trade show marketing
Samuel J. Smith
September 14, 2019
Because B2B marketers spend around 40% of their budgets on trade shows, exhibitors really want to know how to do shows well. And so, countless blog posts offer their advice on the key things you need to succeed at trade shows.
We’ve published our own version of that idea here, and we probably will again in the future. There have even been entire books telling you the same ideas, but in far greater detail.
Recurring tips on how to succeed at trade shows include:
These are all excellent tips, and you need to meet all these steps to succeed at trade shows.
Savvy exhibitors know that exhibiting at vertical market shows can be the best strategy for improving trade show results.
These smart exhibitors understand which industries their most valuable customers come from – and then exhibit at shows were those valuable customers attend.
For example, if you sell a software product for professional services firms, you may exhibit at a big software trade show. But once you know that ad agencies and engineering firms buy three times more than your average client, you can instead exhibit at shows where ad agency employees or engineers attend.
Stacey Rosenberg, Marketing Specialist at Aurora Diagnostics, wanted an interactive trivia game as part of their large booth at the American Academy of Dermatologists (AAD) show for three main reasons:
Aurora Diagnostics first used SocialPoint’s Challenge Bar Trivia Game at AAD 2018, with excellent results: “Wow! Quite the turnout!” affirmed Rosenberg. “About 30% of our booth visitors played the game.”
“I was happy to get 332 additional leads at the show. The game was actually an easier way to collect leads than asking everyone to scan badges, which some people are put off by.”
One of top three trade show goals for B2B marketers is to strengthen key relationships. And no relationship is more valuable than their relationship with existing customers.
Yet, most exhibitors put greater effort into generating as many badge scans as possible, rather than creating a pro-active plan to take full advantage of their rare face-to-face time with multiple clients.
That’s a lost opportunity to boost sales and profits. You may be acquainted with some of the eye-popping economic stats that support focusing on retaining your customers:
There is surprising versatility in achieving different business goals with our Challenge Bar Trivia game. It all comes down into what your goals are, and writing your trivia questions to meet your specific goal.
For all our clients, our trivia game brings in more booth traffic and engages visitors. That’s reason enough for most clients to value it.
However, some of our clients have also realized 3 other major strategic business goals. They purposely sought those results by how they choose to write and set up their trivia questions:
Interactive trade show games do a great job of driving more traffic to your booth. But they can also keep that larger crowd of attendees in your booth longer, too.
Here’s how two of our interactive trade show games increase attendee dwell time:
When your booth visitors play the “three strikes and you’re out” version of our Challenge Bar Trivia game, it can take up to 10 or more minutes as they answer up to 25 questions. That fun experience keeps them in your booth for an extended period. And as they answer questions, they learn about your products and services, plus get to know your booth staffers who helpfully give them hints on quiz questions. They also can stay a longer time when they play the Game Show version of our trivia game.
Maybe you exhibit at trade shows to boost awareness. Or maybe your goal is to generate new leads.
But if your B2B company has been around for years, or you have considerable market share, your trade show goal may be all about maintaining and expanding your sales with your existing customers.
And while our Challenge Bar Trivia game can help you boost awareness and generate leads, it’s particularly adept at helping you cross-sell to customers you already have.
Here are three sad realities about generating repeat sales at trade shows:
Over the past few years, our company has increasingly partnered with leading Exhibit Houses to create interactive trade show game activations for their exhibiting clients. We have been impressed by the commitment, care, and expertise they bring to their clients’ trade show marketing.
We also wanted to uncover their vast experience creating effective trade show marketing campaigns, especially with technology. So we asked them to share with a survey. Survey respondents were all either Exhibit House Account Executives or senior management, all with client-facing responsibilities.