Photo Booth Rentals For Conventions And Trade Shows
The same type of photo booths you've seen at the mall can be used at trade shows and conventions. Many party rental companies rent photo booths for use at weddings and other social events. But a master marketer should realize that putting a free photo booth in your exhibit space is an excellent way to increase your foot traffic, spark conversation with prospects, and generate general warm fuzzy feelings about your brand. Further, if you know what to look for, a photo booth rental can actually give you much more than that. Modern photo booths take advantage of technology to spread your brand or message, and collect information from prospects. Some will even collect video testimonials about your product.
Make sure any photo booth rental is capable of putting your message on the photo strips. Better photo booths will even allow you to design a postcard with your branding all over it. In my opinion, this is the way to go. People loose the swag given out at shows. Free pens get used up or lost. T-shirts fade. But people generally keep photos forever. Imagine your message pinned to your prospect's refrigerators for 10 years. Be sure to ask if the rental company charges extra for the design work.
Some photo booths will allow users to email themselves their photos. They simply enter their email address and the booth sends them an email with your custom message along with the images attached. Booths that do this are capable of storing the user's email addresses to use for your marketing purposes later. It's great way to fill your lead list. Since you're giving them something for free, there's no ill will about collecting the email address and using it. Just make sure you use a professional email service like Constant Contact to allow users to un-subscribe if they wish.
The most advanced booths allow users post their photos to their Facebook accounts right from the booth. If you are advertising at a trade show, imagine having your message show up in the Facebook news feeds of professionals in your industry. People almost always have colleagues from their same industry in their Facebook friends list. If they are doing something goofy in the picture, the picture will spread even further as people hit the "Like" button.
If people at the convention have already used your product, why not collect some video testimonials about it? A video capable booth will do this for you, as long as you have someone there to coach the users through it. I recommend using specific questions to make it easier on them. For example "when was the last time you used my product?" Or "how has my product changed the way you do business?" Post the best videos to a YouTube channel, and embed them on your site. As an added bonus, having a YouTube channel associated with your brand and web site will help your search engine rankings. Google, in particular, loves a site with rich content like videos.
Make the most of your photo booth rental by having a strategy. People will be laughing and having a great time in your exhibit space. Capitalize on the jovial atmosphere created by the booth. Engage prospects in small talk as you usher them in and out of the booth, and let that lead into your sales pitch. Most of all, have fun! If you're having fun with it, your prospects will loosen up too.
