Gathering Tradeshow Traffic
There are a lot of elements that go into a successful trade show. There is having a good trade show display, buying exhibit booth space, having plenty of promotional materials, traveling to and from the event, etc. Considering that all of those factors (and more) are all links in a chain. So, it is easy to forget any one factor. However, there is one link in the chain that many exhibitors seem to forget and that is traffic.
Getting targeted traffic to one's booth is vital, that is the whole purpose of exhibiting at a show. Yet, not many exhibitors pre-plan a traffic strategy. Many leave it to chance that exhibit hall passerby's will stop at one's booth. Without a good plan passerbies will only give a cursory glance at a booth, the marketing material, and the display. They may actually stop and engage for a freebie promotional product. What one truly wants is an engaged, targeted visitor, making that happen takes planning.
To target high-value visitors and encourage them to visit a booth, they need to know that one's business will be exhibiting. Some shows will provide a list of attendees before the show, if this is so, make sure to utilize the list with a mailing. If this attendee's list is not available before the show then use contacts gathered from the previous year. It is very likely that previous year attendees will attend the show again. This gives one more contact with prospects, reinforcing a business brand. A premium item could be offered for those who have been contacted before the show and visit a booth. If this tactic is used be sure to hide the premiums, so mere passerby's will not be inquiring about the premium items.
With some shows the whole idea is to just be in front of foot traffic. There's really no option to pre-contact attendees. In this case it's almost better to think of a booth as a sideshow. A reason is needed to give attendees to stop and visit a booth. This takes staff that are extroverted. Speaking to people as they pass by and drawing them in is not easy for everybody. It may be worthwhile to hire greeters to draw people in to speak to the less extroverted staff.
In this scenario there are a couple of options to draw traffic. First, get outside of the booth and into the traffic. A temp could even be hired to hand out flyers or a performing artist to draw a crowd and redirect the crowd to a booth. Another trade show idea is to take that performing artist concept and give people a reason to stop at the booth. A demo or demonstration, frequent must be present drawings, a carnival style contest are all ideas that could be used to draw a crowd.
Ultimately, good trade show traffic comes from pre-planning and work. It does not come by merely showing up.
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Coming up is Trade Show season and lots of money goes into designing a trade show booth and the marketing material that is distributed with it; often it isn't as successful as it could be. Read my article, "Maximize Attending a Trade Show for You and Your Business"; it will give you some tips to go along with these.
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