Driving Traffic to your Trade Show Booth

You spend a lot of money attending a conference or trade show. From the booth to travel, attendance fees and dinners in Vegas. The events are full of prime targets and you want to reach them, but so does everyone else at these shows. Everyone is screaming for attention before, during and after the show. So how do you break out of the crowd?

Before the last DMA show, I had two boxes overflowing with direct mail pieces sent to me before the show. As I was busy getting ready for the show, I only read two pieces. One was a innovative three-dimensional piece, the other was a brown paper lunch bag mailed via USPS.

We try to remember this lesson when designing trade show direct mail for our clients. We also try to ensure at least one of the following: a great offer, 3-D design that will stand out from the pack, and using personalization to attract attention.

Here's one we did for Intuit's Portfolio Minder product at a conference for Personal Financial Managers. Every year, Intuit attended this conference and gave out a free copy of their Quicken software. But they didn't promote it. If you've ever attended one of these conferences, you will know how many pieces of mail you get both before and after the event - begging you to come to their booth. We decided to make the free product give-away the star. And then used digital variable printing to stand out from the pack (notice the headline: 'John, come to booth....')

Here's another one we recently completed for eBay. They wanted to get Dealers to sit down with them at the conference. So we created a robust package that included a save the date card similar to the one you get at the dentist. The recipient could call an 800# to make an appointment and write down the details on the card. Then instead of carrying a bunch of collateral around the event, they just carried the card in their wallet. We sold out of spots before the event even happened!


The piece unfolded to tease the reveal

And here's a third one we did for Torani Syrup. Our Client, Torani, the maker of flavored syrups, wanted to introduce a new type of flavoring for industrial chefs at the annual industry trade show. We knew that most trend-making chefs are also into the music scene, so we produced a CD with songs 100% by Chefs in bands. We then sent the CD cover to attendees before hand – they had to visit the booth to pick up the CD. The CD included music by the bands and innovative recipes based on the new Torani syrup. The event was packed and we gave away all of the CDs.