Exhibiting at ExhibitorLive provides the opportunity to unleash your most creative skills to promote and exhibit your products and services to a receptive audience that is excited about new stuff!

As you prepare during the show countdown, it’s odd to know that you probably have the same feelings as your clients as they prepare for their shows. Your default setting is just to turn up, put on a good show and everyone will be happy!

We quickly snap out of that mode, though, because this is the one show that delivers the perfect audience. In fact, it’s a tonic because those investing in attending the conference sessions as part of the whole CTSM training program are those who are hungry for new ideas to put into practice. And that’s a unique value proposition for us.

There are many event tech shows around the world where we’ve exhibited but they all obsess on showcasing the latest and greatest technology for event organizers to use. These events have scant regard for the needs of the companies exhibiting at these hugely expensive shows – ironically, the same guys who are paying for it all!

This will be our fourth year exhibiting at ExhibitorLive, so we speak from experience when we say to first consider your booth presence.

There are some absolutely stunning booth designs produced by the exhibiting exhibition contractors, and so they should be. But this means that even without those budgets, it’s still extremely important to come up with something updated and professional. As this is our main show, it made sense for us to work with a local Vegas contractor, Steelhead, who came up with a fresh look. If you plan on exhibiting regularly at this show, it’s important to keep the same design, albeit with a few subtle improvements each year, so people start to remember you.

Below is our checklist for success at ExhibitorLive, focusing on a few things to do really well in order to maximize impact:

1. Leverage your investment in ExhibitorLive via relevant database communication. Six months out, decide who you’re talking with in your CRM database and split them into existing clients and prospects so that they can be targeted with versions of a regular countdown sequence. Do this at least three months prior to the show to make sure that they come to see you if they are attending.Even if they’re not attending, this builds excitement and ensures that people can click through to a web form to make contact with you. The show becomes a trigger event for prospects and customers and no one feels left out.

2. Encourage the decision-making process with incentives. We sell an enterprise-wide system at a busy time of year, so we offer a 20 percent signup discount at the show, which is valid six weeks after the show. This keeps the sales momentum running, our brand top of mind and curtails decision-making drift!

3. Make the booth visit memorable and worth their while. Each order we receive is a significant monetary investment for our clients, so we make sure to offer some really upscale giveaways for people who take the trouble to visit us.

4. Stand out from the crowd with killer prizes. We always run a prize drawing using a Pick a Winner system halfway through the last day of the exhibition. This ensures we get a good buzz around the booth and the chance to reconnect with people we have seen already. This year we will give away an Apple watch. Enough said.

5. Create brand ambassadors. In today’s eco-friendly world, make sure your swag bag and brochures are reflective of this, first-class and useful. This way your prospects will walk around the show and promote your brand for you, then take swag home to reinforce your message when visiting their local Starbucks!

6. Invest in a mobile lead capture system to track precious leads. In this way, the show becomes an extension of the customer relationship journey. Having this tool empowers your sales team with all the information they need to follow up and close business, long after the booth has been packed away.

Have a great show!

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