Conducting a tradeshow is a highly demanding affair that consumes a lot of your time and money. But if you are not channeling your efforts in the right direction, your time and money will go in waste.
According to Statista, the tradeshow is the most profitable B2B media strategy, and it was responsible for generating $12.8 billion in revenue in the year 2016. To put it simply, it is a serious business, and it can help you spread the word of your business in a short period.
But if you are a rookie business who doesn’t want its efforts and money go in vain, here are some of the mistakes you must avoid in a 10×10 trade show booth:
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1. Not Having a Plan
A tradeshow is a tricky event as you are dealing with an overwhelming number of things. And when you have so many things on the card, proper planning is always a savior. Therefore, it is essential that you have a plan in place before you set out to organize your first tradeshow. To make sure you have the right preparation for the tradeshow, here are some of the questions that need to be answered:
- What goals do you intend to achieve with the tradeshow?
- Who will be your target audience?
- How much are you going to spend on the show?
- What products will you be promoting during the event?
- And how will you attract the leads?
These are some of the crucial questions that you need an answer to set the course of your tradeshow.
2. Poorly Arranged Display
A display creates the right impression for your business. A disorganized display that has too many items or that has an old look will make you come across as a novice business who doesn’t know how things work in an exhibition. The biggest turn-off is the table that keeps people from reaching you.
With a properly organized display, you will not only promote the right type of products to your leads but will also let more people access your booth and have an interaction with you.
3. Not Preparing the Staff
Your staff will be the frontline workforce who will be dealing with the people at the booth. So unless they are trained with the right skills and they have the necessary information at hand, it will be difficult for them to pitch the people who visit the booth.
To avoid losing the future customers and prospective business associates, you need to prepare your staff about the things and people they will dealing at the exhibition. Besides, the team should be knowledgeable about the crucial information about your business and products. This will include the history of your business, significant milestones, features and benefits of the products/services, and the vision of your company.
In this way, your staff will be able to convince people to engage with your brand and make a long-term association with your business.
4. Not Giving Away Promo Products
Who doesn’t want a free product? People love free products, and if you can offer them some giveaways, they will certainly remember you and want to engage with you.
But when you are promoting your business with a promo product, it has to be a strategic move that is in line with the goals of your business. For example, if you are a company who believes in sustainable business, giving away a plastic bottle or leather apparel would be a wrong move as they will contradict the essence of your business message.
Now if you are running an apparel brand, a tee with custom embroidered patches, or a logoed cap will be an excellent giveaway. But if you own a gadget company, a USB flash drive or headphone could be the safe bet. Whatever your business is, make sure that the products relate to your business in some way and come handy in the lives of your target audience.
5. Not Making Use of Social Media
Social media has an incredible number of people who use this platform to interact with businesses. According to a survey by Smart Insights, the total number of social media users are 3.196 billion. Now, this is a lucrative figure for businesses who want to attract international audiences.
By not letting these people know the details of your event, you will miss out an excellent opportunity to penetrate your brand to a large population of people who might turn out to be your future clients, business partners or the business associates.
6. Not Taking Help of Professional Services
Remember that a tradeshow is a corporate affair and it has to fulfill the requirements of a formal business event. To come across as a truly professional business, you have to take help of the professionals who can organize, arrange and decorate your exhibition to make it look like a proper tradeshow booth. There are professional services that you can hire to make the bring the best out of your show.
Need to create a banner with custom patches of your business? Hire an expert printing service? Want to decorate your booth? Get help from a professional event organizer. Remember that the money you put in these affairs are an investment that will go a long way to attract the right people to your booth.
7. Not Conducting Contest and Prize Draw
People who come to tradeshow will not always land at your exhibition. Besides, you don’t want to behave like a pushy salesperson to lure them into buying your products. After all, there is a difference between a proper business and a roadside vendor.
To engage more people into your business, you need to do some exciting stuff that can invite the attention of the leads to the extent that they want to visit your stall. Activities like contests and prize draw serve as lucrative opportunities for the attendees to get free products from your brand and you find an excuse to drum up your business to them.
8. Not Following Up with the Attendees
Remember that the attendees who come to your boost are your prospective buyers and they have to be followed-up to stay engaged with them. A survey by Statista reveals that more than 80 percent of American businesses say that they followed up to 50 percent of leads who visited their booth.
When so many businesses are keeping in touch with their leads after the tradeshow, you have to make the extra effort to reach out to the prospective customers after the show is over to keep yourself alive in the memory of your leads.
9. Hiring Temporary Workers for the Tradeshow
Some businesses take services of the contingent workforce to represent the company in a tradeshow. This is a grave mistake as no one can understand a company better than its existing employees. Therefore, it is important that you hire the best of your workers to speak on your behalf at a tradeshow and sell the message of your company to the people.
A good idea is to train the staff in the sales department as they know exactly about the features of your products and they can pitch them to prospective customers like a true professional.
A tradeshow is a useful investment for a business. It can help you get the attention of the primary and secondary market of your industry. But you can make it a success only when you avoid these crucial mistakes.