Success with a trade show exhibit is about more than just turning up and selling to people. Sure, you’ll want to talk to visitors who are attending with the goal of purchasing or researching new products, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll want to be actively sold to.
Brands with stands that only push information at people will actually have the opposite effect to what they want—people will walk away. They might even want the product, but if they aren’t being engaged in the right way, they’ll refuse to talk to you and walk to your competitor instead.
Visitors want engagement. They want to be wooed and to feel connected to the brand. They want a good reason to buy from you. They also want to have a good time and to leave with a positive experience. Good engagement is about wowing potential customers, making them feel listened to and valued. Brands that care about their audience, the audience’s needs and how the business can help meet those needs will succeed.
There are two key ways that brands can engage with an audience at an exhibit, and both need to be used together for a successful show:
People Power
There is no greater engagement tool at an exhibit than your stand staff. Break the ice by smiling, saying hello and asking an opening question related to your products.
Asking an opening question starts to engage with visitors and helps your sales staff to know which ones are potential customers. If they don’t use your products or services, or don’t have a problem that can be fixed with your solution, then your staff can quickly move on.
Once you’ve piqued the attention of your audience, your visitors then need to be drawn into a conversation about their needs and problems. It’s then your job to make sure that they understand how your brand can help them. Once they’re hooked, your sales team can then do what they do best and convert them into leads or sales.
Sales Tools On-Stand
Digital engagement tools on-stand is the new ‘must have’ to reinforce your brand messages, and provide an element of fun and physical interaction for visitors. It could be a game, a survey, a video of your product in use or even your actual product.
For the stand staff, these tools should all be relevant to the audience’s journey on-stand. Whether using or interacting with the tool provides ample time for your staff to talk to visitors, or whether it provides a positive experience such as a game—these experiences all important to help the team convert people into leads or sales.
In order to be truly engaging, digital engagement tools need to be integrated with stand design. Brands such as Nimlok now offer these sorts of services as part of their stand-design offering. This makes sure that every element of your stand design is focused on your audience journey to help boost your sales and leave your audience with that warm, fuzzy feeling.
Mizzy Moore is a 24-year-old content writer and blogger with a passion for literature.
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