In our third series of trade show checklists, we are jumping into the actual day of your event. We have covered everything you’ll need to know and do three-six months prior to the event, as well as one month before your event.
Now let’s discuss what needs to be on your trade show checklist for the day of the event!
The Day Has Arrived!
You have prepped and planned for months now, here’s where you see if your prepping has paid off!
Pick-up Lines - These are just as important as your landing pages, so spend time testing your attention grabbers. The goal is to make people want to stop, so how do you do that? By laughing? Asking, “tell me more?” by the 234525 person you’ll have figured out exactly what grabs people’s attention. Use it!
Questions Rather Than Pitching - When the entire room is “pitching” to anyone who bats an eye, your approach needs to be different. Conversations are a great start. It attracts genuinely interested individuals and opens up a chatting opportunity.
“How Are You Doing?” - This line is generic and washed-up. Your opening line should be engaging. Steer clear of “Hello, how’s it going?” as well. Get to your point and ask them specifically, example: “Are you interest in ____?” Simple and still pretty weak, but you get the idea.
Refrain from Sitting - Being on your feet for long periods of time make it hard to fight the sitting urge, but don’t give in. Sitting comes across negative to your prospects, almost like you don’t want to be there. Psychologically, the head-height differential is off-putting as well. I know your feet hurt, but stand anyway. :)
Demo Upon Request - A live demo has very successful sticking rates! Demos given on a projector are the way to go as it visually stimulates the person as well as hooking those passer-byers in the process. A large monitor will work too, but we mean large.. not a computer screen.
Take Notes - You will speak to hundreds of people. I don’t care how awesome you are, you’ll never remember what guy in lime green shirt said, or the woman in leopard pants wanted. Writing it down on their business card is ideal, but just getting their info written down period will be most helpful. *insert box o’ stuff * See, that box is already coming in handy!
Co-Dependency with the Internet - We all know that trade show internet is spotty at best. Make sure your demos and note-taking can be done without it, just in case.
Raffle Something.. anything - Raffles are not really my thing, but, they do get sales and because everyone loves free anything it draws a crowd and psychologically, if there is a growing crowd around your booth it entices others to see what all the fuss is about! Don’t forget to get contact info to enter! You can use fill form, scan badge, or drop business card to help with that.
Less Paper - Attendees will be loaded with paper-pushing everything. No matter how witting or clever your brochures are it will get dumped. Instead, try scanning their badge or asking for their business card and mail them something. Like magic, it will hit their desk, minus the trade show distraction. Winning!
Quality not Quantity - It may one of the biggest clichés known, but it’s imperative nonetheless. It is far better to have solid conversations with people who will actually buy your products than to give away hundreds of swag to those who won’t remember your name.
Successful Indeed!
With a trade show checklist like this how can your event NOT be a success?! Stay tuned for our last and quite possibly most important wrap up in our trade show checklist series!
~Tony Johnson