Conventions are and always will be one of the best ways to grow your brand, build your reputation, and generate new leads and opportunities moving forward. Regardless of the type of industry you currently operate in, you won’t have to look hard to find a convention that fits your needs. Conventions aren’t only excellent networking opportunities — they’re also a great way to attract the attention of potential new customers on a massive scale as everyone in attendance is already interested in products or services like the ones you offer. It’s always important to remember, however, that simply showing up to a convention won’t be enough. If you want to generate the maximum amount of foot traffic to your booth, you’ll need to keep a few key things in mind.

Make Sure People Can Find You

When you sign up for a booth at a convention, you’ll likely be given a location by the people organizing the event. This will not only be your own little corner of the event to carve out and do with what you please, but will also be the main way people will find you during the show. The booth number you’re given by the convention organizers will be printed in the program that’s handed out when people file through the door.

One of the keys to generating foot traffic involves making sure people can find you in the first place. Remember that you’ll likely be packed in a section with potentially dozens of other businesses, all fighting for the attention of the people walking by. Things can quickly feel overwhelming for convention attendees with so much going on, so sometimes finding a vendor based on booth number alone is a lot easier said than done. The layout of the convention itself may also make this difficult, especially if sections aren’t numbered in any type of logical way.

As a result, you’ll want to make sure you have at least one element (like an oversized banner or large poster) that clearly displays your company’s name so people can find you, even if they’ve already gotten lost along the way. Make sure you place it as high above your booth as possible, so people can see it from several aisles away if necessary. Many times, you’ll find that just making yourself visible makes a big difference in improving foot traffic to your booth.

Make Sure Your Staff Is Friendly and Approachable

Once people do find you, one of the easiest ways to scare them away is to have people behind your booth who seem like they don’t actually want to be there. Conventions are tough on everybody, but can especially be tough on vendors. You’re constantly under the gun to set up your booth, deal with your neighbors, make sure all your materials are in order and more. Your staff will definitely be stressed out, but the key is to make sure they never come off that way. Everyone who walks up to your booth should always be greeted with a friendly smile and a sunny disposition. If they’re greeted with a negative attitude, rest assured your booth WILL develop a negative reputation that will spread around the convention center as the event goes on.

Conventions are excellent opportunities to grow your business — provided you’re approaching things from the right perspective. Remember, reputation alone will never guarantee convention success. Your reputation will only take you so far. You need to go out of your way to be as warm and inviting as possible to unlock the full business potential of these types of events.

When people set out to create compelling print marketing materials for their business, they normally (and appropriately) devote a lot of attention to the types of elements that will attract new customers. Obviously, the design of that print direct mail brochure is key because it will always be someone’s first exposure to the brand. However, many people fail to pay enough attention to another area that is equally important: in-store signage. Remember, just because someone is already in your store doesn’t mean the marketing machine can take the afternoon off. When it comes to designing the types of in-store signs your customers can’t help but notice, there are a few key things you’ll need to keep in mind.

Keep It Simple

If you’re designing print marketing materials to send out into the world, one of your instincts may be to try to pack as much helpful information into those materials as possible. After all, you can only have one first impression, so you need to make it a good one. When it comes to in-store signage, however, you’ll have better results if you dial back your instincts a bit and keep things as short and as sweet as possible.

Think about the language you’re using on in-store signs the same way you would the headline in a newspaper. The brochures and other documents you’re sending out into the world are like the newspaper articles themselves — they contain all of the information required to answer any questions the customer may have and guide them further down the sales funnel. In-store signs are the headlines — they give you just enough information to help you in that moment, but they don’t try to tell the whole story.

It’s All About the Focus

Because so much of your marketing focuses on selling yourself, it’s natural for that instinct to carry over into the world of in-store signage, too. It’s easy to forget you already have the customer right where you want them. Now it’s up to the products (or, more specifically, the way you’re showcasing those products) to finish the job.

Your in-store signage needs to showcase not only what a product might do, but why someone might need it. Your signs should sell people on the benefits of what you’re offering, not necessarily on your brand. For maximum effectiveness, use your signs to provide quick answers to questions like “What can product X do for me?” and “Why will product Y make my day easier?”

Above all else, there’s one key term you always need to keep in mind when designing in-store signs: compelling. If the types of signs you’re creating are always compelling and are always created with the best interest of your customers in mind, they will succeed on multiple levels. Not only will they immediately attract the attention of anyone who looks at them, but they will also add to the overall value of the experience customers are having in your store. Good signage can help turn first time customers into repeat customers in the long run.

Like any business, you probably use a wide range of marketing materials in an attempt to spread your message far and wide. Even though you rely heavily on the print techniques that have worked so well in the past, you’ve probably also branched out into the wonderful world of social media and digital marketing. But one marketing opportunity remains largely untapped by many businesses. That opportunity is the trade show, which brings with it a wide range of opportunities you can’t ignore.

There Are Few Better Ways to Engage Than at a Trade Show

One challenge of any marketing campaign is grabbing the attention of your target audience. In a lot of cases, those who receive your mailers or who see your posts on social media aren’t necessarily looking for your particular product or service at that time, which means you not only have to grab hold of their attention in a meaningful way, but you also need to do whatever it takes to maintain their attention until they are ready to buy.

In contrast, a trade show is essentially the exact opposite situation. Trade shows, by their very nature, are designed to bring both consumers and businesses together in a venue where interaction is the name of the game. You don’t have to struggle to grab their attention — they’ve shown they’re already willing to give it to you just by walking through the door. As a result, trade shows are excellent opportunities to create lasting impressions.

Trade Shows Are Amazingly Effective at Generating Leads

If you want a clear-cut example of just how big an opportunity your next trade show is, look no further than the number of attendees. The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, for example, brings in over 150,000 people on an annual basis. Even niche shows like the San Diego Comic Book Convention, which is a bit of a mecca for all things entertainment and pop culture, draws over 100,000 people (and growing) annually.

This represents a massive opportunity for generating leads you literally won’t find anywhere else. Every single person who walks through the door is a potential lead just waiting to do business with somebody like you.

Everyone Has an Equal Voice at a Trade Show

Perhaps the most important benefit of trade shows, however, is one of equality. A company with $1,000,000 to spend on marketing materials and a company with only $1,000 to spend are essentially on completely equal ground. If you can make a solid presentation and have your booth staffed with helpful materials and the right employees, you’ll attract visitors who will stop and hear what you have to say.

From the lasting impressions they tend create to the face-to-face encounters you just won’t find anywhere else, trade shows are truly an excellent opportunity to reach new customers. There are few better venues for finding like-minded individuals who are already interested in your particular industry. If you play your cards right, practice brand consistency, and put your best foot forward, you’ll discover trade shows are an investment that can pay dividends for a lifetime.

If you want to see a clear-cut example of the power of marketing in action, look no further than the trailers released into cinemas each weekend for the latest Hollywood blockbusters. Nowadays, many feature films cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, so a trailer needs to fire on every last cylinder in order to help that film succeed. Because of the high stakes involved, there’s actually quite a bit we can learn from successful movie trailers in planning our own marketing campaigns.

Consistency is Key When it Comes to Your Brand

There’s perhaps no more perfect example of the power of consistency in branding today than Marvel Studios. The company’s films include such successful titles as The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor: The Dark World, and Iron Man 3. Marvel keeps churning out hit after hit, and the studio has learned how to leverage the power of its brand in a pretty interesting way.

For Marvel, it all begins with the Marvel Studios logo. Every single trailer for every single Marvel film begins with the Marvel Studios branding. Even the title cards on these previews don’t say "From the Director of X" or "From the Producer of Y." Instead, they say, "From the Studio That Brought You The Avengers." What Marvel’s doing is making their own brand synonymous with the type of quality entertainment people are coming in droves to see. They’re making Marvel Studios a more powerful brand than the characters in the films, the stars of the films, and even the filmmakers themselves. Pretty soon, it won’t matter which movie features which character. As long as it says Marvel Studios on the front, people are going to go.

In many ways, your brand is the most powerful marketing tool you have — even more powerful than the products or services you provide. If you can turn your brand into one that people can’t help but pay attention to through marketing consistency, your bottom line will benefit.

Leave Them Wanting More

Another important marketing lesson you can learn from movie previews is the idea of "always leave them wanting more." A movie trailer should never show all of the best parts of the film. Yes, it should show some of them, but not all. The best trailers leave audiences excited for a film and confident they’ll find a whole lot more waiting for them when they go to see it.

Your marketing materials should be the same way. People should get a general idea of the benefits your products or services provide and a desire to experience those benefits firsthand. Your marketing can never recreate the feeling of joy customers get when they start using your products, but it can get them excited about giving those products a try.

Marketing lessons can be found in the unlikeliest of places — even at the cinema on a weekend excursion with your friends or loved ones. Sure, you’ll probably never make a Hollywood feature film and don’t have hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, but you can still learn a lot just by paying attention to the way movie studios attempt to sell you on the next big blockbuster coming soon to a theater near you.