What They See Is What They Get

You're walking down the isle of an Association's Annual Trade Show and see these header over two of the booths  "Ani-Mate" and "Orange Research of Texas".  Who are they? What do they do? How can they help you?  These are questions needing to be answered BEFORE you create your booth header.

At any given trade show, somewhere in the neighborhood of 90%+ of the booth headers prominently (and often solely) feature the exhibitor's NAME - re. The two examples above.  "But they have to know my name!!" you say.  Really?  What's more important, what you HAVE or CAN DO for a prospect or WHO YOU ARE?  The answer is obvious, and so too is the solution.

On any header - tell them WHAT YOU DO before you tell them WHO YOU ARE. 

In our two examples above, the first became: Automatic Pet Feeders by Ani-Mate.  The company name is short for Animal Mate and their product is a round feeder with four lidded and timed compartments that open at pre-set times - thereby allowing you to leave pooch or kitty at home for the weekend.  At the Independent Hardware Store Owners show they were a huge success.  They had bombed as ANI-MATE elsewhere.

When you see the header Differential Pressure Control Equipment as a delegate at the Instrument Society of America's Expo and you're looking for that, you STOP - as did many - right in the middle of the isle.  Would you have stopped for Orange Research of Texas?!?!

So, in a nutshell, tell them What You Do before you tell them Who You Are - it pays off bigger than you'd think.  A second header approach coming next time.

B2B Trade Shows - Where Do You Start

You want to maximize the Return On Investment (ROI) from the Business to Business (B2B) trade show in which you've just confirmed your participation.  You know your investment is going to be, on average, around three times the cost of the booth space.  So your $1,500 booth is going to cost you around $4,500 when all is said and done.  So what do you do NOW to assure yourself an ROI that's going to cover your investment and return a reasonable profit?  You next need to look at your version of the 80/20 principal.  Specifically, what 20% of your product or service offering yields 80% of your income and profit.  Once you've determined this, you build your booth story and your approach to the show's delegates around this/these product(s)/service(s).  You want a booth header that says "What We Do" before it says Who You Are, then you come up with an Open Ended Question (OEQ) that's asked of EVERY delegate who passes your booth (and which causes him/her to SELF QUALIFY themselves) and then you develop an effective follow up procedure to close those who have self qualified themselves.  That's it in a nutshell, more detail on each element to follow.  TradeShowHiett