The objective of everyone exhibiting at a trade show should be the same: to attract people to your stall in order to advertise your product or service, and hopefully make a few sales. However, everyone is going to be doing this. For attendees, it can be really easy to forget who you have talked to; and more importantly, what their business was.
Getting people to visit your stall is important, but not nearly as much as making sure they remember you. Not everyone is going to be making purchases on the day, so you need to make sure your contacts know exactly what your product or service is and why they should opt for you as a seller.
One of the best ways to improve people's memory is through repetition. If you can get people to come back to your stall after having visited once, you will occupy more space in their minds than the other stalls. But how can you encourage attendees to come back if they get all the information from you the first time around?
You need to give them an incentive to return. Typically, this will be a physical prize, as busy attendees will not want to come back to your stall for anything less. This can be something small, like a voucher for a free coffee or even just a chocolate bar. Alternatively, you could invest in a large prize and give out tickets to raffle it off to returning attendees.
Of course, you can't just say "come back later for a prize", as most attendees will wonder why they can't just have it now. Instead, you should give them something to do for it. Making a fun game out of getting people to come back to your stall can be a great idea.
You could do a photo scavenger hunt, for example. You could hide your company's logo around the venue, then get attendees to take photos of them when they see them using their phones. If they find five, they can have a prize.
You could also do this with people. Each attendee gets a badge or sticker with a certain symbol or number on, then they have to find the attendee with the same number. If they come back to the stall together, they both get a prize! This also encourages people to talk and network.
Of course, you have to be sensible with these games. If you force people to play them, they might end up thinking negatively of you and your business. Instead, keep them optional and lighthearted.
The other thing you can do to get people to return to your stall is to offer a time-sensitive deal. In other words, give everyone who orders anything from you between 4:00 and 5:00 a discount. Treat it as an 'end-of-conference sale', and you might find people return to get a good deal.
