“Secret Seven” Tips to Increase Booth Traffic at an Exhibition?

Empty stalls, lonely booths don’t quite make up a good image of your brand at an event.

Nowadays, it isn’t a hard nut to crack to increase the audience at exhibitions. Although in the current era of experiential marketing, organizers have high expectations regarding attendance.

And if that expectation isn’t met, they feel low while organizing some other event. To avoid this situation a bit of pre-planning, creative thinking & amazing marketing skills are required.

Booth traffic isn’t just the responsibility of the exhibitor but of event organizer as well. It’s the duty of event organizers to get the right audience at the exhibition.

Ensuring proper feasible check-in and delightful exhibition experience is a motivation of attendees to visit booths.

Pre-event practices

Event Marketing begins long before the D-day. Pre-marketing efforts reap out great benefits in increasing the booth traffic at exhibitions.

Pre-event practices to get an exceptional footfall at exhibitions revolve around email marketing and social media marketing and paid advertisements.

Approach the exiting attendee database and send an email invite to the upcoming event. Create an event on Facebook & promote it. Create hype about your presence at the exhibition & what’s new this year from your end!

At the event

We have come up with a bunch of ideas which can impact the trade show booth traffic. Let’s have a look:

1. Booth design

Some attendees go for looks and feel. Booth design is for that category of attendees. The visual appeal works better than all the online campaigns. Attractive standees, graphics, designs, colors attract a group of audience & lure them in.

Booths must be subtly designed in a way they express your motto or a story. Pick a theme. Do a little bit décor. Design isn’t just a part to get over with but to tempt the audience. Nowadays event organizers have ample amount of booth décor ideas which can guarantee more traffic like:

- Bright Color scheme booths

- Live art

- Themed booths

- Lightning like LED’s, Chandeliers, digital & printed displays, etc

- Sustainable concept booth

- A designed & detailed rooftop

- GO DIY in booth décor designs and styles

2. Incentives:

Who says no to a free trial? I don’t. A booth with a pre-defined purpose at an exhibition. Decide and execute.

What do you want your attendees to do once they visit your booth? Sign up for a free demo? Participate in a giveaway contest or a quiz? Or just stroll through the booth and leave?

Add value to your booth by giving value to attendees. You can apply one of the following tactics depending on your business:

— Provide free Product Samples
— Run Giveaways (Tempt your audience with quality giveaways like power banks, bags, USB’s)
— Entertain your audience with a game or run selfie contests (set up a photo booth if required)
— Check-in at certain booths & win a prize or points on the event app.

3. Choose your booth staff wisely

Booth staff plays a crucial role for your audience. If your goal is to generate leads at the booth, staff attitude & knowledge is a key here. With a positive attitude and a helpful staff, the traffic at your booth may get interested in your product. If relevant to them, they might get a demo as well.

BAM! You got yourself a lead with the expert staff you appointed.

Just be sure, you never leave your booth unattended. Empty booths and less manned booths are the most disliked ones. No visitors means no leads.

4. Why forget the Event Technology?

Event technology space provides a major boost in increasing traffic at exhibition booths. Today’s tech appeals one and all. Apart from the cliché event websites and apps, there’s a lot more to event management software.

- Lead Capture Software: For starters, to capture leads, use a lead capture system. Use QR code check-in or bar code scanner to capture the information of any attendee coming to your booth.

- Matchmaking for Attendees: An event app holds more potential than you think. Use for attendees to interact with each other and even with the exhibitors. With matchmaking features in the event app, send chat & meeting requests, share business cards and so on.

- Gamification & Leaderboard: Wanna indulge your audience in a gamified experience? Then you got to select the right gamification features. Using game tactics and competitive methods, compel your audience to participate. If they are proceeding or winning, give them points.

The attendee with the highest points or scores is displayed on the leaderboard. This will motivate other attendees to participate as well.

- FIW (Find your way): No worries, you won’t get lost in a big exhibition hall now. With the in-built feature in an event app named WAYFINDER, you can browse through the map of the event venue.

5. Tech Lounge Experience

Make your booth into a Tech Bar! Tech bar is more of a tech lounge where the booth provides more of a workstation. With all the necessary sources available like plugs and charging stations.

Upgrade your booth for the attendees with a tech-savvy experience.

Power up their mood with the power plugs and stations to charge the electronics. Create an experiential environment so that the attendees won’t feel like leaving your booth.

Watching the relaxed environment, attendees may be excited to visit your booth hence, increasing the booth traffic.

6. Live sessions

Knowledge sharing sessions never gets old. Attendees visit an event craving for knowledge. To quench that thirst, live sessions can easily draw their attention.

The session may even be about a live demonstration of a product or service but still, you’ll be able to gather an X amount of audience.

Leverage the speaker’s panels. If your CEO or Director can conduct a live session or be a part of a panel at the event, this can be a huge opportunity. The audience present at that live session, panel discussion or a seminar may want to connect with you at your booth. Do mention your booth while speaking.

7. F&B provision

It may sound lame & an old-school idea but it still works like a charm. It is quite certain that attendees are bound to get tired walking through the event venue, booth to booth, session to session.

But when they stop by your booth and see a bottle of water, they’ll breathe a sigh of relief. Providing light snacks and bottled water or energy drinks is a definite and sure-shot way to increase footfall at your booth. Know the importance of F&B here.

Additional Tip: Consider event & brand swag. As a hot trend audience is drawn to popular freebies. Stand out, Think out of the box.

You can give a branded Marvel item ;) Just an idea.

Want to use event management software to add a spark to your exhibitions? Request a demo now or visit our website to know more.

Have insights that you would like to share with us? You can connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.