Trade shows offer a unique opportunity to converse directly with prospects and customers. However, mere conversations may not create enough value for exhibitors to achieve their trade show goals. Adding interactive engagement boosts results in many ways.
Some exhibitors cling to the outdated notion that interactive engagement is merely a nice-to-have addition to their trade show exhibiting program – a bit of fun, but not necessary.
However, in today’s trade show world, where internet-informed attendees are choosier about which exhibitors they visit, integrating interactive engagement into your exhibits is a strategic imperative that generates more traffic and strengthens relationships, brand, competitiveness, and ultimately, ROI. And with more exhibitors leveraging interactive engagement, those who don’t are left behind.
What is interactive engagement?
Interactive engagement transforms your exhibit from a static display to a dynamic experience. It refers to the use of tools, technologies and activities in your exhibit that go beyond passive observation and simple conversations between attendees and exhibit staff. Interactive engagement encourages visitors to interact with products, content, or brand representatives to create memorable hands-on experiences that foster stronger emotional and physical connections with your brand and products.
For example, here are a few tools and activities exhibitors use to boost interactive engagement:
- Product Demos (With working products in real world settings)
- Tech-Driven Engagement (Touch-screen apps, AR, VR, RFID, Holograms)
- Gamification & Challenges (Time trials, contest leaderboards, prize drawings)
- Customization & Creation (Avatar generators, build a swag kit, customized 3D prints)
- Live & Social Engagement (In-booth polls displayed live, interviewing clients and influencers)
Here are 5 benefits of interactive engagement for trade show exhibitors:
1. Increase Exhibit Traffic
Too often, weary trade show attendees will simply walk past dull, static exhibits that don’t provide a strong enough enticement to enter. However, exhibits that add interactive and engaging activities pull in more attendees, because:
- Movement Attracts the Eye: People are hard-wired to pay attention to movement, for survival to detect predators and prey, and socially to interpret intentions and emotions.
- Attendees Like Fun & New: Trade show attendees want a break from the drudgery of walking down countless aisles. They seek novel discovery to break up the monotony. Your games and activities provide that.
- Nothing Attracts a Crowd Like a Crowd: When people in the aisle see a gathering of attendees having a good time in your exhibit, that will spark interest to stop and see what all the fuss is about. Some will fear missing out of the fun. Some will like what they see, and join in.
2. Increase Dwell Time
Interactive engagement can be entertaining and engrossing, keeping attendees in your exhibit longer than they would otherwise. And that matters, because visitors who spend more time in your exhibit will:
- Develop Deeper Relationships: The longer you host attendees, the more conversations they have, the better they get to know and trust your exhibit staff, and by extension, your company.
- Avoid Your Competitors: Attendees only have so much time they will dedicate to walking the show floor. If they spent so much time in your booth that they skipped visiting your competitor, that’s a win.
- Move Further in the Buying Cycle: Visitors who stay longer can move further in the buying cycle, which goes from Awareness to Consideration to Intent to Purchase to Loyalty & Advocacy. So, an attendee who just became aware of your product may now indicate consideration by asking for a post-show meeting. Or a visitor who entered considering your products decides after engaging with your staff that they now intend to buy from you.
- Discover More of What You Offer: Many existing customers won’t visit your exhibit since they feel they already know you. A fun activation will bring them in, giving you a chance to deepen the relationship and cross sell other products or services.
3. Elevate Your Brand
Interactive engagement is not just fun and games: these tools and activities offer multi-sensory experiences that educate attendees about products and services, deepen brand understanding and drive purchase decisions, because you will:
- Boost Impact: Your interactive engagements can reinforce your main messages by engaging more senses and increasing visitor attention.
- Increase Memorability: After the trade show is over, attendees will forget much of what they have seen – but they are more likely to remember what they experience with your interactive engagement.
- Modernize Your Brand: Many interactive engagements are powered by technology, such as touch screen and smartphone apps, virtual and augmented reality, RFID, and holograms. Engaging your visitors with technology extends the aura of tech to your brand and can make your company more relevant and innovative to buyers.
4. Educate Your Buyers
Almost all trade show attendees come to learn. That doesn’t mean they come to be bored. Interactive engagement offers a more interesting way to teach your prospects about your company, products and services. Here are several ways you can educate buyers in your exhibit with greater interactivity:
- Technology: A touch screen app, or AR, VR, RFID, or video can make the experience of learning about your products more appealing than simply reading a brochure. Tech can also enhance the rest of the education strategies listed below.
- Product Activities: Attendees learn more about your products when you get them hands-on with interactive demos or tutorials, or let them physically or virtually build your product themselves.
- Playing Games: Motivate attendees with a fun game and a chance to win a prize to learn more about your products.
- Audience Participation Activities: Turn feedback from attendees into live exhibit content, with activations like on-the-spot quizzes and polling, interactive word murals or infographics, and group Q&A sessions.
- One-on-One Strategy Sessions: Use your in-house experts to offer highly relevant insights tailored to each visitor’s situation and needs.
5. Spark More Social Media Sharing
Intriguing exhibit activities motivate visiting attendees to whip out their smartphones, take a pic or video, and click share, amplifying your reach beyond the show floor. Consider interactive engagements such as:
- Instagrammable Settings or Backdrops: With vibrant visuals and fun props, attendees line up for group photos that you or they can share on social.
- Live Interview Station for Industry Influencers: Position your exhibit as the media hub of the show to strengthen relationships with influencers and be seen in their feeds.
- Reward Social Media Sharing: Encourage attendees to complete fun branded actions and tag your company, with a contest for recognition or prizes.
Interactive Experiences Improve Your Trade Show ROI
You already invest considerably in exhibit space to reach valuable clients and prospects. Then, you build, ship, and install an exhibit to represent your brand. Plus, you fly in and house a team of exhibit staff to speak with attendees. That’s the vast majority of your trade show budget.
However, when you add interactive engagement, you attract more attendees, keep them in your exhibit longer, move them further along the buying cycle, better educate them about your company brand, and encourage more social sharing.
Adding interactive engagement is more than simply adding fun — it multiplies the potential value of all your other trade show investments, by getting the most out of your valuable face time with attendees.
Give your exhibit visitors interactive, customer-focused activities and experiences, and they will reward you with their time, attention, and business.