5 Trade Show Engagement Tips
Here are 5 valuable trade show engagement tips to help you make a lasting impression at your next trade show.
Trade shows are a great way to gain exposure and meet prospective clients. However, real trade show engagement with qualified prospects can seem impossible at times. Let’s just say it’s easy to get lost in the mix in a busy trade show environment.
To make your trade show investment worthwhile, try building a strategy that enables sales reps to have meaningful conversations with distracted prospects who are moving quickly from booth to booth. Here are 5 helpful trade show engagement tips to help you make a strong, lasting impression on your prospects.
1. Shift the Focus to Attendees
According to Statista, roughly “82% of trade show visitors are directly involved in making purchase decisions, and trade show attendees have stated these events have a considerable impact on their purchase decision.”
And yet we’ve all been to trade shows where sales reps do all the talking and seem desperate to make a sale. Prospective clients who are hoping to learn about products and services or looking to make key purchase decisions may recoil from one-size-fits-all sales pitches.
Real trade show engagement with these high-value prospects involves give-and-take conversations – a two-way dialogue. What problems do your prospects often face? What features and benefits are they seeking from products and services like the ones you offer? What do your prospects routinely want to know?
Ask prospects about their companies, their roles, their priorities, and their current challenges. Then deliver a short, conversational elevator speech that answers common questions and clarifies your value proposition. Also lead Q&A sessions and demos that focus on their specific wants and needs.
The attendees who stick around to hear what you have to say and ask additional questions are feeling connected to your message. They’re probably your target demo.
2. Tell Powerful Stories
Prospects often respond well to relevant case studies and stories that align with their wants and needs. Use storytelling to hold up a mirror that enables prospects to see how others handled similar challenges to the ones they’re facing. Then show how your product or service helped solve those challenges.
3. Don’t Play Favorites
When sales reps focus their attention solely on one attendee, they’re telling everyone else they’re not important and damaging the company’s brand. Along those lines, some of the people sales reps are inadvertently ignoring may be your next best customers. Inclusivity wins the day. Good hosts look after all their guests.
4. Have a Clear Next Step
When the conversation is over, know exactly what you want attendees to do and give them clear next steps. For example, direct them to another demo, schedule on onsite demo, ask them if they want to sign up for a trial, set up a future appointment, or add their names to a mailing list.
5. Find the Right Trade Show Partner
The AV system is one of the most critical elements of most trade show booths. Your trade show booth can blend in with the pack, or it can stand out and draw the attention of the prospects you’d like to engage. Be sure to work with a reliable AV production partner that knows your trade show and can help shine a spotlight on your booth and position your sales reps for success.
Trade Show Engagement Tips in a Nutshell
Use audio and video to capture attention. Listen instead of monopolizing conversations. Lead demos that offer targeted solutions to the problems your prospects face.
Strong trade show engagement is possible if you plan your trade show experience with intention. With proactive planning, you can help qualified prospects understand the value of your products or services and make their trade show experience unforgettable.
Why Total Show Technology?
TST is the total show production solution for anyone who hosts, plans, manages, or produces events, meetings, and trade shows. We own the Pacific Southwest market and travel with our clients all across the country. Our clients have relied on us to deliver audio, video, lighting, equipment rental, and show production for conventions, corporate meetings and events, and trade shows since 1996.
Whether you’re looking for audio visual support or advanced event technologies that enable you to deliver your message effectively, we help your shows go off without a hitch and always make you look good. In an industry where almost anything can go wrong, we make sure everything goes right.
Let’s have a conversation! Call us at 702-897-8508, email us at [email protected], or visit www.totalshowtech.com/contact.
