ASE09 Meet Market Observations
Friday
Aug 21, 2009
Guest Post by Dominic Fawver.
During Affiliate Summit I visited both the Meet Market and the exposition hall to see the booths. I was impressed at how good some of the booths and tables were, and also at how bad some were. If I could recognize they were bad as a first time attendee, they must have stood out to veterans. Here are some general comments based upon my experiences.
- Have a banner behind the table, giving your name and hopefully an idea of what you are (network, merchant, etc.)
- Have a give away: this is something that will make people remember you later. It is even better if it ties in with your company name, slogan, or something of that nature. It never hurts to be unique.
- Have people at the booth (I would have assumed that was obvious).
- Be friendly (again, obvious).
- Don’t have several people working the crowd and handing out stuff (I got asked if I wanted Perfect English at least 10 times) and no one at the table.
- If you have a giveaway or are doing a contest make sure to enter people that come up in it. If there is a scanner make sure that all of the people working the booth know how to use it.
- Make sure that you are not crowding into the booth next to you.
- If your giveaway is beer make sure there is plenty of room for people (very good attention getter in my opinion, but a zoo if not handled right).
I would have thought most of these would be completely obvious, but I saw multiple examples of each. Companies are paying for these tables, so the focus should be optimizing the experience to bring in business, not turn it away. I was really impressed with adCanadian and how every little detail of their table tied into company branding – their banner, the sticker, the giveaway, their jersey – and they were really nice guys to boot (eh!). They created a positive, lasting impression, which is what you should be doing when representing the company at any conference or industry event. Keep these tips in mind when planning your own Meet Market table or booth for future conferences!
