Compelling is a relative term – keep in mind, graphics on trade show display are going to compel prospects, suspects and customers into your booth as opposed to allowing them to walk right on by. The goal of these graphics is not to be most informative or most colorful. You don’t have to have millions of photos, or so many product descriptions that your booth looks like alphabet soup. Good graphics consists of three ingredients: 1.Excellent (not good, excellent) photography of your product(s), or excellent photography of what I call men and women in motion; 2.Your logo or company name across top and/or large enough to be seen from across hall and 3.A features and benefits panel - a screened-back vertical rectangle containing at least three or four bullets with copy that translates most important features of your product(s) into benefits.

Let’s begin with photography. The standard approach to product photography at trade shows has always been as many photos as possible, typically several dozen images, all 8” x 10” mounted on foam board and Velcro® taped to display. It’s a time-honored tradition that couldn’t be more wrong. Instead, like so much other advertising, in trade show booth, less is more. Try using only four or five images that are at least 20” x 30”. Studies show you have about seven seconds to attract a customer walking past a trade show booth: making them squint at 20 photos in seven seconds will get you nowhere.

Larger photos are more compelling, more colorful and, when shot and displayed correctly, they will stop people in their tracks. I recommend working with a professional photographer for these images and taking advantage of a mural. While it will likely end up costing more than those product shots you took in warehouse with your new digital camera, you will see a noticeable difference in traffic to your booth. When finishing off your photos, mount them with pliable plastic coverings, not foam board, so they can be used over and over again without damage. Foam board ages quickly and there is nothing worse than a booth that looks like it’s seen one too many tradeshows.

Like good photography, displaying your company’s name and logo is simple and easy to do correctly, but often overlooked by first-time and seasoned exhibitors alike. The name/logo should be uppermost addition of display, running laterally and spanning length of your booth (at least 10 feet wide). It should be visible from far enough away that passers-by are not left wondering which booth they’re about to happen across.

Whether a small company or a large one with a sales force, leads that are always best are ones that are easy to close. But what about prospects that were reached but never closed? They are in an abyss - The Unclosed Sales Lead Abyss, technically speaking.

What are you doing to follow up? Are you following up? Do you have a fixed idea in mind about some time frame that those leads then become dead?

What does it cost you to get that lead? Let’s look at a hypothetical analysis:

•Postcard marketing experts will tell you to send out 5000 postcards. •It costs you $2000.00 to send out those postcards.

•Say you do that and you get 50 calls;

•That is $40.00 per lead.

The Return On Investment (ROI) of this example is as follows…

•You make $2000.00 off of every close.

•You close 20% out of those 50 calls (10 sales).

•You made $10, 000 less 2G’s for postcards = $8000.00.

That is decent Return On Investment (ROI), but what about 40 leads that never closed? That is $1600.00 sitting out there on table, spent with no return.

Now ask yourself, how many of your leads don’t close per month? Take that theoretical situation and multiply $1600 by other 11 months. That is a chunk of change that you are basically blowing.

Don’t get discouraged. Getting educated in marketing and determining your ROI is a major step in right direction. Great ROI is what you should be going for, but don’t stop there. There is more to sniff out.

So, what are you doing to get all of those that initially reached for your product or service?

How many phone calls do you make before you decide that a lead is “unclosable” – zero, two, three? Did you leave a message on their voice mail and they didn’t call back so you dropped them?

Most likely a one-man-band or a two to three-person operation is working harder than a sales force in following up on their leads. How many in a sales force are simply cherry picking their leads, so to speak, and not closing or following up with rest? How many of these dropped leads do you have built up? Can you see waste?

You need to follow up. Even if you didn’t get ROI you anticipated or needed, you still need to follow up. But how? More specifically, what kind of campaign should you do to get even more ROI? Good question. Here’s answer.

First of all, realize that these prospects reached for you, your product or service and you CAN rehabilitate that initial interest. They are much easier to close and more valuable than someone who has never shown interest in your product or service before. Build on that. You don’t now have to send out a mass mailing of postcards again to revitalize their interest – we’re only talking about 20 to 100 leads that need to be followed up with a catchy message each month.

Yes, they responded to a postcard (if that is what was sent) and will respond again if it is right communication. The same postcard may work, but what you are trying to do is send repeat communication to those initial “reachers” and word it in such a way that they will want to reach again. Send a direct mail postcard or an email or both – follow up with repeat mailings to that small cluster of people that is a different, more personal communication than what got them to reach first time.

What would that message be? When you get calls off of your initial mailing, get as much information as possible – cull data.

Have you ever heard of “Database Marketing” or “CRM” (Customer Relationship Management)? This means getting data about each one of those customers/leads and putting them in a database.

What is it that you need to find out? All kinds of things, such as, but not limited to:

1.How they found out about you in first place?

2.What kind of product they are looking for?