Effective, Interactive and Engaging Trade Show Booth Activities
As most trade show booth staffers well know, getting enough face time to qualify every prospect who steps into your booth can be a race against the clock. If not given immediate attention, booth visitors lose interest and are quickly lured away by the next exhibit. In today’s blog, we’ll explore booth activities that prospects simply won’t want to walk away from.
INTERACTIVE TRADE SHOW BOOTH GAMES
Everybody likes to play to win. By dedicating some of your booth space as a gaming area, you increase the odds of keeping prospects in your booth long enough for your sales team to engage them. Here are a few of our favorite booth games:
Lead Capture Prize Wheel —Reward prospects for completing your in-booth lead capture form by offering a virtual prize wheel. To generate even more interest, try combining your prize wheel workstation with a cell phone charging station at the same table.
Virtual prize wheel apps like this one from SocialPoint offer a fun and easy way for prospects to supply their company contact information.
Winning Key Contest — Showcase a treasure chest in your booth and ensure that each attendee who checks in at the registration counter gets a key for a chance to unlock it.
Customized Trivia Game — Create your own online trivia game app customized to your particular product, service and brand.
Social Media Raffle —Encourage more brand interaction and generate social media buzz by offering a Twitter hashtag raffle, where attendees can win prizes every hour by commenting on your exhibit or by posting selfies from your booth.
Advice from the Experts: Keep attendees engaged by posting leaderboard stats and live metrics on monitors in your booth or by streaming your Twitter feed comments on the big screen.
ENGAGING TRADE SHOW BOOTH ACTIVITIES
If your booth space allows it, try offering unique activities for attendees designed to both educate and entertain. A few examples include:
Virtual Reality — As we explained in a previous blog, an immersive, 360-degree virtual reality program is an effective way to educate prospects about your product and give them a real “under-the-hood,” detailed look.
Live Broadcast — Use either Facebook Live or live audio podcast to host an entertaining “show” right from your booth. You can use the time to interview booth visitors or loyal customers, poll the audience about issues affecting your particular industry, and conduct product demonstrations or side-by-side comparisons.
Hosting a Facebook Live event right from your booth can help create social media buzz.
Photo Opportunities — If a unique-looking avatar (such as a cute little lizard) or icon happens to be part of your company branding, you can’t go wrong by offering a funny “face in the hole” billboard photo opportunity. (Pair this exercise with the Twitter hashtag raffle above for even more engagement.)
FREEBIES AND GIVEAWAYS
If you don’t have the staff or the booth space to support any of the above, never fear. “FREE” still works. Free food … free swag … free hugs … you name it. As we discussed in a previous blog, the trick is to give away items that (a) recipients will find useful, (b) dovetail with your brand, and (c) will help prospects remember your company long after the show.
When it comes to swag, make sure the stuff you give away is something that a prospect might actually find useful, such as a branded PopSocket for their phone.
Final Word: The Show Itself Trumps All Booth Activities
Obviously, there’s a big difference between simply generating more booth traffic versus generating more qualified prospect traffic. If you’ve chosen to exhibit at the wrong show, then even the most amazing booth activities won’t be able to improve your trade show ROI. However, if you’ve done your research and you’re positive that your target market will indeed be in attendance at a particular show, then more than likely, your top competitors will be there, too. And in that case, anything you can do to increase booth visitors — and enchant new prospects — will surely give you a competitive edge.
