Babies & Bumps
Tips and Tricks for Making the Most of Your Involvement
Build awareness for your business or organization.
- Our attendees don’t just take a quick walk through our event and leave, they make a day of it. Many visit the exhibitor hall multiple times as they wait for the next seminar or demonstration to begin. That means multiple opportunities to be seen by and engage with them.
- Earning their attention means making your table look fun, interesting, and inviting. You should think of your space as a combination of a billboard, a resource center, and an attraction. Don’t be afraid to stand out an express the fun side of your business!
Connect with attendees and tell your story.
- Our attendees are there to learn, have fun, and connect with the experts (that’s you!). The live, face-to-face interaction that occurs is something significantly more powerful than any form of advertising. That’s largely because you can change the conversation in real time, based on who you’re talking to, how they’re reacting, and what they say. Think of it as an ad that’s individually crafted for each prospective customer.
- Just be sure to invite that connection! Our most successful partners are the ones that smile, make eye contact, and proactively engage with attendees. Sitting at your table and hoping attendees will stop to engage is akin to watching the person who could be your next customer or referral walk by.
Learn about your customers and what they’re thinking, feeling, and buying.
- The interaction you have with attendees isn’t just an opportunity to tell your story, it’s an opportunity to learn theirs. When it comes to the business of pregnancy, birth, and parenting, your customer and the marketplace is constantly evolving. If you treat the conversations you have like an informal focus group, you can pick up on new insights that help you better position your business or even evolve your product or offering.
Make sales during and / or following the event.
- Our attendees include everyone from those who are still trying to conceive to those who’ve given birth in the past year or so. Depending on who your business or organization serves, not every attendee may be ready to purchase on event day. Our most successful partners love making a sale at the event, but they know the biggest potential may come in the subsequent months.
- Because of that, when you do make a connection with an attendee, make it an enduring one. For example, say you’re a swim school whose youngest students are 6-month-olds. If an attendee is in her first trimester of pregnancy, she may love you and your offering, but eligibility for your program is at least a year away. Plant the seed now by sharing information and generating excitement! And also make sure to be good about collecting contact information, along with notes on timing, so you can reach out months after Babies & Bumps to complete that sale.
- It’s also important to keep in mind that attendees are meeting with dozens of other organizations on event day, going to seminars, watching demonstrations, participating in activities, and more! It’s critical that you make sure they leave with plenty of information from you and ways to connect, and that you have meaningful follow-ups after meeting them.
Build referral and future business.
- One of the unfortunate mistakes our partners sometimes make is to assume if an attendee is past the point of needing what they offer — say you’re a birth doula and someone has already had their baby — that they aren’t a potential source of business. One of the things we’ve learned about our attendees is that they’re at the life stage where many of their friends are pregnant and having babies, too. Or, perhaps they plan to grow their family within the next couple of years. Take the opportunity to connect with every attendee possible, do your best to make a genuine and lasting impression, and don’t be afraid to ask for a referral!
Watch the Webinar!
While our event partners are always thrilled to see so many new and soon-to-be parents at our events, many can’t help but wonder if they could have done more to maximize their return on investment. And because our answer to that is always “yes,” we partnered with Dr. Kamaria Washington, PT, DPT of Pelvic Noir in Detroit to create a special webinar addressing what you can do before, during, and after a Babies & Bumps event to get the ROI you desire.
Dr. K was the perfect choice for this webinar because she not only experienced great results from attending our Detroit event to promote her pelvic health clinic, but she also offers business coaching through her company the Income & Impact School. We highly recommend all of our partners watch this webinar because it’s packed with great ideas on how get to the most from your participation!