How to Drive Traffic to Your Trade Show Booth

Reach trade show attendees on their mobile phones –

Your message on the move.

I’ve attended numerous trade shows.  And, there have been some very creative pre-show and in-show trade show marketing efforts that I’ve received.  One that I recall that was especially effective was a company that mailed me a single glove and to get the matching pair, I needed to stop by their booth!  Since “if it’s free, it’s me,” I did just that!

But, what if you could reach your B to B target audience when they are most likely to visit your trade show booth?  With mobile, you can.  In fact, you can reach your targeted prospects right at the event itself!

RIGHT PERSON, RIGHT TIME, RIGHT PLACE

Geo-conquesting makes trade show marketing effective.  With geo-conquesting mobile advertising, you can target consumers when they are at the trade show location or relaxing at the official trade show hotels.  You can also reach targeted professionals that work in the area.

Here’s how you can send your message to targeted trade show attendees and get them to visit your exhibit booth.

It all starts with the unique targeting ability that mobile does better than any other medium ever invented.  Since every mobile device has a GPS within it, you can target your visitors through the following methods:

• Geo-conquesting the event address.  — With this strategy, you target everybody that is within the geo-location of the trade show facility address.  Sure, there is a small amount of waste as you’ll serve ads to your competitors and some event facility employees. For the most part, though, you’ll be targeting your prospects in your industry.
• Geo-conquesting the official trade show hotels. — It’s the same strategy as geo-conquesting the address of the event, but instead, you are reaching consumers on their mobile phones when they are relaxing at the hotel.
• Geo-location of specific job titles within a radius of the event address. — This strategy covers a wider area, but it reaches mobile consumers with specific job titles that may be of interest.
• Email address matching. — If you have a database of prospects, you can target their mobile phones via email address matching.

Get into your customers’ pockets with AN ENGAGING OFFER They Can’t refuse

There is no magic way to make your promotion “pop-up” when a prospect is within the geo-area that you are targeting.  But, inevitably when people are traveling, they turn to their phone. They get on their Facebook page, check sports scores on the ESPN app, or see what is happening on Cosmopolitan’s mobile website.  That’s where you will reach them with a targeted mobile advertisement placed on social media, within an app, or on a mobile website.  Don’t be too concerned about which publisher you will reach them with; instead, be more concerned with the targeted person you are reaching.  Think People, not Places.

Mobile advertising is purchased programmatically.  That means that a bevy of advertisers are bidding for placement at any given moment.  There’s also an equally large amount of inventory that publishers are selling.  The higher you are willing to bid, the more likely that your company will gain the exposure that it needs to send more ads to qualified prospects and drive more business at the trade show.  You have a short window to reach these important prospects.  Now is not the time to be cheap!

Trade show attendees need a reason to visit your exhibit booth so give them one.  A door prize is a great way to engage them.  Or, you can show a picture of your trade show staff at the event.  People think that’s pretty cool when they actually meet the people IRL that they just saw on their mobile phones.

In the agency business, we can certainly judge engagement.  And, if the ad above is indicative of your results, you will be very pleased.  For the Cisco Live show in Las Vegas, 161 people visited the trade show booth after seeing the mobile ad.  Would your company benefit by having that many extra targeted prospects visit your booth and learn about your products?  Tell us who your prospects are at that upcoming show you’re planning, and we’ll deliver them.

Sending mobile advertisements to trade show attendees is so effective that we do it ourselves.  The Facebook advertisement above generated 9 direct phone calls to our own Barb Breeser’s mobile phone!  Add that to the 12 others that she received from in-app and mobile website ads, and Barb was a very busy account manager at this particular trade show where she was working with customers that needed to recruit more truck drivers.