Q: How much time in advance should you start marketing your trade show appearance?
A: It all depends on the size of the show. If 100,000 attendees are expected to attend, you want to start thinking of the timeline for communicating to prospects that you’ll be there as soon as you get the list from the trade show organizer. Start putting emails together or a script for phone calls.

Brooke Maynard is the senior director of marketing at Validity, a global provider of data integrity and compliance offerings. The company assists thousands of organizations in making better decisions that drive more leads, close more deals and continue growth. An expert email and trade show marketer, Maynard has insight into maximizing lead acquisition during the trade show season.

Q: What’s the best way to reach potential customers about the upcoming trade show?
A: You want to engage with them socially. Promote early that you’ll be at the event. A hashtag creates a thread, so have everyone follow it to see who else will be there. We’ve seen great results from taking pictures and posting snippets from trade show speakers sharing helpful tips for people who aren’t at the show.

Q: What information is crucial to entice attendees?
A: Find out your booth number and whether you’re in a separate hall or specific location. Include your social media accounts and any kind of hashtag you want followers using. Talk about your value proposition, why it’s important for you to be there and maybe a new product you want to show. Then you want to turn the conversation around into how you can help your potential customer.

Q: Once the show is underway, how can you create buzz for your booth?
A: Do a giveaway every one or two hours. Promote it beforehand so people come to your booth. It’s a really good engagement tool and we’ve had consistent traffic at our booth because of it. Also, don’t just wait for people to come to you. Stand out there and welcome them. Ask if you can tag them in photos on social media.

Q: How many new products should you display?
A: You want to have a decent number, whether physically at the booth or available to show online. Don’t have people working at your booth who can’t talk about every product. Make sure they’re well equipped to have conversations about all different products and that they steer the conversation to the newest one. You also want to evaluate what your visitors’ needs are so you can service them as best you can.