How to Build a Sales Strategy for Event Staff
The era when event staff simply handed out brochures and passively waited for attendees to engage is a thing of the past. Today’s trade shows offer opportunities for active engagement and dynamic sales strategies, with each interaction significantly impacting overall event success. Experiential marketing events call for a distinct sales strategy that prioritizes personalization, enhances the attendee experience, engages in dynamic conversations, and focuses on building meaningful relationships. This blog delves into trade show exhibit staff training, offering valuable tips to empower your team and captivate your audience.
Why train event staff on sales strategies?
The role of event staff at trade shows and exhibitions is no longer limited to passive engagement. As the front-line representatives of your brand, they play a pivotal role in storytelling and creating connections between your brand and the audience. Trained staff understand how to interpret the needs and interests of attendees, turning casual browsers into genuine leads and customers. Constructive training in sales strategies gives your team the confidence to represent your brand’s values authentically and achieve tangible results.
Strategic training for your event staff offers several compelling benefits. First, it dramatically increases engagement at your event by equipping your team with the skills needed to initiate and sustain conversations, making every interaction count. Secondly, the training goes beyond idle chatter; it ensures that interactions are purposeful, aimed at converting more attendees into leads and sales. Lastly, a well-trained and engaging team contributes to your brand’s image, creating a lasting impression of expertise and approachability that enhances brand perception in the eyes of every visitor.
Sales Strategies Explained
Here’s how to build a sales strategy that makes every interaction count.
Identify Target Markets
Every event attracts a diverse crowd, but only a select few are the ideal customers. Identifying your target market serves as the initial step in crafting an effective sales strategy. Your staff can tailor their approach by understanding the demographics, needs, and preferences of your audience. Before the event, develop and analyze anticipated attendee personas. Use this information to customize the experience and communication style to meet different segments' needs and interests.
Develop a Value Proposition
A compelling value proposition clearly states why a prospect should choose your brand over the competition. In the bustling environment of a trade show, having a clear and impactful value proposition proves vital. Strive to make your message clear and concise for easy understanding and swift delivery.
Optimize the Sales Funnel
Mastering and refining the sales funnel in event settings signficantly boosts the efficiency of your sales process. Training your staff to guide prospects through this funnel–from awareness to decision–can notably improve sales outcomes. Staff must be trained to identify a prospect's stage in the sales process and guide them to the next step, all while ensuring a seamless brand experience.
Cross-Sell and Up-Sell
Enhancing your staff's skills in cross-selling and up-selling can significantly boost revenue opportunities at trade shows. This approach is particularly crucial in B2B settings where the sales cycles are longer and often more complex. Equip staff with the knowledge to understand and predict additional solutions the customer might need: craft immersive experiences and hands-on opportunities for attendees to learn the value of additional products or services.
Leverage Lead Capture Tools
A robust sales strategy hinges on the effective capture of leads. Lead capture tools play a crucial role in ensuring no potential customer slips through the cracks. While show-provided lead retrieval tools offer basic functionalities like badge scanning and survey qualifiers, they often fail to provide comprehensive lead capture capabilities.
A sophisticated lead capture tool like Hamilton inSIGHT® is invaluable for brands seeking more robust functionality. Hamilton inSIGHT, a proprietary solution, maximizes the value of every lead generated at your exhibit. Unlike basic tools, it facilitates capturing qualifying information from every visitor, no matter where they engage within the exhibit space. The system allows sales staff to use their own devices to efficiently transform exhibit interactions into qualified leads immediately formatted for CRM integration.
Hamilton inSIGHT is packed with advanced features that go beyond simple data collection. These include custom qualifiers that tailor the data captured to meet specific business needs, dynamic literature fulfillment to provide immediate value to exhibit visitors, photo capture for visual follow-ups, a lead progress meter to track engagement levels, voice-to-text notes for ease of information recording, and more. The tool can scale across an entire event program, allowing consistent data comparison regardless of the event organizer or venue. Seamlessly integrating with in-booth engagement activities, Hamilton inSIGHT ensures no valuable information goes overlooked, capturing every detail. The ultimate value of Hamilton inSIGHT lies in its capacity to gather detailed, actionable data that enables sales staff to nurture relationships long after the event concludes.
Build an Event Staff Sales Strategy with Hamilton
When you are ready to create a winning event sales strategy, Hamilton is here to help.
Hamilton is a full-service event marketing agency with a 75-year legacy creating immersive brand experiences for companies throughout North America and around the world. We design, produce, and execute integrated experiences – exhibits, events, environments, and digital solutions – that drive meaningful connections between your brand and your audience.
To develop an event staff sales strategy, contact Hamilton today!
Written by Lynne Damer, Hamilton Vice President – Strategy