One of the key elements, critical to your trade show success, is your booth staff. During the event, it’s the booth staff that interacts with your attendees and carries the responsibility to turn attendees into qualified leads and buyers. Therefore, you need to carefully select people who can effectively represent your brand, products and services.
When it comes to staffing your trade show, several factors should be considered. You can include your company employees or you can hire professionals from a trade show staffing agency.
We’ll be going over the advantages of both options in this post, so you can make an informed decision.
Advantages of Hiring Trade Show Professionals
- Trade show professionals are hired based on how dynamic, passionate and friendly they are.
- They have extensive knowledge of sales and marketing.
- They have relevant experience in effectively interact with attendees on a trade show floor.
- They are trained to handle huge number of people and stay on their feet for long hours.
- They are already groomed and trained in booth etiquette.
The main disadvantage is in initial cost. Getting in-house staff to run the booth will likely be much cheaper than hiring through an agency. However, total cost and ROI will swing it back in an agency’s favour. Training time, and inexperience means that your in-house staff will likely struggle to match the results of agency-hired staff.
Advantages of Having Company Employees as Booth Staff
- Employees have a prior knowledge of your brand, products and services.
- Employees can better answer technical questions regarding your products.
Disadvantages
- Employees may have a lot of knowledge about your products, but they may not be good public speakers.
- They may have a sales and marketing background, but they may lack the qualities of handling the chaotic environment of a trade show.
- They may have to be properly groomed for a trade show environment.
What Comprises an Ideal Team for Trade Show Booth?
Your ideal team should be able to serve the needs of your targeted visitors. The best candidates will have an excellent understanding of your products, brand message, superior communication and exceptional customer service skills. Having a mixed team of company employees and trade show professionals is the best solution. You can team up an internal candidate and a agency professional for each of your booth zones so that the combined skills of both can give you maximum results. Just make sure you hold training and briefing sessions before the event.
Ideal trade show booth members can function equally well as your brand ambassadors, booth demonstrators and lead generators. Prepare your team with the right candidates to maximize your trade show ROI.
