11 Things You Give Up With Lower Cost Trade Show Games

As a trade show manager, it’s understandable that you would want to get the best deal on the interactive trade show game you choose for your booth.  As you shop around, you may find some games that cost less than ours, and at first blush, appear to be similar enough.

However, if you choose a lower-cost interactive trade show game, you are very likely giving up more than you are getting.  Here are 11 things you get with SocialPoint trade show games that you give up with lower-cost alternatives:

1. You give up a better game experience

We’ve built our trade show games with gamification best practices in mind: easy to play with minimal instructions, the right amount of game difficulty to keep players engaged, clear clues on how well players are doing, beautiful visuals, and slick touch-screen navigation. Plus, our games visually integrate between play on tablet computers and game result visuals on large screen monitors. With our games, you know that booth visitors will enjoy themselves and have a positive experience.

2. You give up custom branding

Building brand awareness is a top-3 goal for most trade show exhibitors.  With our games, you are able to customize the game screens (for every step of the game) to match your corporate colors, brand images, logo, and type fonts.  So, the game will look completely customized to your brand, and match the rest of your exhibit.  That means your booth visitors will absorb more of your branding while they play the game. Other company’s games? You usually get whatever look they’ve set up, or get far less ability to customize the look.

3. You give up greater control

Our trade show games include intelligent programming that give you the exhibitor greater control.  For example, our Challenge Bar Trivia game lets you award harder questions more points when answered correctly, so you can better ensure the best contestant wins.  Another example: our Virtual Prize Wheel lets you choose how often a prize will be won, so you can make sure your most valuable prizes don’t run out too early. Our games have many of these programming strengths to give you greater control.  Cheaper alternatives?  Not so much.

4. You give up game versions tailored to your goals

We can set up each of our games in multiple ways.  We programmed our software with that flexibility, because each exhibitor can have different goals for how long they want attendees to play in their booth, and how much data they want the game to capture.  So, we’ve provided various ways to limit or stretch out the play time in our Challenge Bar Trivia game, and provided different ways to set up screen and game start in our Virtual Prize Wheel game.  These choices let you adapt our games to fit your specific marketing needs.  Cheaper competitors lack these game choices.

5. You give up marketing guidance

With multiple SocialPoint games and multiple versions of our games, you have good choices to align a game with your company brand, booth staffer capabilities, and most importantly, with your target audience demographics.  We’ll help you find the best fit for your trade show marketing objectives, based on our discussions with you and our insights from our many previous clients. Something you won’t get from a download.

6. You give up tech support before and at show

Technology is likely not your main job.  And while we have designed our interactive game platform to be easier to install and use, there will always be questions about setting up the right technology.  We’ll answer your questions about choosing the right tablet computers, flat screen monitors, Internet browsers and connections, operating systems, and more.  We’ll train you how to set up your game before the show.  And when it’s show time, we will be available to help you walk through any unexpected tech issues that come up.  You won’t get that from a website.

7. You give up lead capture

We know that most exhibitors don’t want to just have fun in their booth, they want to go home with contact data about their booth visitors.  They want leads they can share with their sales force after the show. That’s why we’ve designed all our games to not only be enticing to play, but also to allow you to require players to share their contact data before they are allowed to play. Contact data can be as simple as name and email, or more fields if you require.  But a lead is more than just contact data, that’s why we also provide custom forms.

8. You give up custom forms

We can customize your game screens to include survey questions and forms that give you exactly the answers you need to determine which leads are the most qualified and how to best follow up on each lead. With pull-down menus or radio buttons, your attendees can answer quickly and then have fun playing the game.  With many of our lower-priced competitors, you get a game, but not the lead capture, customized to your needs.

9. You give up a Lead Manager app

If you are looking to save money, here is an unexpected bonus we offer: Our trade show games include a free, fully-featured trade show lead capture app. Our Lead Manager app lets your booth staffers view on their smart phones all the people who have played your game, and allows staffers to add more qualifying info and notes.  Your booth staffers can even use our Lead Manager app to record leads for people who haven’t played a game. Our Lead Manager app has other smart features, such as letting your booth staffer send a follow up email including product brochures right from the booth. Using our free Lead Manager app can save you hundreds of dollars at every show.

10. You give up data export

Our trade show games include access to an administrative back end that allows you to download all your game player lead data in Excel.  So, you can quickly download all the leads for fulfillment post-show.  You can bring those leads into your company’s CRM, or merge them with your post-show lead fulfillment letters. You can even download the leads right away, sitting at your desk, in a different city than the trade show!  And, your download includes info about their game participation, so you can tailor your follow-up around their personal experience.

11. You give up real-time graphic analytics

Because pictures tell a thousand words, our games include real-time analytic graphs that let you see hour by hour, day by day, how many booth visitors played your games, how many times they played, and also provides charts that list more data particular to that game. These analytics give you metrics to measure your show’s success, and provide great visuals to provide to your management.

As with all things, sometimes the best value is not the lowest price.  (However, our games provide great value compared to more expensive custom programmed games).  You invest a lot of money in your overall trade show program on booth space, exhibit design, travel and entertainment, and show services.  Make sure you get full value from all that investment with a game that builds your brand and lead counts.  With our games, you get better branding, more support, lead capture, and a better fit with your trade show goals.  We are vested in helping you succeed.

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.