How To Draw Huge a Huge Crowd to Your Trade Show Booth

Caleb Agee 0:00
There is a competitor four tenths down, yes, and you want to make sure that you are giving them the customer more information than than they would give the customer. So we’re talking about pricing. We’re talking about

Brandon Welch 0:11
maybe scheduling, a little bit of scheduling, yeah, maybe things that everybody else will go, Ah, well, let’s have an appointment and see or why I can’t get give you an exact price. I have to see. It’s like, No, you can. You can give me a range. When somebody says, What’s the price, the very next thing out of your mouth better be the price.

Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. This is the place where we answer your real life marketing questions so you can grow your business, eliminate waste in advertising and achieve the big dream. I’m your host, Brandon Welch, and I’m here with my co host, Caleb, a G, A G, for sure, an original Frank and Maven gangster. We are 10 years old this month. Wow. We have been helping businesses all across America for the last decade do the things we just talked about, be confident in their growth, eliminate waste and advertising and achieve the big dream. Yes. So I told you last, a couple weeks ago, we surpassed 1000 YouTube subscribers. We’ve doubled it. We are over 2000 subscribers now, and we’re keeping going, guys. We’re gonna hit 10,000 before March. I

Caleb Agee 1:15
thank you because you’re one of them. So thank you for listening. Thank

Brandon Welch 1:19
you for subscribing. We’re having a wild time. For those of you don’t know who we are, if this is your first time listening in as a subscriber, we are just bananas about growing small businesses. Yes, and let’s talk about small businesses for just a second. Small businesses employ over 60 million Americans. They’re literally half of the private sector jobs that exist in this country. Think big corporations. People think climbing that ladder. No, the real stuff often exists at small business America. Over the last 15 years, small businesses like you have accounted for over 62% of the job growth in this country, and you’re responsible for a third of the nation’s exports. Wow, crazy, right? International, small, ain’t small, yeah, I prefer to call them family businesses. But if you are anywhere in that category of couple 100 employees, anywhere between $100 million in revenue, down to $1 million in revenue, you are considered a small business, and we are all about helping you find more customers, better customers, making a bigger impact in your community, avoiding expensive mistakes, improving your profits, improving your sales, improving your culture, avoiding waste in advertising, and doing, ultimately, what we call building a legendary business. So we are so glad to have you. We are so proud that you’re listening to this channel and we are doing everything we can to make your life better. And with that, we have a very practical topic today. Yes, that early in the year, a lot of people are thinking,

Caleb Agee 2:46
yeah, trade shows. Trade shows. It’s the season.

Brandon Welch 2:49
Doesn’t matter if you’re in a, you know, a community retail type business, or if you’re in a service based business, or a home improvement business, or even an industrial type business, you’ve probably at least been invited to a trade show. Yep. And if you’re going to do that, we actually believe in them. It’s a very good way to get in front of customers and make an impact that could possibly last throughout the next year or two. Yes, we’re going to talk about some ways to get a lot of attention at your trade show booth. Yeah, seven tactics for you guys today. So are you ready? Let’s just jump right in. Yes. So we’ve all been to trade shows. We’ve all been to these industry related things. We walk the aisles, we get the swag, we get the little bag, we eat some popcorn, and generally, it’s a good time. It’s fulfilling. It’s a it’s a good way to maybe network. But that’s what people are doing. Most of them are walking around browsing. Yeah, I want you, we want you to get a few more of them buying, or at least leaning in to buy someday soon and buy from you specifically. Yeah? So the seven tactics we’re gonna talk about are paying up for placement, giving insider info, winning over the inside champion, making sticky swag. No, I’m not talking about slime and silly putty, yeah, but we’re gonna talk about sticky swag, uh, dynamic displays, doing a giveaway or sweepstakes, and hiring extroverts. First one of these. Okay, probably the event organizer comes to you and says, You should be in our trade show. Here’s our booth cost, and it’s only $500 you’re going, okay, cool. I’ll, I guess I’ll take a booth. You’re like, and you probably don’t think about it. If you’ve not done this before. You’re not, like, really big into trade show strategy. You’re not thinking about this, maybe until the week or two before you have to go on the weekend and set up. Yeah, what I would highly encourage you to do, whether you’ve done this lots of times, or whether you are just now getting started, is to book your booth early look for the events coming up in the next year you could be a part of and put your name on the high visibility spots. And with that, pay up for higher, better visibility booths. Yeah, yeah. There’s, there is advertiser fatigue that sets in by about the 30th place somebody walks by, yeah. And so when they first come in, they’re fresh, they’re open to conversation. And if you’re one of those, like, 30 booths, they pass by. Otherwise they’ve, they’ve kind of been pelted, and they’ve been, you know, kind of beat over the head by everybody’s Hey, you know. And so what you want to do is get early attention from that traffic. And that’s often going to be a more expensive booth, yeah, ask them, where’s the main entrance? And I want to be as close to that main entrance as I can. And if you have to pay up, you have to double or triple or even quadruple the fee to be there. It’s probably worth it, because on the grand scheme of the impact you’re going to get out of that, it’s, it’s probably a minimal increase, even if you’re paying two or three grand for the spot.

Caleb Agee 5:31
Oh yeah, that’s good. Fair. That’s good. Number two is give insider info. So a lot of times in any sales situation, we are, we are often trying to tuck away the good, the good news, behind a little curtain. And so when somebody comes to this booth, your goal is to give a little bit more than your competitor would down the down the lane, I say Street. It’s like a little shanty town, right? Yes. There is a competitor four tenths down, yes, and you want to make sure that you are giving them more the customer, more information than than they would give the customer. So we’re talking about pricing. We’re talking about

Brandon Welch 6:12
maybe scheduling, a little bit of scheduling, yeah, maybe things that everybody else will go, Ah, well, let’s have an appointment and see or why I can’t get give you an exact price. I have to see. It’s like, No, you can. You can give me a range. When somebody says, What’s the price, the very next thing out of your mouth better be the price. Amazing, yeah. Even if it’s a starting at most projects end up being

Caleb Agee 6:32
$5,000 Yes. Those are those start at $300 a piece, yes.

Brandon Welch 6:37
And you can go low. And you can just say, now we got to figure out what you exactly want, and that could vary the price a little bit. When can I come out? Yep, but the other guys are going to set an appointment. I’ve had a lot of Home Improvement people over the years do so well with this. Contractors are the worst about wanting to come and give you a big sales pitch in your home. And so we actually, literally print off this price ballpark sheet, and we have big disclaimer says subject to change for any number of reasons, basically. But we say, based on the information you give us, how many do you want about how big is your home, or tell me the materials of your deck you want to have replaced, or whatever? Yep, and they leave with this, like ballpark estimate. It says to get your final price call and set the appointment, and if you present this, you get x amount dollars off. Great. So you were the guy they trusted because you didn’t try to withhold information from them. You made them feel comfortable the process. You gave them a tangible thing to come back to you with that probably nobody else did. Yep, and it’s just a home run. So give insider info, whatever that means. I don’t care if you’re manufacturing, if you’re some sort of other industry, find something that everybody else is withholding and give it to them up front. Yep, three.

Caleb Agee 7:49
Win over the inside champion.

Brandon Welch 7:51
The inside champion. Tell us who the inside champion is. Okay

Caleb Agee 7:53
in any place, organization, structure, unit, community, there is an inside champion in our office, if you want to get to any of us, Riley is your inside champion. You better

Brandon Welch 8:05
know what Riley likes to drink for coffee. She can be won over, yeah. You better know. You better know she likes wiener dogs. You bring her a, you know, best for her wiener dog that you’ve bought a, you know, some pet fair or something. Yeah, you’re gonna get anything you want. Oh, right. Oh, yeah. But you the point is, here we all think we’re trying to get to the decision maker. And if you’re, if you’re talking to retail customers of any, you know, middle aged variety, it’s their kids Yes, or their dogs Yes. Or if you’re trying to reach the male homeowner, or whatever, it’s the wife, win them over. So don’t just make your booth appeal to this super you know, staunch

Caleb Agee 8:47
decision maker, your idealistic choice? Yeah? Decision maker, yes.

Brandon Welch 8:51
I’m thinking of some of our manufacturing clients who would be trying to win over the engineer, and it’s like, definitely have something for the engineer. But also, what about the salesperson or the project manager who may have got to tag along on the trip. Yeah, and you do something really cool for them, give them a planner or something. We’re talking about swag that you can give in just a second. But one of the most brilliant things I’ve I have to say so myself that I accidentally came across. I used to own a window company, home improvement company, and we would do these trade shows, and it’s like, what we’re talking about, there was this kind of how I learned this stuff. The first time I did it, I didn’t know any better. And I was in like, the third room over, and we weren’t getting very much traffic, and I stepped out to get like, a drink or something, and I walked and I saw this line. And, like, we’re in the world, this line going to and there’s a couple 1000 people there at least, and this line is going, going, going, going, going, going, and I get to the front of it, and what’s in the front of that line, a balloon clown. Okay, I actually originally called this tip hire a clown. But so this guy’s sitting there, and every parent that drug their poor kids to this home Expo, yeah, had to stop off and get him a $8 little ball. Balloon, right? Yeah. And so I’m thinking, how can I use this? Yeah? So I went up to the guy, I stood in the line, went up to the guy, and I said, Do you have to be sat right here? He goes, not really. He goes, they just let me set up my stuff up. And I said, I’ll give you $500 if it’ll come up to my booth and you make as many balloons until the $500 is over, and then we’ll talk, yeah. And so I did that. And the next morning, for the next day the Home Show, he came up, and we were making balloons left and right, and I had people in the third room over, like the line wrapped around the place to my booth that was selling windows, like I didn’t have any. Yeah, they didn’t want Windows, but guess who they thought of. And we wrote little, you know, the name of my company on that the balloons. And so they left. And so I gave out probably 150 quotes that day. And probably, I don’t know, I probably made 50 to $100,000 in sales in the next six to eight weeks off that. Yeah, and here’s the thing, I talked to the inside champion. The parents were like, Oh my gosh, we gotta go get the balloons. And then, while they’re, well, I kind of sort of need Windows, right? Not every one of them,

Caleb Agee 11:01
but yeah, I’d be curious how much, how much would that be? And then you were able to give them that ballpark estimate, and they’re walking away with,

Brandon Welch 11:08
I sold the company, but you know, two or three years later, um, there’s people probably still thinking of that moment, right? So went over the inside champion for you. That could look like. What if you did one of those photo booths where people come take silly pictures out with the family? Why not? Yeah, what if you did, what if you did karaoke? If they’d let you do some sort of karaoke contest? What if you had a piano player or a guitar player in your booth? That’d be fun. What if you had some sort of, you know, drink station, or coffees or something like that, and it’s like you’re going, Oh, that’s expensive, but it’s way less expensive than losing all that traffic and being another vendor in the place. Yes, and your enemy needs to be predictability and like information. You’re not there to give information. You were there to make an impression. Yeah, and so do that and go as wacky as you can. Yes. So we came up with karaoke Photo Booth giving away certain experiences or drawings. We’ll talk about that in a second, but you need a reason for people to come. So, yeah, number four is called Sticky swag, speaking of things to give away, okay, we’ve all gotten the ball point pin that sits in the drawer and we don’t ever stop to think about who gave us that pin. We’ve all gotten the stupid stress balls that we end up, they end up in the bottom of our kids toy boxes, and we throw them away, yeah, three years from when you move. Yep, yeah. We’ve all gotten, you know, folders and business cards. But when there’s something that, when it’s in your hand and you go, I’m going to use this. I’m thinking of a lumber company around here that, for years, gave away tape measures and yard sticks, and it’s like, go get the yard stick. And you everybody knows where they got that yard stick and it had their name on it. Yeah, it was brilliant, right? Yes, practical swag, yeah. Um, this is gonna maybe depend on your budget a little bit or industry, but I would say spend the extra money here as well and do something. They’re actually going to use cell phone chargers. Yeah? T shirts that people will actually want to wear, not they got to be cool T shirts. They can’t be like, you know, your all your garb and your low hopefully you have a cool logo. But, you know, even if you did, it can’t be like a big billboard, yeah? Make that small, but make it like T shirt. I can put it on go. I love this thing, right? Yes, we are wearing weird i We’re promoting swaggalicious Today, swag Alicia today. Yes, he is. We have brand new soft Frank and Maven hoodies. Hey, if you will, subscribe to the Maven Monday newsletter and comment. Hey, I subscribe. Everybody who subscribes and comments will be entered in a drawing for

Caleb Agee 13:40
a hoodie. It’s a hoodie, I guess it’s a hoodie. Yeah, it’s legit. It’s really nice. They

Brandon Welch 13:44
were expensive. Um, dog toys. Talk about the inside champion and the swag. What if you gave dog bones or something that people are going to think of, and you connected to their like, emotional thing, right? Um, a very practical, what, sorry, very practical water bottle or substantial drink where this is 50 pounds. I’m holding them in my hand right now. Yeah, this ain’t no cheap coffee mug. Gets thrown in the back. I have given these away for years, and there’s people we haven’t worked with for years. They they text me. I bet it happens every couple of weeks. Yeah, man, this is still my favorite mug. Oh, yeah. They’re either eating chilly out of it, or they’re drinking coffee talking to you, Sonia, talking to you, Ashley, they love it. And everybody loves a substantial thing. So go out of your way to find the substantial piece of swag. How about matches? We have, Frank and Maven matches. They’re

Caleb Agee 14:32
behind you over there. Yeah? We call it the perfect match. Yeah?

Brandon Welch 14:37
Candles, things that stick around a while. One of the things I did has been a big hit for a lot of our home improvement guys, is that we give them like a there’s this place we get a really good window cleaner from, and we have their label logo made and put on this window bottle. Think about how long a bottle of glass cleaner sticks around. Yeah, that’s great. Yes, yeah. Something with utility to it, and something that’s either cool. People, or they’re gonna talk about and it takes extra effort, but I promise you, it’s worth it. Caleb’s gonna tell you how we make awesome displays. This is number five. Number four, sticky swag. Number five is dynamic

Caleb Agee 15:11
displays. So you can go get a, you know, little vinyl banner with grommets in the corners and bungee cord that to the front of the table. Like

Brandon Welch 15:23
all 98 other people, like everybody else,

Caleb Agee 15:26
you put a stack of business cards, one behind you, on in the booth, and one on the front of the table, and or maybe you got a tablecloth. You we want a little fancier? Yeah, yeah. That would be a little much. But what we want is, we want you to have a display that stands out from the rest. Yes, and I know we’re talking about spending like we’re being honest. If we’re being honest, we’re talking about spending more money

Brandon Welch 15:50
than you probably trade show budget from 1500 to probably five to 10 grand. Yes, but hear me out.

Caleb Agee 15:55
Yeah, you need to do the math, and we can talk about this later, but you need to do the math. As far as if you can get five more customers to to convert, if you can get 10 more customers to convert, because you are making a difference. Is a big difference, a big change. As far as displays, there’s, they’re probably local sign companies in your area. You could also one online we use is Ace exhibits. They’re great. They’re really great. I think last I checked they do, you know, like, a three day turnaround on anything, and you can do overnight shipping. So a lot of a lot of businesses don’t plan ahead, and you get the one week notice. Hey, can we get this here? Yeah,

Brandon Welch 16:33
Las Vegas, like, when you show up to Las Vegas, everything, there’s nothing that doesn’t look amazing, right? Yeah, yeah. And you want to be the one that stands out. Everybody goes, I don’t know who that is, but they got it going on. Yes? Because here’s the thing, cheap displays attract cheap customers. You don’t want cheap customers. So it’ll make a cheap display. I’m saying ace exhibits, couple grand. You’re gonna have the biggest, baddest thing there. Yeah, you get stuff to hang from the ceiling. Use your imagination. But spend, and

Caleb Agee 17:01
if you invest in a good one, it’s gonna last a while. Take care of it, and that’s a one time expense. You’re

Brandon Welch 17:06
gonna buy that cheap $500 sorry, that $250 piece of vinyl, 10 times over, probably every year you do one. So buy a good one, six while you’re at it. Do a giveaway or a sweeps. Give away something cool. Hopefully it’s related to your product. Hopefully you can give a can give a part of your product experience away, like a new roof or, you know, gutters or whatever, and that way, the entry to the contest indicates interest, and that’s a list of people you can follow up with, yes, but you’re going to want to do, you know, obviously, click name, phone number, email to get in there, and then little box that checks permission to put them on your email list. Yeah, use your yesterday marketing tactics. You can find in the Maven marketer for doing that, yeah, but these become people that somehow get bonded to you because you gave them a little bit of emotional jolt by the excitement of being in something, yeah. You can just spin the wheel. Those are popular. You can do just the good old fashioned fish bowl. You could do a bowl. You can do a text to win software. You can find online, I like this one. You have a jingle. If you have a jingle, you can say, Come up here, sing our jingle, put them on Facebook, singing your jingle, and then do a like, like and share contest. Say, whoever gets the most likes and shares gets 1000 bucks saying our jingle. Yeah,

Caleb Agee 18:24
little social virality going on there, dude. It works really well a bit.

Brandon Welch 18:29
Oh my gosh, yeah. You get some three year old come up and sing your jingle, and then mom goes home and tells all the cousins and aunts and uncles. And now you got 97 people saying,

Caleb Agee 18:37
Mom shares it with all her friends who share it with all their friends. Oh, yeah, we

Brandon Welch 18:41
would charge a lot of money for that idea, but we just gave it to everybody for free. There you go. Yes, cool. That’s number six. Do a giveaway or sweeps. Last

Caleb Agee 18:49
hire, extroverts, higher extrovert we are talking about the people that can talk to a wall, not in an annoying way, talking to you, Mackenzie, talking to you, Mackenzie, I think that’s what she would say about herself. Um, she said about herself. Yeah, they need to not be sitting back in the booth behind the table with the table cloth, um, waiting for somebody to come to them. They are Hey, hey, hey. And there is a bubbly, excitable personality about them, because every single moment, every single impression with your company, yes, is something they’re going to take away from that. And if they’re like Eeyore, just well, I could get you a price if I came to your house. Mother’s got

Brandon Welch 19:32
to do it. Yeah. Might as well be me. Yeah. So yeah, do not. I mean, do not put your quiet, sweet receptionist in this like Lion’s Den of 1000s of people. It’s bad for her, bad for him, bad for you.

Caleb Agee 19:44
You can’t fake it for too long. Somebody. You probably can fake it for like an hour, yes. But after Red Bull wears off, after that tank runs out, then if that person is not enjoying what they’re doing talking to. 1000 people in a day, it will be so obvious on their face that they are not having fun anymore. I

Brandon Welch 20:04
peg the extrovert scale, and it’s even tough for me by about hour 10 or 12. So hire multiple extroverts would be this tip. And I will say this, we’re heavily endorsing trade shows as a tactic for most businesses. But if you do not have that extrovert, or if you cannot hire one, the worst thing you could do as a trade show, please don’t do it. It’ll be a negative impression on your business, and I’d rather see you put the effort somewhere else. Last thing all this means, do not leave your visitors without something, even if it’s just a smile. Make their life better, make them undeniably happier, more joyous or better feeling by having encountered you in person at whatever trade show event you’re doing, and you will build future tomorrow customers like we talked about, and you’ll attract the ones that are already ready to do something today. Yeah, that was the seven tactics.

Caleb Agee 21:00
Quick review. Number one, pay up for placement. Number two, give insider info. Three, win over the inside champion. Four,

Brandon Welch 21:08
buy sticky swag.

Caleb Agee 21:10
Five, get dynamic displays. Six, do a giveaway or sweeps. And seven, hire extroverts.

Brandon Welch 21:17
You guys are gonna have an awesome trade show. You’re gonna have an awesome year. We will be back here every Monday answering your real life marketing questions, because marketers who can’t teach you why

Caleb Agee 21:26
are just a fancy lie. Have a great week.