There are many different types of things that you can do to attract a visitor’s attention. Prize wheels are a great way to get people interested in your products. Everyone likes a chance to win free gifts or prizes. Visitors will want to take a chance to spin the wheel and win something for free. You can use samples of your products or promotional gifts as prizes.

There are many different marketing activities that can be used during a trad eshow, including hands on activities, live entertainment, and product demonstrations. Product demonstrations are an ideal way to attract visitors to your area.

Not only does it allow people to see what your product does, it also reaches a larger audience. Instead of talking one on one with a person you can demonstrate to many people at the same time. This is a very cost effective way to get your message across to a lot of people at the same time.

Another ideal way to attract visitors is to have a prize giveaway or contest. This type of promotional marketing will benefit your company in more ways than one. The prize giveaway itself will draw visitors to your trade show exhibit. The visitor then fills out a form with their contact information for the prize drawing. The contact information can then be used later on to follow leads or to send more marketing material to the visitor.

Trade show exhibits are a great way to get your brand recognized and to attract new customers.

There isn’t one particular item or thing that will guarantee a successful trade show. It is a combination of things that will give you the advantage over others who did not plan ahead. The first thing is to check out the trade show you are interested in attending and making sure it is one that your target market would attend.

You don’t have to have a big flashy display to attract potential customers. You will want to have a display that depicts your products and services in an attractive and professional manner. You also want to make sure that you have plenty of marketing materials to take to the trade show. To get the most out of the trade show you should send out mailings and fliers to customers and vendors before the show inviting them to come see you there. You should also make sure you promote the trade show on your website.

You can use promotional gifts or giveaways to attract people to your exhibit. You can also use drawings or prizes to lure in potential customers. One of the main keys to a successful show is to have informed and professional looking staff on the floor in your exhibit. You want people who are friendly and knowledgeable about your products to be able to close the deal. After the show is over you want to make sure you are following up on leads as soon as possible while the person is still interested.

As you can see there are many things that have to be done to help you have a successful trade show exhibit.

This means that understanding your buyer is crucial. If you know what your target audience needs, wants and expects; then it is easier for you to be prepare and ready to meet their needs. When you offer special incentives or a discount this will make your prospects even more willing to do business with you.

When you offer special show promotions or deals make sure they are user friendly. A buyer might be willing to pay more to avoid having to do extra work to get the savings. If you make a buyer have to fill out a questionnaire, or go to your website and enter a promotional code they might consider going elsewhere instead of spending extra time.

Another thing that is important to remember is reach out to your clients before the trade show through email and direct mail marketing. That way it will give them incentive to come visit you at the show for special deals. Also remember to keep it simple when promoting discounts. People want to know exactly what the final price will be; they don’t want to spend time doing the math.

You can give your trade show personnel printed sheets that they can use to highlight appropriate discounted prices and write in the total savings. Also make sure that your staff reminds the person of the deadline for the discount prices to give them a push to buy your product quickly before time runs out on the promotion.

All of the things mentioned above will help you to have a more successful trade show and will help to turn prospects into buyers.

The first group is the people who came to buy and are ready to order. These are the type of people you want to spend quality time with. The second group is people who are interested but need more information. By knowing this type you can give them the information they are looking for instead of just handing them some marketing material, hoping they will look at it.

The last group is the not qualified or not interested people. If they seem like they don’t need or want your product, you should move on to other prospects. You shouldn’t spend needless time trying to convince them, just be polite and move on.

Now that you are aware of the different groups of people it is important to draw the first two groups into your booth. Your display should be the key factor to getting the right people into your booth. You want signs and displays to clearly and effectively tell what your company is all about. So people walk into your trade show booth knowing what it is you are selling. It is a waste of time to stand in the aisle dragging people in that are not really interested.

Besides having an appealing signs and displays, product presentations can draw in large crowds. During your presentations sprinkle in trivia about your industry to make people interested in what you do. By the end of your presentation you should be able to tell who genuine prospects are and the people who are not. Keeping the above information in mind will help you to offer your products to people who want to know more about your product and not waste time with the others.

This will never happen – you may have a ton of attendees clamoring to get to your booth but it is not as a result of the trade show advertising and marketing – it is because you have done your promotional and marketing work yourself!

Many companies just do not get it when it comes to promoting themselves but it is basic and essential – just to ram the point home, here are some media resources you can use to get your name and trade show attendance broadcast to the world.

Email and Mailshot Your Clients and Prospects and the Trade Shpow Attendee Listing

The first step you can take is to mail everyone you are doing business with that you are exhibiting at the trade show.  This includes your customers, prospects and suppliers (don’t forget them either) but you can also request from the trade show management for the attendee list and the other exhibitors too – contact them.

Email or snail mail it’s your choice but email is fast and cheap plus it lends itself to some of the other things we are going to cover here when you are promoting yourself at any trade show.

Press Release

The idea of a press release being issued for many businesses is usually greeted with a smile and a shaking of the head.

Forget that attitude – your business is exhibiting at a trade show – that is NEWS!

If you don’t think it’s a big deal don’t bother exhibiting because you attending a trade show is big news and how you get that out is using a press release.

They are short but not so simple documents to prepare so you may need some help from a professional but don’t expect to pay much for the work – $100-$200 will easily cover it.  The press release will get your “news” out to the media at large and you should fax it straight to your local press (and your Chamber of Commerce can help with contacts too).

Social Media

Social media means the web and the Web 2.0 sites – not sure what these are?  You’re going to learn fast!

These sites are free and should form part of a consistent and regular exercise as part of your promotional activities:

Twitter – announce what you are doing to the world as it happens

LinkedIn – the professionals online social networking site and an excellent professional resource

Zimbio – write articles and features on your business and publish them for the world to see

eZine Articles – another article site with millions of eyeballs using it but you may need a professional to help

PRLeap – submit your press releases here and gain access to every major media outlet in the world

Do you really want to know what the best way is to get attendees to loiter around your booth – a BOOTH BABE!

Obviously it doesn’t work so well with female attendees, but then sometimes it does, but a class 1 method of grabbing attendee attention is a hot looking woman wearing very little:

Sex does not sell!

What sells is conversation leading to an agreeable deal and signatures on paper with a check in the mail.

That said, sex starts a lot of the conversations leading to a deal so who’s splitting hairs – perhaps it’s time for another babe pic

Before the femi-nazis start mailing in with demands for my head on a stick think about this – the Booth babes I come across and have hired are smart cookies – they know what they are there for and they are great at working the crowd and guests.  A good looking booth babe maybe what you are thinking when you hire them but in truth, sacrifice some of the looks for those that can hold a good conversation and are prepared to learn about your business so they can relate this to stunned attendees standing with a jaw on the floow and staring at some cleavage.

What the heck – here’s another babe pic and if you want more, check out Booth Babes – enjoy!

I had a turbulent time in Las Vegas with PMA 2009, the world’s premier consumer electronics show and enjoyed the atmosphere and vacation style-whirlwind while picking up a ton of contacts and potential customers to follow up.

PMA 2009 was not as heavily attended as previous years and it was also notable that many of the digital camera launches I normally associate with PMA were not present – for those who don’t know, I’m involved in the digital camera and consumer electronics market – but there are other reasons aside from cost-cutting exercises amongst exhibitors at work here.

First off, PMA is not having it’s crown remain in place unchallenged – PMA management and the event face very strong competition from overseas particularly the Far East and in the summer there will be a huge trade show in Australia closely followed by another in South Korea which reflects the dominance of the Far East in generating new electronics for the mass market.

Given most of the product launches normally associated with PMA are going to be bought in the Asian-Pacific market it makes sense that is where they get launched, not to mention it is also where most of these products are now made.

Still, there I was for a few days performing my stint and after the end of the show we had the final round up as the calls out to prospects and contacts has been concluded and we are up on our Like-for-Like numbers from the show last year – well before the recession actually struck.

Our increased success this year is due in part to a recovery starting to bud but also, we are gathering new business that has been left untended by our competitors who have withdrawn or restricted their activities in the market.

Only time will tell whether we are actually in recovery (certainly there are other positive indicators such as new home sales showing positive numbers) but at the same time, it is clear we are in an excellent position to take advantage of business that simply has nowhere to go to because so many of our competitors have done the swrong thing to begin with – cut back everything without thinking of the impact.

Prices have been dropping like the proverbial rock and not just for trade show space but the whole kit and support  that goes into getting my teams from A to B with sales orders along the way.

The “Beast” is what my sales manager has nick named the new display unit we squeezed out of the budgeting exercise we had ticked off and agreed late last year – originally we were not going for new, our second team was getting the older units from the lead team.

The I had some sales information waved at me by Dennis; for some reason he’s gone all pastel and ambient lighting on me and seemed to be developing an unhealthy obsession with an alumalite hybrid display from one of our main suppliers, Exhibit Deal.

The bottom line is I cracked and we ordered a 10′ x 20′ trade show display which looks like Dennis is going to be taking his next date to – all subdued lighting with a clean, crisp finish – we had the display up today and I have to admit it does look pretty sexy.

I’m not someone who gets his head turned by a pretty face though and what really did make me change my mind was the price tag: we closed on this unit for less than $25,000 and I am being made to eat some harsh words.

The point to drive home here is that now is the time to look at what you need with regards to capital investment in your exhibition kit – you are simply not going to get a cheaper deal on any aspect of your exhibition strategy than at this time!

The trade press is awash with news on dropping trade venue numbers and there are also some heavy weights moving around as they seek to position themselves both for the recession and the recovery.

I have a meeting tomorrow with my marketing team and we are finalizing the 2009 bookings and filling up the odd gaps and opportunities in the calendar and we are all amazed at the dropping prices.

NOW is definitely a great time to grab bookings at prices which are a fraction of what we paid last year – so intent are we that the proposed second event team have gone from a substitute, “fill some of the gaps in the schedule” outfit to a fully funded profit center in their own right.

It is not just the venues that are offering excellent deals – and they are really offering excellent value now – but also the ancillary suppliers.  We initially planned on using the older trade show display material and collateral for the second team but after looking at the offers and discounts being touted by all of our existing suppliers and new ones banging on the door we decided to go through a formal budgeting and quotation process to outfit the new guys.

I haven’t been directly involved but have had the numbers and summaries emailed through to me and the numbers do look outstanding – we are equipping our second event team for less than 30% of the cost of our primary event team who we refitted completely this time last year!

The big issue is what is going to happen to the attendee numbers at trade shows – I expect there will be some decline but I also am not going to be surprised if there is not either – in any event I do not anticipate any decline on the scale of the retrenching currently being demonstrated by the venues and suppliers which is good news for us.

2008 is winding down as we head for 2009 but there are still some things you can do in the interim between Christmas Day and the New Year Eve hangover, sorry, festivities

The quiet time between these two holidays are an ideal time to take stock of what has happened in 2008 and complete your plans for 2009.  The phones generally do not ring and sales targets for the year had better already have been met and exceeded as it is unlikely you are going to close that million dollar deal in the last week of the year!

By now, you will realize that trade show displays do work – by this I mean; “They make you money!”

Between now and the New Year when you get back into work mode, review your plans for the forthcoming year; tweak your targets and look very carefully at how you are going to achieve them.

In a time of recession, businesses run to what they know best and start cutting back on sales and marketing efforts.  This leaves huge chunks of market share that is not being serviced by your competitors; as some businesses are withdrawing from exhibitions this means there is greater opportunity for you to step in and take the slot, except you are in a position to reduce the costs as event managers scramble to maintain their own revenues and market share.

The key issue to take away with you is that billions of dollars in sales and profits are still there to be made for those who are enterprising, hard working and prepared to go the distance required to win customers over.

Customers won in a recession tend to be loyal and profitable, and one thing that is always true of recessions is that they end – another “R” word comes into play here – it is called RECOVERY!