5 Tips on how to profit from a wedding show booth

It's wedding show season, am I right?   From now until about mid April you'll see that most wedding vendors are putting their marketing effort into creating fantastic bridal event booths...and for good reason.

Bridal show booths can bring in a ton of business.  I heard of one wedding venue who booked 94 weddings from one show.  So how do you make it so that you're booking 94 weddings from one show?

Here are some tips:

1- Stand Outside your Booth
Running a wedding show booth is like selling peanuts to baseball game goers. If you step out into the crowd and yell "Peanuts"  the chances of making a sale increase tremendously. So just because a counter or a table separates you from the flood of passerby, don't feel like it's a barrier you can't cross.

2- Learn to Read Brides
After you've learned how to work a wedding show booth, you'll start to figure people out. You'll be able to tell the difference between a mildly-interested passerby and someone who is genuinely thinking about making a purchase. Don't waste your time with a lengthy sales pitch who doesn't seem impressed; instead, focus your energy on people who might actually buy.

3- Forget About Sales
When you're working a trade show booth, you might be swept up in the idea of commerce and too readily assume that you have to make sales right now. The purpose of a trade show is to inform brides about your business, and to plant the idea of future sales. Give them a way to contact you in the future, and don't try to pressure people into making impulse buys.

4- Keep People Around
This goes hand-in-hand with the last tip. Even if you aren't focused on making sales today, don't push people away from your booth as soon as you realize that they're just browsing. Instead, engage them in conversation---about their kids, their businesses, their favorite movies; it doesn't matter. The point is that more people will approach if they see a large crowd at your trade show booth.


5-  FOLLOW UP AFTER THE SHOW IS OVER
For those of you wedding vendors who have just come from working a wedding show ask yourself; "What do I do with these leads?"  The worse thing you can do is let those leads go cold.  If you don't already have a way to send out blast emails (Constant Contact is my favorite) then go out right now...yes, stop reading this post, and go sign up for one.  Upload your lead list, create an email and send it out to those brides.  You should do this NO LATER than 5-7 days after the show.  Staying on the brides radar who were interested enough to sign up for more info at your booth is the most important thing you should do after a wedding show.

If you need help with those wedding show lead lists and setting up a blast email software program give us a call at 1-800-431-4628.  We're here to help!