It’s difficult to stand out in a crowded exhibit hall. There’s a art and science in finding the balance between what you spend at a conference and what actually motivates conference attendees to engage with your brand.
One of our sponsorship benefits at a recent conference was to put an item on each seat during a keynote session. We considered a premium item, like ear buds, or a collateral piece for this Chair Drop. We were struggling to come up with a cost-effective idea that would distinguish our brand from competitors and not end up in a landfill.
Then, I had a light bulb moment. For this particular group of prospects we were in the middle of a campaign using penguins, because penguins mate for life and we wanted potential clients to find their match (i.e. mate for life) in us.
What if we put a cardstock penguin at each seat with a number on the back? Those numbers would “match” to prizes at our booth, ranging from ear buds to Amazon gift cards. Prospects could come to our booth to be matched to their prize, and hopefully someday matched to us.
If nothing else, this would be more cost effective than putting ear buds or flash drives on 850 chairs.
My expectations were that less than 25% of conference attendees would come to our booth to “find their match”.