Trade Show Booth Blues: Why No One is Visiting Your Trade Show Booth
Business conferences and trade shows are among the best ways for companies to attract new customers and raise brand awareness. Everything from booth design, slogan, branding, and communication matters and can make or break your presentation.
Smart companies know they need to market their trade show appearance to their existing audience on social media, paid ads, and via email marketing. Even then, people may pass by your booth without stopping. Is your booth design too boring or too loud? Is your message not clear enough? Are you or your employees passive?
Once you set up a booth, you can’t just sit back and relax. Your job is to smile, engage in conversations, be knowledgeable about the brand, and get as many contacts as possible.
Keep reading to discover the main reasons why nobody’s visiting your trade show booth and what you should do about it.
It’s Too Plain and Boring
What does your booth look like from the attendees’ perspective? Is it visually appealing or plain and boring? While you don’t have to use bright colors and tons of text to attract an audience, you also don’t want to be ignored. Finding a balance with the design of the booth is crucial for your brand presence.
You can spice things up by having a fun mascot, use games, choose a catchy slogan, and organize a giveaway. Many companies do a trade show giveaway to attract an audience. People love competitions and getting free things, so the prize has to be related to your brand and useful for the participants.
For instance, if you give away a tablet and you sell food, there isn’t a connection between the prize and your product. The person who wins will collect their prize and leave, possibly forgetting about your brand altogether.
On the other hand, if you give away a gift card for your online store, people will flock to your booth. They may brag about their win on social media and when they want to use the gift card, visit your website and engage with your brand.
They Don’t See A Friendly Face
People are naturally drawn to smiling, approachable faces full of enthusiasm and positivity. If you or your employees look tired, bored, uninterested or grumpy, people will walk right past your booth.
If you want your trade show presence to be a success and stay on people’s minds, make sure your people are energized and well-rested. Send them on breaks, keep them full and hydrated, and encourage them to talk to people.
At trade shows, it’s not enough to just show up and wait. You need to be proactive and engage in meaningful conversations. Your main goal should be connecting to people and getting their email addresses or information, not selling your product to just anyone.
Your Communication Skills Are Poor
Once you’ve drawn visitors in, the next part of the job is to keep them interested. If your communication skills aren’t polished and you keep talking about your business and how amazing it is, they’ll leave.
To have people stay and actually engage with you, ask them questions they’ll be happy to answer. Ask about their jobs, interests, hobbies – anything that’ll strike up a conversation.
Be careful not to push with a sales pitch right away. The most important aspect of a conversation is listening to the person carefully so that you know what to offer them as a tailored solution.
This is one of those simple and free trade show booth ideas that’ll keep bringing you foot traffic. If you learn effective communication, it won’t take long for visitors to become customers.
They Don’t Understand Your Message
You know your business inside out, but many trade show attendees will be seeing it for the first time. It’s crucial to send a clear, effective message about who you are and what you’re about.
This is where branding and copywriting come into play. Everything in the booth should represent your vision, mission, and services in a professional, visually-appealing way. The minute you go overboard, people will feel like they’re being sold to and move on to the next booth.
Your Booth Design Is Bad
Setting up a booth takes up a lot of time and money, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to the design. Brainstorm booth trade show ideas with your employees and listen to their feedback.
The booth design should be eye-catching, but not too loud and obnoxious. Use natural materials when possible and keep the display signs simple and minimalistic.
If your booth design is of bad quality, people will instantly think your products or services are also bad quality. The visual elements of your booth have the power to attract or deter, so be extremely careful about the booth style you decide to put up.
You Didn’t Market Your Booth Enough
In this day and age of social media, you can’t rely on people coming to your booth to inquire. You need to market the event and your presence at the trade show weeks before you attend. This will help create a buzz among your audience and attract the right people who are already interested in your business.
Make sure to tell family and friends about the trade show and ask them to spread the word. Use all marketing and advertising tactics at your disposal to inform as many people as possible.
Send out email reminders once a week in the weeks before the event. Also, make sure to collect as many emails as possible at the show so you can follow up after.
Make People Line Up In Front Of Your Trade Show Booth!
Trade shows are one of the best places to reach new customers and present your business in the best light possible. To do that, you need an impressive trade show booth that’ll attract people’s attention.
If you or your booth are too pushy in your approach and only focus on your sales pitch, people won’t waste their time listening to how great your products are. If you want to see a line in front of your booth, you need to provide something of value.
Ready to get noticed? In this article, we discuss the best brand building strategies for beginners and share tips on how to implement them effectively.