Conferences are educational, but unfortunately, there’s usually only enough time to scratch the surface of a topic. Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference (HITMC) leaders Colin Hung and John Lynn provided the opportunity to deep dive on the topic of pre-, during, and post-conference Engagement, at a Taste-of-HITMC event in New York City.

Local attendees from the HITMC community came together to brainstorm and discuss best practices for Exhibiting at conferences.

Bill Lauf of TradeTec Skyline presented on pre-conference engagement, Beth Cooper and Chintan Shah of KNB Communications presented on during-conference engagement, and I shared some insight on post-conference engagement.

Exhibiting is an excellent source of relationship-building and new business. If you’re not sure about exhibiting, remember that your competition is exhibiting, and they are closing the deals that could be yours:

77% of executive decision makers found at least one new supplier at the last show they attended.
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Some brilliant ideas and tips came out of that room, so I wanted to share my takeaways that are useful to conference exhibitors:

• Figure out your goals and objectives to make sure it’s worth going, and know exactly why you’re going.
• Make sure your booth has flair. Make the effort to stand out, or else you’ll get lost among the sea of booths.
• Figure out the cost per second of being at a conference.
• Add interactivity to your booth. This could be an ice cream bar, a game, or anything that is more than just handing out your collateral. Interactivity will engage the attendees, which will allow you to chat with them in a natural way. It’s a win-win!
• Less swag is better than more, believe it or not.
• Make your follow-up emails memorable. Don’t send generic, boring emails. Personalize them if possible, and/or have a unique call-to-action that will intrigue the receiver enough to respond.

Lots of effort goes into exhibiting at a conference or trade show, and you want to make sure it’s mutually beneficial for both you and the attendees.

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