How I Marketed My Trade Show Booth Like A Man

ICON15 has come and gone and we have the proof of its success.

Part of the reason for the success of the booth is how I marketed it via the insert that came with the booth sponsorship.

To understand how it make an impact you must first see what my competition was doing.

Related Post: Market Like a Man on The Sales Podcast

Below are the handouts that were included in the Infusionsoft ICON15 welcome kit last week.

What you can’t see are the pens, sticky pads, lip balm, and other tidbits and nuggets that added even more weight and distractions to my bag.

Additionally, each attendee would add to their bag as they visited various booths and picked up the goodies they may have been offering such as T-shirts, business cards, coupons, supplemental handouts, etc.

Are these handouts right? Wrong? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

To arrive at the correct answer we must go back a few years—er, decades—to listen to a man by the name of Robert Collier.

My 1948 edition of his classic “Secret of the Ages” is a treasured item that I would include in the short list of items I’d grab if my home caught fire.

But Collier’s advice is to “enter the conversation going on in the mind of the prospect.”

In looking at all of the handouts, which of them achieves that goal?

Here is what I gave attendees to “get their attention.”

As you can see, this flyer is not subtle.

Neither is it cluttered.

It stands out.

There is lots of space with powerful imagery and a clear, consistent logo.

It pissed some people off as you can see in this Facebook rant by a self-admitted feminist whose friends miss Gloria Steinem…

The woman who felt slighted would be well-served to learn Point 3 in my “7 Social Media Sales Success Secrets.”

The results?

Eight days into the month of April we’ve processed 51 orders for a total of $5,537.64. We did 10 on the first day of ICON15, which was March 31 for a total of $935.78.

*I discovered on Day Two that Barnes and Noble had taken it upon themselves to stock my two books in their conference store unbeknownst to me.

That ended up slashing my book sales by about 60%, which will slow down the ROI on my booth, but it was a success nonetheless.

To the credit of B&N, they carried the books of all of the speakers at ICON15 as a favor to the speakers.

However, I was the only one speaker with a book and a booth who was selling the books at his booth!

So we need to sort that out next year.

Having people see my book at the B&N bookstore is a nice credibility bump but I make more money when I sell it myself and I get to follow-up with those people since they are in my Infusionsoft system.

Despite that little glitch, I’ll still realize a positive ROI on the booth as we carry the momentum of the event and follow-up with the 137 visitors that asked us to scan their badge and work with them on automating their sales and marketing.

The point in all of this is to be bold and to be clear in your marketing message.

Be willing to do what it takes to stand out and be memorable.

Be willing to ruffle some feathers if you have to and have a process in place to capture leads,

Now go sell something.