SaaS North happened on November 16th and 17th, 2022 in Ottawa. vFairs was part of the event as a key exhibitor. The event has been a hub for SaaS founders and investors who are looking for rapid growth in their businesses.
This year, the vFairs team attended the in-person event at the Shaw Center in Ottawa, Canada and here’s everything that they learned from the event.
1: Company Branding Needs to be Everywhere
Events like SaaS North will get a large number of attendees and exhibitors from around the world trying to make their mark. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to understand the importance of branding throughout your booth.
No matter what type of booth you’re in, you need to put your brand’s colors and logo everywhere. Use standees, LED TVs, brochures, swag like tshirts, totes, etc., and any other medium to use your business’s branding materials. This type of marketing collateral can be memorable for event attendees and create a more lasting impact.
2: Keep Logos at Eye Level
Logo placement and positioning can be equally important as well. When an attendee is walking around in the main exhibit hall, they are likely going to look straight ahead at eye level. If your main booth backdrop with the company logo isn’t at eye level, they might miss it. By keeping it at eye level you can ensure maximum visibility to all attendees present.
3: Use the Event Tech Stack
The vFairs team was able to connect with potential leads and attendees through the event mobile app even before the live days. The mobile app enabled them to message other attendees at the event and find relevant profiles as their target audience.
This ensured timely connectivity with the most suitable attendees and helped sort out the persons of interest from the immense crowd. The booth reps were then able to try and set up meetings with the attendees they found through the mobile app.
4: Add Booth Swag
Booth swag can do more for you than you think. Even small items like a bowl of chocolates at the booth and stress balls for booth visitors can go a long way. The vFairs team also gave away branded tote bags, sweatshirts, and hoodies. Booth swag was able to instantly hype up the booth as some people showed up for the chocolate while others for the tote bags.
Swag at exhibit booths can help attract more people to your booth which in turn might mean more actionable leads collected from the event. Moreover, it helps people who visited your booth easily remember it later on. People using booth swag like totes or hoodies also means free advertisement and branding for you!
5: Remove Distractions
Your virtual booth should be all business and any distractions that don’t make sense are only going to waste attendee time. For example, booth games and swag are a great way to attract attendees to your booth, but they shouldn’t overpower your booth. The vFairs team made sure that their booths only had the necessary items and features that were required. Any items that seemed too distracting were removed to enhance the visitors’ experience.
6: Use Eye-Catching Graphics
The graphics you use at your booth can be important in the kind of messaging you’re trying to put across. You can put up booth banners and backdrops, run slideshows on the LED screens, and distribute printed flyers for attendees. The more attractive you can make your graphics, the better!
Moreover, the content is also equally important to the design. If you want to mention features, only mentioning more novel and prominent features will make sense. You can also make use of significant stats or mention impressive dashboard metrics to catch the attention of visitors at your booth.
7: Listen to Booth Visitors
Making booth attendees listen to you is important, but so is listening to them. You can make a good sales pitch great by mentioning solutions to the pain points of your customers. And one of the best ways to do that is to listen to the booth visitors coming to your booth. They’re already somewhat interested in your services, so now you just have to show them how you can solve their problems.
When listening to booth visitors, pay close attention to customers who mention any of your direct competitors. This can help you get more insight on why someone would choose them instead of you and vice versa. It can also help you prepare better for the next time someone mentions a competitor in casual conversation.
8: Focus on Attendee Interests
There are a lot of in-person interests happening all around but you don’t have to have a booth at every one of them. It is important to understand what kind of people will be attending the event, what their interests are, and what they’ll be looking out for. If attendee interests don’t match what you’re selling, then it can be a waste of your time.
So, before investing your time and money into setting up a booth at an in-person event make sure that your target audience will be attending it.
9: Take Advantage of Speaker Sessions
Most events like SaaS North will have plenty of guest speaker sessions and panel discussions that you can be a part of as an exhibitor. Make sure that you have enough people at the booth so everyone can take a break and explore other opportunities at the events. You shouldn’t miss out on any expert guest speaker sessions or workshops as they are great learning opportunities.
