100 Trade Show Lead Generation Ideas
May 01, 2010 | Mike Thimmesch

For most exhibitors, lead generation is their #1 reason for exhibiting at trade shows. Exhibit marketers want leads to replenish their sales pipeline, bring in new and repeat customers, and generate sales revenue.

So to help stoke the lead generation fires, here are 100 ideas to get you more leads at your upcoming trade shows, divvied up among 5 main areas:

Get more trade show leads by how you select shows

Go to more trade shows outside your local region
Go to more trade shows, in your best vertical markets
Go to more trade shows, in foreign countries
Go to fewer trade shows, but put more effort into booth staff preparation and promotions for each remaining show
Exhibit at trade shows where your buyers are
Track leads to determine and expand in the shows with the best ROI
Evolve show selection to match changes in company’s best vertical markets
Get more trade show leads with your exhibit design

Get a bigger booth
Get a booth space closer to the hub of traffic, or by a bigger competitor
Get a corner booth space
Backlight your trade show display graphics
Design your exhibit to more boldly and clearly say why attendees will benefit from working with you
Put fewer elements on your exhibit, but make the remaining images and messages bigger and more concise
Use graphics with images and benefits that appeal more directly to attendees at your vertical market shows
Put benefit statements on your trade show exhibit graphics
Replace your tired old display with a new trade show exhibit
Make your exhibit architecture more inviting to enter
Pick more exciting colors on your exhibit
Bring fewer products, such as only your most popular products, to minimize clutter
Get a taller exhibit
Add more lighting
Put messages on your flooring
Avoid an exhibit that looks like everyone else
Keep your booth neat and clean throughout the show
Move interesting equipment and technology to the outside of the booth
Use a theme that gets attention and memorably ties into your competitive advantage or offering
Match your exhibit message to your other marketing materials
Get more trade show leads with pre-show promotions

Send an inexpensive postcard offering a free gift in your trade show booth
Run a banner ad on the show website
Send a pre-show email blast to your clients and top prospects located close to the show location
Put stickers with booth location and show info on all outgoing mail
Email invitation to a pre-show microsite with targeted messages and offers
Have your sales people invite their prospects to visit your booth and set up meetings in advance
Send an email invitation to the show’s pre-registered attendee list for this year, and the registered attendee list from last year
Use social media to reach more attendees
Send half of something of value to attendees before the show, and promise to give the other half in your booth
Contact your industry press and tell them about the innovative new product you will be introducing at the show
Put your booth number on all your pre-show promotions: email, mail, ads, website
Design more creative and compelling pre-show promotions to cut through the mailbox clutter
Invite top prospects to lunch or dinner at the show
Send a pre-show promotion offering a more valuable gift in the booth, but not to the entire list, but only to the subset of show attendees that match your target audience
Send free tickets to the trade show to clients and best prospects
Post your trade show schedule on your website with a link to sign up for appointments
Ask the show for additional promotional opportunities
Get more trade show leads with at-show promotions and activities

Introduce a new product at the trade show
Add motion to your exhibit
Offer food, especially if it smells good, like baking cookies
Offer drinks to your booth visitors
Give your attendees something entertaining and fun to do
Do an engaging demo in your booth
Get your client to hold your product
Go beyond sight to appeal to attendees’ sense of smell, sound, taste, and touch
Add interactivity
Run presentations or video loops on large video monitors
Offer healthy food, not just candy
Put out a candy or chocolate dish to slow down attendees long enough to engage them
Offer in-booth massages
Give a free sample of your product
Give a free sample of a product made with your product
Hire a celebrity for your booth, where the celebrity is popular with your target audience at the show
Hire a celebrity lookalike for your booth, where the celebrity is popular with your target audience at the show
Giveaway something useful to your target audience
Hire a performer, such as a magician, to attract attention to your booth
Have a raffle, sweepstakes, money machine or a game
Hold a press conference if you have newsworthy news
Sponsor something highly visible at the show
Have a contest for attendees in your booth
Get signage in the show hall promoting your booth presence
Offer a show special or discount
Get someone from your company to be a speaker at the show
Give presentations or educational sessions in your booth
Do door drops that target only show attendees at their hotel rooms
Pay to include an invite or a gift in the official show bag each attendee gets
Put an ad in the show book
Brand your staffers with outfits or similar attire
Offer one really big prize (worth thousands of dollars) to get more attention
Get more trade show leads with better booth staffing

Bring more booth staffers
Bring booth staffers who actually want to be there
Hold a contest to reward the staffers who take the highest quantity of qualified leads
Leave your wallflowers at home
Train your booth staff how to work a trade show booth
Communicate to your staff the company’s goals and your expectations of them in the booth
Don’t use booth staffing as a training ground for brand-new employees
Ask visitors open-ended questions and listen to their answers
Get faster at recording each lead by not writing down every visitor’s name and address, but instead using a badge scanner
Have enough badge scanners to avoid lines with your booth staffers in busy times
Bring crowd gatherers (not booth babes)
Smile
Keep your booth staffers fresh by giving them regular breaks
Learn to more quickly disengage with unqualified attendees
Thoroughly train your booth staffers on the new products you are introducing at the show or just introduced recently
Make friends with your neighboring exhibitors, and refer attendees back and forth
Bring your top management to booth staff, and tell attendees they will be there
Get staffers out of the bowels of your booth and out to the edge of the aisle
Don’t sit down in your booth, unless you are talking with visitors
Don’t hide behind tables
Instead of giving away literature, offer to mail it to attendees, and get their contact info
Prepare your booth staffers with several good engaging questions
Arm your booth staffers with answers to common objections
Train your booth staffers to know your products and how they solve your clients’ problems
Which of these 100 ideas will you choose? Perhaps you are already doing several yourselves. Some can be combined to be used simultaneously. It’s a long list, and there’s no way anyone can do all 100. Some of them even contradict each other.

Yet as Bob Milam advises, while knowing a lot of tactics is useful, knowing which tactics to use and when to use them is even more useful. Determine your strategy first, then choose among these trade show tactics the most appropriate ones to support your strategy and generate more leads.

Also, while I’ve listed many tactics to get more leads, of course you need to also strive for getting higher quality leads. And if you can do both, go to the head of the class.

While 100 is a big list, it’s certainly not everything. Please share your own tips for generating more leads at trade shows in the comment box below.

Madison's Wish 3rd Annual Charity Golf Tournament

Hello All,

I am reaching out to invite you to our 3rd Annual Madison’s Wish Charity Golf Tournament. Thank you so much for the support of last year’s golf tournament. We look forward to another outstanding event this year.
The tournament location is Jacaranda Golf Club in Plantation, FL.

Here is the link fo rthe reg form: http://www.madisonswish.com/images/stories/MadisonsWish_golfreg_flyer2010_2.pdf
This is going to be one exciting tournament and we have some great items to win.

All the proceeds will go to help Madison fight heir battle with SMA and FSMA which will help other Families of SMA.
Madison was diagnosed with this life threatening disease just prior to her first birthday. Thanks to all the love and support, Madison is now 3 years old ad making great strides in her development.

To read her whole story please goes to www.madisonswish.com and click on the attached link that has her Channel 10 news story.

Click these links to view photos of last year’s event:

http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/detail.sfly?sid=8AcsXLJi1Yt3ew&imageIndex=0&fid=255b4af775bf1102

http://www3.snapfish.com/shareereg/p=838221243024809200/l=837471006/g=15668853/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB/pns/share/p=838221243024809200/l=837471006/g=15668853/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

Madison is not only a special little girl but she is also my niece.
Thank you all and I look forward to see you all on June 5th.
Sincerely,
Rich Curran

2009: As Bad as It Gets for Exhibition Industry

Mar 24, 2010 2:23 PM, By Dave Kovaleski

The worst year for the exhibition industry in recent history—2009—ended with an overall decline of 12.5 percent, representing declines in attendance, number of exhibiting companies, net square footage of exhibit space booked, and revenues, according to the CEIR Index, published by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research.

The decline of 12.5 percent is four times greater than the previous worst year ever, 2008, when the industry fell 3 percent.

There was no avoiding the negative effects of the recession as all 11 sectors that CEIR tracks experienced overall declines last year. "The length, depth, and reach of this recession made resistance impossible," said Douglas Ducate, president and chief executive officer at CEIR, in a press release.

In the fourth quarter the industry dropped 9 percent compared to the same period the previous year, marking the seventh straight quarter that the index has shown an overall decline. The decline was not as steep as the third quarter, when the index fell 13.5 percent on a year-over-year basis.

Looking at the four metrics that the CEIR Index tracks, professional attendance performed the best, declining 4 percent in the fourth quarter. The number of exhibiting companies dropped 6 percent, while net square footage of exhibit space declined 12 percent, and revenues fell 13 percent. All four metrics were an improvement over the first three quarters, but were still down 15 to 30 percent from 2007 highs.

CEIR officials say the outlook for 2010 is much better. Anecdotal information from events held in January and February is encouraging, indicating that the recovery is under way. However, since the exhibition industry is a trailing indicator, it will take a robust economy before the industry experiences sustained growth.

The complete 2009 CEIR Indexwill be released at the Society of Independent Show Organizers CEO Conference, April 11-14, in Austin, Texas. For more information on the CEIR Index, go to www.ceir.org.

Related links

Exhibition Industry Declines 3.1 Percent in 2008

CEIR Index Falls in Third Quarter


Exhibition Industry: Bottom Hit?