Question

Topic: Strategy

Tradeshow Attraction Ideas

Posted by Anonymous on 9/13/2013 at 2:52 PM ET 250 Points
We are a heavy & medium duty truck dealer (over the road semi's and firetrucks, box van body trucks, grain trucks etc). Recently we have stated attending more and more tradeshows and vendor shows.

We are looking for creative ways to attract attendees to our booth - and would love your input! Sometimes booths are located inside with an 8' table - other times they are outdoors in larger spaces - so we aren't just tied down to a particular size.

We are open to any thoughts or suggestions that you may have. Thanks for your help!
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  • Posted on 9/13/2013 at 3:16 PM Accepted
    Think of a smart swag to give away, and send an email to your potential audience couple days before the show. The swag has to be of real value, doesn't need to worth a lot of money but has to be attractive. i.e. $5 Starbucks card, but word it as "Free Starbucks Latte for your afternoon".

    We also do "come drop of your business card to win a trip to San Francisco", not really innovative, but it works. Be sure to do a email blast days before the show.

    Or, do "come pick up a case study of current industry trend" eMail.
  • Posted on 9/13/2013 at 4:01 PM Accepted
    We've had success with giving away a large flat screen tv that we are demoing our B2B software product on.

    We ship it to the show, use it in the booth, then draw the winner at the show and ship it to the recipient. A bit low tech yes, but everyone else is giving away a mini at the shows we go to so we are doing something different.

    Definitely promote it too.
  • Posted on 9/16/2013 at 9:44 AM Author
    We aren't necessarily looking to give something away. We tried that at the State Fair a few weeks ago. We gave away a Big Green Egg Grill that was valued at $1000. In the 11 Days of the fair we only had 329 register for the Egg, with 35 of those marking down that they would be interested in getting promotions from us.

    We are looking more for a game - or something that would catch people's attention. I went out to a farm show last week - Ia community college had an Engine Build competition going on in their booth that attracted quite a crowd - and was memorable. I know we can't do an Engine Build - but I'm looking for a similar and memorable "WOW" effect.
  • Posted by Moriarty on 9/16/2013 at 10:24 AM Accepted
    hi there, I have a few ideas. I don't know if they'll work as they haven't been tested.

    My thoughts run to what lorries are used for. Namely, delivering goods. You could have a game where the player has to pick up and deliver things from various places in a given time. It's a kind of logistical car-theft game where you drive the lorry around. Does this seem the sort of thing that might interest people? It's not your engine teardown, it is at least something to do with your biz. It needn't be complex, it could use the Google maps technology that already exists - you'd need to see what was possible with a developer.

    There's a simple game at the Railway museum where waggons go down a shunting yard and you have to get them in the right place by switching the rails. I couldn't get my kids away from it and they were both in their twenties.

    You could have plastic lorries as prizes ...

    Station a fire truck outside and (if allowed) give rides in the long arm where the crew sit.

    You could have a competition to change a wheel on a lorry, an engine teardown knockoff ;-) Mind you, the machines they use to undo wheelnuts are pretty noisy. You'd have to work out how to do it with hand operated spanners.

  • Posted by Moriarty on 9/16/2013 at 10:33 AM Member
    Of course you could just paint a few boxes to look like city blocks and have little radio-controlled lorries running around a city plan. They'd have to go somewhere, come back or whatever. Timed or racing in threes?
  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 9/16/2013 at 11:24 AM Accepted
    Create a photo opportunity, perhaps using a green screen, to have people appear sitting in their favorite truck. Email them their photo (a good reason to get their contact info). The theme: "How would you look in one of our trucks?"
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