities throughout your one day or multiple day event.  Eventually you’ll get a higher percentage of your audience participating, just not all at the same time.

So, you’re not going to get every attendee to create, but if you can focus on appealing to these different groups and accepting the percentages won’t reach 100 percent but perhaps 30 or 50 percent, you will succeed.

If you’d like to see how you can create more engaging and interactive content using the wide variety of choices within our SocialPoint Audience Engagement System, feel free to contact us with questions or to discuss your event with one of SocialPoint’s Digital Strategists. We’ll help you generate greater attendee engagement at your events.

With all the logistics you have to manage for your company’s trade show program, you might feel justified in skipping trade show promotional activities. But that would be like planning a party, and not sending out all the invitations.

Sure, the show organizer will get people to the show floor.  But it’s up to you to get them to your booth space.

Here are 7 reasons why trade show promotional activities are so worth your effort:

1. Trade show promotional activities attract more booth traffic

As attendees wander down the aisles, their eyes are bombarded by structures, images and words from all sides.  What wins in that sensory battle?  Motion and sound – which you can do best with activities.  Activities in your booth catch and hold their attention, and if enticing enough, bring them into your space, leaving your neighboring exhibitors staring at you in envy.

2. Trade show promotional activities attract the right booth traffic

Even better than more traffic is the right booth traffic. You can create activities that appeal especially to your target audience (product demos, time trials, industry trivia games). Then, announce your activity pre-show via email, phone calls, and social media, and with signage and crowd gatherers during the show.

3. Trade show promotional activities help booth staffers start conversations

All your booth staffers need help starting conversations.  The introverts especially need the help, but even the extroverted sales people may feel uncomfortable in the trade show setting that’s so different than their day-to-day environment. A clever activity relieves your booth staffers from having to strain to start conversations for hours on end.

4. Trade show promotional activities build trust

Today’s trade show attendees are better informed.  They’ve already researched on the web to find which companies offer what they are looking for.  So, visit potential vendors at the trade show to gauge credibility. A strong activity in your booth can build trust. Your activities can be designed to overcome objections and prove your empathy for your clients’ main challenges.

5. Trade show promotional activities make attendees remember you

Trade show promotional activities can also boost awareness of your company brand and image among attendees.  Especially activities that are surprising and hook visitors’ emotions. Make your activity photo-worthy so they want to share it on Instagram and their other social media accounts. Even better, give them a giveaway with your logo that is thematically-tied to your promotional activity, to remind them even more of the experience they had in your booth.

6. Trade show promotional activities increase leads and sales

When your trade show promotional activities bring in more of the right attendees into your booth, engage them in better conversations, and have them remember you better after the show – guess what? You’re going to get more leads from the show.  Even better, if it’s your goal, you’ll get more sales.

7. Trade show promotional activities increase trade show ROI

While often the first thing dropped off the to-do list, trade show promotional activities can be the secret sauce that can boost your trade show ROI.  You’re already investing in the booth space, show services, travel, and exhibit design.  Spend just 5% to 10% more on a good trade show promotional activity, and you can increase your sales from your trade show leads by 50% to 100%. It’s some of the best money you can invest.

I hope that after reading this article, you’ve taken out your trade show checklist, and put a big star next to trade show promotions, to ensure you create an activity that brings in more traffic and results.

If you’d like to see more about how you can drive more booth traffic and get more qualified leads with our interactive trade show games and activities, feel free to contact us with questions or to discuss your event with one of SocialPoint’s Digital Strategists. We’ll help you generate excitement, crowds, and leads.