7 Common Mistakes Exhibitors Make With Their In-Booth Activities

7 Common Mistakes Exhibitors Make With Their In-Booth Activities

This blog post originally appeared on the CEIR blog.

As a developer of interactive trade show games, we’ve participated with hundreds of exhibitors as they research, select, and execute their in-booth activities. And while we’ve seen many succeed, along the way we’ve unfortunately seen exhibitors repeatedly make the same 7 avoidable mistakes. I want to share those with you, so you can avoid them:

1. Waited too long to start choosing their in-booth activities

Because trade shows require an astounding amount of details, exhibitors are notoriously overworked and time-starved. As a result, some exhibitors wait until it’s almost show time before looking for an in-booth activity.  By then they are so anxious to have any activity in their booth, they jump on the first passable idea they find.  With better planning, they could have taken the time to brainstorm and select a better in-booth activity.  Even worse? They may have waited so long that they throw up their hands and do nothing.

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Major Exhibitors: 7 Benefits You Get From SocialPoint Interactive Tradeshow Games

Many trade show booth activities require capable booth staffers

Is your company a major exhibitor? You certainly are if you:

  • Exhibit at multiple shows in island booth spaces, with your biggest booth 600 square feet or larger
  • Exhibit at 50 or more shows a year in booths of all sizes, likely some internationally
  • Your management considers trade shows and events the economic engine driving your company’s brand and sales, and invests accordingly
  • You value internal trade show experts and leading vendor partners so that your company does trade shows very well

We are grateful to work with a number of major exhibitors who have expanded their use of our interactive tradeshow games over the years. They tell us they value our company and offerings because they benefit them in these 7 ways:

1. Help achieve their key sales and marketing goals with our interactive tradeshow games:

According to the 2018 CEIR Marketing Spend Decision Report, exhibitors’ top 3 reasons for exhibiting are to generate leads, build awareness, and meet with existing customers:

Top 3 Reasons for Exhibiting at Trade Shows - 2018 CEIR Marketing Spend Decision Report

Our interactive tradeshow games drive more booth traffic that increase all three of these top metrics. Our games are visually customizable to your brand, and represent your brand well. We help major exhibitors succeed at what matters to them most.

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8 Reasons B2B Salespeople Love Our Digital Trade Show Games

Digital trade show games help B2B salespeople

While exhibitors choose our digital trade show games for their marketing impact, the group of employees they really affect the most is your B2B salespeople.

Your salespeople play two major roles on both sides of trade shows. First, salespeople are often the biggest part of your booth staffing team. And second, exhibitors’ main exhibiting goal is to generate leads – which are handed off to their sales team!

Let’s see how our games help salespeople in both these roles:

B2B Salespeople love our digital trade show games as booth staffers because:

1. Get more booth traffic

The top reason exhibitors choose our digital trade show games is to drive more booth traffic.  The increased traffic helps salespeople staffing your booth, because they don’t have to work so hard to pull in attendees.  Remember, even though your salespeople may be excellent on the phone or in meetings may not be good at getting people out of the aisle and into the booth. Your salespeople will be so grateful to avoid having to hook all the attendees in.

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See 31 Trade Show Trivia Game Examples

trade show trivia game examples

We know our Challenge Bar Trivia game sounds pretty darn good to exhibitors looking to stand out:

  • Our fun trade show trivia game drives greater booth traffic, engages attendees with your booth staffers, teaches prospects about your products, and captures lead data.
  • Because our trivia game is built on a platform, we can customize it to your brand and game needs, within a couple of weeks, rather than the months it takes to develop a custom-built digital activity.

But perhaps you need to see more proof that we can deliver.  After all, seeing is believing!

In that spirit, we present to you 31 flavors of our trade show trivia game, to help ease your mind and help demonstrate the proven value we can offer you.

11 Examples of Crowds Drawn In & Engaged Playing A Trade Show Trivia Game

If the main reasons you are considering our trade show trivia game is to drive booth traffic and engage prospects, here are 11 examples of exhibitors drawing in a crowd, and keeping them engaged.  Our trivia game helped them increase lead counts and educated their prospects about their products and services.

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

Solve major trade show givaway problems and get more booth visitors with the SocialPoint Virtual Prize Wheel game

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:

Trade Show Giveaway Problems

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!

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Managing Trade Show Lead Capture with Sales Reps in the Booth

Trade Show Lead Capture - 5 Tips If Your Have Sales People Staffing Your 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.

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Collecting Leads At Trade Shows When There Is No Badge Scanner

Trade show lead taking without a badge scanner - use a trade show trivia game like this

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.

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8 Tips For First Time Trade Show Exhibitors

tips for 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.)

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