Infosecurity Europe

is just around the corner and it's time to start thinking about how to pull in the crowds and get people to visit your exhibition stand. Gone are the days of the tall, leggy blondes to attract visitors - sponsorship contracts specifically don't allow this anymore! Thank goodness.

What are the alternatives and how do you turn an exciting idea into something that is actually relevant to your business? Here a few tips to drive traffic to your stand and initiate meaningful conversations: 

1. Share snippets of your content in advance and ask people to come to your stand for the full paper/book/presentation. 

2. Survey attendees at your stand. Rather than just promoting a competition to win the latest tech product, ask delegates to answer a few short questions. Their answers will help you start a conversation and give you an opportunity to pass the conversation on to sales if relevant. If you manage to gather enough responses, you can even share the findings though PR (free research, yay!) and in your email follow up.

3. Email existing customers that might be attending about your plans for the event and your stand details - friendly customers might bring their mates along to meet you. Infosec is after all the biggest IT security networking event of the year!

4. Drum up attention with media and bloggers before the event. Forget about fighting for column inches during the event or trying to pin down a journalist for a press briefing unless you have something big to talk about. Best to get your new product launches, new research and other security news out before the event to help drive interest in your company and increase footfall to your stand.

5. Develop a game, photo opp, drinks, food or a competition to create a buzz around your stand. The  key is to make sure it's fun, unique (but relevant!) with the hope that it will get out through word of mouth and drive traffic to your stand as well as social sharing.