by Kahle Williams

I’m sure you’ve heard it before…

“We didn’t get enough booth traffic.” 

“The leads we got weren’t the right companies.”

“We didn’t close enough deals.”

A fair question is: did they take advantage of the sales and marketing opportunities available to them as an exhibitor?

In this blog, we take a deep dive into how to attract exhibitors to your event via sales and marketing opportunities that you may not have thought of to help your exhibitors get more of the right buyers in their booth, develop higher-quality sales leads, and streamline a follow up… so they have the best opportunity to close more deals and get a return on their investment. 

Magnet attracting paper doll images, illustrating the magnetic pull of effective strategies for exhibitor attraction

Pre-Show Promotion

    1. The list marketing tools you provide should give your exhibitors access to the right types of buyers. Exhibitors need the ability to target — and market to — pre-registrants categorized by criteria such as product interest, geographic location, and buying authority. 
    2. Sponsorship opportunities you should consider adding to your offering: banner ads on the attendee registration website, dashboard, and confirmation. Ads can be varied based on registrant type. These are some of the best ways for exhibitors to drive both website and booth traffic.

Onsite Promotion

  1. Name badge ads are extremely effective advertising vehicles. And with on-demand printing, the ads can be highly targeted. Ads can be served dynamically based on buyer type, meaning buyers who are looking for hammers, for example, will only see an ad from a company selling hammers. The number of sponsorships you can sell here is virtually limitless.
  2. Digital content distribution applications give your attendees the ability to scan QR codes on exhibitors signage around the convention hall. What’s novel is that QR code scanning can automatically trigger an email to the attendee with the exhibitor’s content. Exhibitors can also get a list of the attendees who scanned their QR code, giving them more sales opportunities. It’s exposure, content distribution, and lead generation all in one solution. 
  3. A New Product Showcase gives exhibitors an excellent way to show off their new product while at the same time creating a fun experience for attendees. Allow attendees to cast their vote for the best products and then share the results with the respective exhibitors. This can be administered with QR code signage and a barcode scanner. Give exhibitors the contact details of the attendees who voted for their product to again give them more sales opportunities. 

Onsite Sales Tools: Lead Capture

  1. Electronic lead capture products are the modern form of capturing business cards, but offer 10x the value. Be sure your lead capture provider has a complete arsenal of products and services to address the needs of your entire audience: Smartphone app, Tablet rental, Kiosk rental, and API rental.
  2. Sales lead information (which is provided to the exhibitor when they scan a badge with lead capture) should also include the attendee demographic details, such as product of interest, budget, and buying authority, that are captured during the registration process. This information is invaluable when following up on leads. 
  3. Leads that are qualified are significantly more likely to close according to Industry studies. Make sure your lead capture products put a premium on lead qualification. Exhibitors need to be able to qualify leads extensively with their own custom action codes (ie, hot lead) or survey questions. Some marketing teams won’t even load a lead into their CRM if it’s not qualified. 
  4. CRM systems are used by a massive amount of companies these days. Lead capture products should integrate with exhibitors CRMs, allowing sales lead data to flow between the two systems in real time. This allows the exhibitors marketing team to begin the lead analysis, targeting, and follow up process immediately.
  5. Most exhibitors follow up on their sales leads via email, but the problem is not fast enough, according to industry studies. An email follow up function should be built into the lead capture app so exhibitors can follow up immediately after they have a conversation with the buyer. It’s a known fact that buyers are more likely to purchase from the vendor who makes contact with them first. 

In Conclusion

We know you can’t force your exhibitors to take advantage of your sales and marketing opportunities, but you can continue building out your offering to make it as enticing as possible. We hope you found these tips and techniques useful and are able to put some of them into practice for your next event. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at marketing@csireg.com.

Check out our related blog posts

What is Lead Capture, and How Can it Benefit Trade Show Exhibitors?

What Lead Retrieval Will Look Like Post-Pandemic

Triple Play

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