The purpose of promotional activities is to provide people with a compelling reason to show up to your booth at your next trade show. Effective promotions increase the quality of resulting leads, as well as the quantity of those leads. There are many ways to promote an event including: advertising in local newspapers or trade show publications, telemarketing, pre-show mailings, press relations, websites, sponsorships, and giveaways.
Pre-show mailings are a particularly effective promotional activity, but should never be used alone. To get the results you desire, you will need to do many of the activities listed above concurrently. When planning out a pre-show mailing, you should first decide which specific products, services, advantages, or benefits you want your audience to focus on. The primary purpose of pre-show mailings is to establish your unique position among the competition. Keep your letters simple and emphasize only one or two reasons why the recipient would want to come to your booth or event.
Now you must compile an appropriate pre-show mailing list. Your list should consist of current customers, past customers, and prospects. You can also purchase mailing lists, but there will be a smaller portion of interested people in these lists. After you have established your audience, you must tailor the information in your messages for them. The format, tone and style of your mailings will need to be different for certain groups. Depending on your audience, you may need to use colors, headlines, offers, coupons, or testimonials to grab their attention. Timing is of utmost importance when sending out promotional mail. If it is sent too early, they will forget about you and if it is sent too late, they may not read it before the event. To improve the efficacy of your mailings in the future, request that your recipients bring their letter to the event and you can record the tracking number that you placed on their letter. Once you know what type of people are responding to your mail, you will know what type of people to focus on in the future.
Giveaways are another extremely useful form of trade show promotion. You can integrate giveaways into your pre-show mailings to increase attendance. For example, send half of a desirable item in the mail, requesting that the recipient come to the event to pick up the other half. While using giveaways before a show can be helpful, they are best used during trade shows. Giving out promotional items at your event can increase booth traffic, provide contact information, increase brand awareness, show appreciation to existing customers, and create a unique, memorable experience. The item should be something most people would want and could use. You should also be able to print your contact information on the giveaways. Your company’s positive image should be reinforced by the giveaways and they should be different from other vendors’ items.
There are some other tips to remember when planning out your promotional giveaways. Buying in large quantities will cut down on unit costs, allowing your budget to absorb the expense more easily. However, depending on the nature of your business, you may want to buy fewer giveaway items of higher quality to make a good impression. Another important thing to remember is that different customers may need different giveaways, depending on their status as a prospect or their legitimacy as a lead. Give your cheapest items to those who are obviously just stopping to get something for free and give your quality items to those who may actually purchase your products or services.
