SocialPoint Digital Solutions for Events Blog

The Biggest 2 Trade Show Giveaway Problems Exhibitors Have – And How To Solve Them

Last month we published the results of our exhibitor survey about their trade show giveaway strategies, choices, and perceptions, which we wrote about here. But that wasn’t all we learned.

While exhibitors were strongly positive about the advantages and benefits of using a trade show giveaway, they still had problems with them. Here’s how exhibitors ranked 5 problems experienced when offering a trade show giveaway:

What stood out to us right away is that of the top 2 problems exhibitors have experienced with giveaways, our Virtual Prize Wheel game can help exhibitors solve them both!

Posted on 31 Aug 2018
By Samuel J. Smith
In News, Trade Show Lead Capture, Trade show promotions

Managing Trade Show Lead Capture with Sales Reps in the Booth

Trade show lead capture starts with your booth staffers gathering info with paper, an app, or even an interactive trade show game. And chances are very high that your booth staffers will be all or mostly your sales reps.

So, to help you improve your trade show lead capture results, here are 5 tips on how to get the most from your sales reps staffing your booth.

1. Choose sales reps willing to do trade show lead capture

It’s only natural that some sales people love staffing trade show booths, while others dread it. The single best way to improve your trade show lead capture is to avoid staffing your booth with sales people who look at trade shows as an unwelcome chore. They feel that working the booth prevents them from closing deals. Instead, staff your booth with willing reps who see trade shows as an opportunity to talk face-to-face to many more prospects in a few days then they ever could while sitting in their office.

Posted on 24 Aug 2018
By Samuel J. Smith
In Trade Show Lead Capture

Collecting Leads At Trade Shows When There Is No Badge Scanner

When you exhibit at a major USA trade show, it’s a given that attendees will be given badges, and that you as an exhibitor can rent a badge scanner to scan those attendees. A badge scanner saves exhibitors time during in-booth interactions, allowing them to quickly gather attendees’ contact info, and at some shows, a few qualifying data points, too.

But what’s an exhibitor to do when the show doesn’t offer a badge scanner because the show:

Is too small?
Is international in a country with more stringent privacy laws?
Is in an industry with greater security issues?

You still want to gather lead info, and gather it quickly, even if there is no badge scanner.

Posted on 17 Aug 2018
By Samuel J. Smith
In Trade Show Lead Capture

8 Tips For First Time Trade Show Exhibitors

Exhibiting at trade shows – how hard can it be? You just show up and talk to people, right?

Actually, exhibiting is surprisingly harder than it looks. That said, trade shows still remain very popular (and even keep growing) because they can produce great results when done right.

If you’re exhibiting for the first time, we want to help shorten your learning curve with these 8 tips you need to succeed:

1. Know what your goals are for exhibiting

Everything you do at trade shows should support your main sales and marketing goal. So if you don’t know why you’re exhibiting, there’s no way to succeed. Discover or decide if your trade show goals are (most likely) to boost brand awareness, generate sales leads, or strengthen key relationships, or something else. (This advice is good, even if you are not first time trade show exhibitors.)

Posted on 10 Aug 2018
By Samuel J. Smith
In Trade show, Trade show promotions

Best Trade Show Giveaways: 2018 Survey on Strategies, Features, Choices & Perceptions

Because exhibitors use our Virtual Prize Wheel to manage awarding their trade show giveaways, in the summer of 2018 we surveyed exhibitors to find out:

What trade show giveaways are working best now?
What do exhibitors seek when selecting giveaways?
What value do giveaways bring exhibitors?

Whether you call them premiums, swag, tchotchkes, or simply gifts, giveaways are as ubiquitous at trade shows as aisle carpet, banner stands, and lanyards.

But just because trade show giveaways are everywhere doesn’t mean they are being used to their full potential. Use our survey insights to get more from your trade show giveaways.

Best Trade Show Giveaways STRATEGIES: Offer Multiple, High, and Low Values

Exhibitors were given in the survey the choice of 7 strategic uses of trade show giveaways.

Posted on 3 Aug 2018
By Samuel J. Smith
In News, Trade show giveaways, Trade show promotions

3D Exhibits’ Booth Design With SocialPoint Trivia Game Creates Best Problem For Merck Animal Health

Merck Animal Health booth designed by 3D Exhibits with SocialPoint trivia game

When Merck Animal Health Conference & Event Manager Amy Gregory called her boss just after the start of the 2018 Veterinary Meeting and Expo, and said, “We have a problem,” it made her 3D Exhibits Account Executive George Furman surprised — and at least a little nervous.

But then Gregory told her boss they actually had the best kind of problem: “We need to bring in more staffer talent, because our booth is so swamped, we can’t handle the traffic!”

What made the Merck Animal Health booth so busy and the talk of the show was an award-winning design from 3D Exhibits, and a crowd-stopping trivia game from SocialPoint.

Posted on 27 Jul 2018
By Samuel J. Smith
In Design, Games, Leaderboards, Trade show

5 Ways Show Owners Deliver Value to Sponsoring Exhibitors with a Trade Show Game

It’s no surprise: Many larger B2B companies have also become small trade show owners. These big companies host their own trade shows to provide their partners, vendors, distributors, and end user customers an opportunity to learn best practices, see what’s new, discover what’s available, and to network.

We have recently helped private shows, such as Cisco Live and private events hosted by Allianz, Thermo-Fischer Scientific, and Thomson-Reuters, by setting up trivia games for attendees to play on the show floor. These trade show games provide show owners 5 ways to deliver value to their sponsoring exhibitors:

Posted on 20 Jul 2018
By Samuel J. Smith
In Games, Trade show

How To Choose An Interactive Trivia Game For Your Trade Show Booth

If you are reading this blog post, you are probably considering an interactive trivia game for an upcoming trade show (or a series of trade shows). This post will outline 5 different trivia games we offer and help you select the best one for your booth. Each version is made to better help you achieve your trade show goals of booth traffic, awareness, and engagement.

Interactive Trivia Game Overview

All of our interactive trivia games include game play on iPads and Leaderboards. In addition, you should assume that the branding and game theme will be based on your branding. All games tie into our data and analytics backend to measure player performance, content understanding and measuring learning objectives.

Posted on 13 Jul 2018
By Samuel J. Smith
In Games, Trade show

8 Preventable Trade Show Lead Retrieval Mistakes

It’s unfortunately far too easy to make mistakes with trade show lead retrieval.

That’s because trade show lead retrieval systems and booth staffers are often different from show to show, and because it’s not something you manage every day.

But because trade shows leads are some of the most valuable sales and marketing investments your company makes, it’s so worth your time to prevent making these mistakes.

Here are 8 preventable trade show lead retrieval mistakes we’ve seen our trade show game clients make. We’ve even made some of these mistakes ourselves (fortunately not anymore)!

Posted on 6 Jul 2018
By Samuel J. Smith
In Trade Show Lead Capture

17 Reasons Why You Need A Tradeshow Game

It seems like such a little thing, adding a tradeshow game to your booth. Just an idea you are considering to make your trade shows a little better.

Yet, adding a tradeshow game to your booth can make a surprisingly huge positive impact to your company’s booth traffic, booth staffers’ success, company brand image, lead counts, lead data gathered, sales generated, R.O.I. — and much more.

So if you’ve ever asked yourself, “Why do I need a tradeshow game?”, here are 17 reasons a tradeshow game will make your trade show program vastly better:

Posted on 29 Jun 2018
By Samuel J. Smith
In Games, Trade show