Let’s say you’ve found a trade show, convention or meeting at which a large number of your potential buyers are going to show up.

Furthermore, you can afford it, it is scheduled at a time when you can attend and you have or can get adequate help to man the show.

By the way, any new marketing is experimental. You don’t know till you’ve given it an adequate try if it will work for you. So don’t try a new marketing scheme with your last dollar or one which just HAS to work or else.

So, what’s next? What’s the first thing you MUST do at a trade show to make a success of it?

You have to stop people.

The typical show has so many exhibitors that there is no way a visitor can adequately inspect and evaluate every one as to whether they are selling something of interest. In fact, after a while, many visitors don’t even try. They walk the aisles on auto-pilot, waiting for something to grab their attention.

So your booth display and what you do with it has as its first target, to grab eyeballs.

Sheer size and superior location of a booth certainly help, but that can be expensive. Motion can be effective (as with moving parts of a display or with video). Tricks such as free popcorn (the odor attracts people from everywhere) and beautiful women often work.

The most basic (and usually least expensive and easiest) way to attract attention is with dramatic, different and colorful displays.

An effective display doesn’t necessarily even cost more than a lousy one. But you do have to start out knowing that is what you are going for. It helps if you have an idea what other exhibitors are doing.

In evaulating a potential design you have to imagine yourself in the shoes of a prospector buyer at the show, and ask yourself if that display would make you stop and look closer? If it does, you’ve accomplished the first step of the formula to successful marketing.