Crowds attract Crowds

Converting a crowd of observers into customers is what a presentation should accomplish.

People are curious in nature.  It can be a car crash on a highway, a free sample, or even a pitchman working a trade show booth stops people just long enough for them to see what is going on.  So drawing a crowd is not difficult, making them stay and listen to a sales pitch is the difficult task.

Cleaver pitchmen learn that they need a hook to keep the crowd from walking away. They will use comedy, magic, quick-witted dialog to hold the audience's attention and in that period deliver a well-constructed message.  Moreover, at the end of the presentation, you need to register for something before they give away information promised in the beginning.

Drawing the crowd is the easy party, work on developing a well-crafted sales pitch that talks to the prospective client and transforms them from observers to customers.  That is what you must achieve when drawing a crowd around a booth.

The Rationale of Why You Hired Trade Show Presenter

The main job of your trade show presenter is to grab the attention of a visitor and bring them into your booth to learn more. Wild, crazy rock climbing stunts, girls in cheerleader uniforms and video games are just some of the crazy stunts that sales manager thinks of when trying to draw attention to their booth. 

Transforming your booth into a sideshow or arcade loses focus of what you are trying to sell. Nobody on the show floor knows what you are selling.  All they know is… Did you see that booth over there?  Ever see a big name celebrity signing autographs in a booth, they drew a crowd, but no leads are being generated. 

The goal is to generate leads, qualified leads. Placing a pretty girl in a tight skirt in front of your booth and she can gather all the business card you want.  Try turning them into a sale, and you will quickly learn these "leads" are garbage.  Select a presenter that will help you generate leads and be entertaining at the same time.

Selecting the Perfect Trade Show Booth Presenter

Presenters have strength and weakness when it comes to a booth presentation. Some presenters are comfortable standing in front of a group of people regurgitating a speech from an ear prompter, while others like to interact with the audience.  Booth size and location will determine the presentation style.  Large booths encourage people to come in and sit, while corner booths try to gather people in two isles. Typically, they have a podium in the corner of the booth to exploit booth location. Booths in the middle want to engage in conservation and stop you dead in your tracks.

Others think gadgets can replace human interaction. Just because it is the newest game craze, does not mean it going to be a hot attraction in your booth.  People like to interact with people, its part of our social and society makeup to gather in groups. Besides, sales staff find it easier to disseminate information to an attendee when watching a presentation when they are engrossed in a game.

Select the right presenter, and you will increase your booth traffic and improve the quality of your leads.

Tip for Planning your Next Trade Show

A Trade Show Presentation doesn't have to Drain your Budget.

Determine what your objective is and how you are going to use the trade show presenter in the booth will help you find the right individual. Many companies do not clearly define what they want the trade show presenter to achieve. All they know is they need some type of activity in their booth.

How is the presenter going to help you in your booth? Are you looking to gather large crowds, an Emcee communicating technical information, looking for models to help hand out literature or a mixture of this and that?

Once you defined what you want to accomplish with the presenter, you can now start to envision what the booth set up will be like and how the traffic pattern will flow through or around the booth. Planning and budgeting how the presenter will interact with you, your product, and attendees in your booth, takes planning and a little thought. You can create a fun interactive booth presentation without draining your budget just by thinking it through.

QR-Code, the Future of Phone Apps at a Trade Show

Every vendor on a trade show floor is fighting to draws visitors to their booth. Vendors spend thousands of dollars on displays, marketing material, presenters, and staff. Each has a specific goal – make it easy for the attendee to obtain information. In 2011, techno geeks are now marketing the QR-code as a quick way to distribute information at a trade show, but I say "Don' waste your time on it."

Why QR-Code Fails

The QR-Code is a hybrid matrix barcode that requires a barcode reader on your smartphone to display the information. Imagine we are walking the trade show floor – bag in hand, the newest giveaway trinket in the other and we come to a booth. There are products we have an interest in discussing. Alongside the product is a square barcode (QR-Code). The vendor is now expecting the attendee to reach into their pock and find their smartphone, launch the barcode reader app – That is, if you have a smartphone and have the barcode reader app loaded. Next, you have to scan the code, which takes you to the information web page on your phone. Let's be realistic, most people would not waste their time. You can get a better response with a dedicated person requesting the attendee's email address and having a staff member email the information directly to the attendee.

Having a person dedicated to just emailing information is costly from a vendor perspective, but makes it easy for an attendee to obtain the information they need to buy your product or service. I feel it is better to turn your booth into a drive-through information center then having frustrated executive fumbling around with a smartphone.

QR-Code is excellent for selling product or service that link directly to a smartphone, but the number of people who have barcode apps or their phone, let alone know how to work it, is limited. Save that precious space on your literature for a real web URL- company log or better yet, a picture of the product then placing technology crazed QR-Code.