I get asked a lot whether or not it make sense to have a big booth at the N.A.R. Annual conference or any trade show for that matter.

First off I think the biggest mistake most vendors make is they don’t do anything to help drive traffic to their booth. They basically just show up with some swag and hope agents will pay attention to them. So, here are some simple tips to help you increase your ROI.

1. You need to have a hook.

In previous years I’ve had celebrities like Fabio and Richard Simmons at our booth. Agents loved them. But your hook doesn’t need to be celebrity. Sometimes you need to get creative. This year we are doing a ping pong themed event. We are challenging all agents to beat our CFO, Karl Ziegler, at ping pong to win free subscriptions to our software. Here’s a video that we put together.

2. Ted Turner is credited with the phrase, “Early to bed, early to rise, in-between…advertise!”. You gotta promote your hook. In our case we are doing a lot of social media (#BEATKARL). Plus we sent out postcards to all N.A.R. Annual attendees.

We are also cross matching that mailing list against our email database and following up with an email campaign to those same attendees.

If you can afford it, signage at the event can also help you draw attention to your booth.

***True story, I actually met Ted Turner once and asked him if he said the above phrase. He quipped back to me, “Well son, i would say, work like hell, and advertise!”***

3. Have a goal.
You need your sales team to have a goal. 400 signups? 100 solid leads. Something to keep their eye on the prize and motivated.

If anybody else has any other tips I’m sure everyone would love to hear them in the comments. Have a great show!