I attended the Land Trust Alliance’s national conference last week in Denver. My husband was speaking and I didn’t want to pass up Rocky Mountain hiking, so I decided to tag along and reserved a table-top display in the exhibit area.
This was the first time I had ever marketed my services at a trade show. It’s too early to tell if it was a success or not, but here are a few things I learned.
People like useful freebies. I gave away pens with my website on them. Of all of the information that I had on the table, people picked up more pens than anything else.
Appeal to the broadest audience possible. I created a free tip sheet about easy ways to market land trusts online. About half the people who took a pen took the tip sheet. My guess is that it was too specific. Something more general like how to create a quick and dirty marketing plan probably would have been more widely appealing than specifically focusing on online marketing.
Location, location, location. I decided to attend this event rather late in the game, and so my tabletop was not in the main flow of traffic. Decide early enough in advance that you will attend, so that you can reserve the best locations on the trade show floor.
Make display items visible from several feet away. Lots of people want to see what you have without having to talk to you. Make sure everything is either hanging on the display or is otherwise standing up. Information flat on the table can’t be seen by attendees unless they are standing right next to it.
Be there in the middle of the conference program. People straggled in the first day. Everyone was there the second day. People straggled out the last day. I’d say 90% of my contact with people came on that middle day.
Put on your outgoing, friendly face. Lots of people cruising the hall won’t initiate a conversation with you, but they will stop and chat if you are really friendly and ask them questions about themselves.
I offered a drawing of free e-courses, e-books, and wine to get business cards and will also add those people to my email newsletter list. I also offered free consulting sessions on-site to get a better sense for what people need. Both produced lots of contacts that I can use to prospect new clients this fall (if I have time).
Have you used trade show marketing for your freelance business? How did it go?
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Great tips, it may seem a little simple, but simplicity is nice and effective.