Booth at a car show? Your input please..

K

Kix

New member
So this coming up weekend there is a big car show going on and I have rented a booth spot for my business.. This however is our first car show and I wanted to get your input on what all should or shouldnt be done or brought to the show.. Here is a list of what I have so far. Any other advise is greatly appreciated.



-- 10ft x 10ft EZ Up Canopy with Business Logo and 24in x 120in Banner with our services offered attached.



-- Table and Chairs



-- 2000 Business Cards



-- Photo Album showing Befores and After Pictures



-- 800 Business Flyers



-- An old headlight out of a junk car half restored and half not restored to show the difference



-- A small door panel off an old junk car which I taped off and restored and corrected half of it and left the other half original.



I am thinking about throwing in a box and having a drawing for a free service. Have people fill out a card with there names, phone numbers, type of vehicle etc.. This way the customers that dont win, I can call later and try to sell them a service?



I cant think of anything else but if you have ideas or suggestions or think I shouldnt do some of these things then please by all means let me know.. Like i say this is my first car show and i need all the advice I can get.
 
Thanks Setec! That is a great idea! and i like your idea of changing the wording! Fantastic!
 
I actually started a thread about this a while back.

Might give you some ideas.



http://www.autopia.org/forum/detailing-business-management-marketing/129324-questions-about-booth-show.html



Google "trade show booth" or "trade show etiquette" and you can probably get some ideas from there as well.

Even though its not a trade show booth, its still a similar principle.



It would help you tremendously to have a banner or sign of some sort with your logo on it.

That way people know that you're more than some guy under a tent with a door.



My booth setup ended up working out well for me...

I did a few things that weren't mentioned in that thread.

If you want, you can PM me and I can walk you through everything I did to get ready for it.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
Sounds good but dump that free detail raffle and go with this plan, best EVAR http://www.autopia.org/forum/professional-detailer-general-discussion/67569-everybody-wins.html
Click to expand...



That's AWESOME. I was actually a "victim" of this marketing ploy not too long ago. I was on a cruise and the spa called my cabin to tell my wife she had "won" 50% off a particular spa package. Of course, she jumped on it and bought it. I told her 100 other cabins probably got the same call but she didn't care because she thought she was saving money.
 
I myself was planning on starting to attend car shows (regularly) with basically your exact same ideas. Some thoughts:



-Regarding the photo album- Rather than having a physical photo album for people to flip through, I plan on bringing a TV monitor and hooking it up to my laptop via HDMI cord and having a continuous slideshow playing of before/after pictures. I might also have random screenshots of my blog with some standout text saying what it is and what it does within it, and maybe a promotional slide or two thrown in to break it up. Will also probably run a small series of photoshop-created pictures showing what exactly it is that we do, to kind of educate people. Have a pic that is basically a microscopic profile shot of the paint showing all the swirls with contaminants bonded, then a pic with the contaminants remove and a little blurb describing claying, then a pic with the paint leveled but with some hazing and ablurb describing heavy polishing...yadda yadda yadda. If you remember Detailed Image's old Detailing Guide before they completely redid their site, those type of images. I think that would be better than a physical album because a) getting lots of before/after photos printed could be pricey b) only a small handful of people can crowd around a physical album to look at the photos at a time c) small pictures aren't very good for showing what we do. The tv monitor would allow many people to view it at once, would allow the pictures to be much larger, and you have no printing cost, AND it's "techy" or whatever, while a physical album is kind of old school. Just my thoughts on that.



-Regarding the raffle- I was planning on doing the exact same thing. Raffling away a free detail, and to enter they have to fill out a card containing (name, address, phone, email), and a little checkbox asking if they wish to receive emails regarding future discounts and sales (don't want to spam anyone). This accomplishes two things. 1) you pick up a new customer, who could turn into a repeat customer, and you are bound to get a ton of word of mouth marketing from this person. I mean who wouldn't tell anyone and everyone that they won a free detail? 2) you then have all the contact info of potential customers. You can then direct mail them. Usually direct mail doesn't work for us because our target market is such a small group of people (people who can justify spending $$$ on "getting their car cleaned." Usually either people with a lot of money or, in this case, people really interested in cars). But now you can direct mail with coupons or other specials with a much higher chance of success than if you were blindly mailing people. You also have their email addresses and, if they check the little box, you can add them to a weekly/monthly email list. You also have their name and phone number should you decide to cold call people.



I'm also going to order some pens with our name/logo, phone, and email on them and just set them out for people to take. Might get kind of expensive, but if it gets our name out and reminds people that we exist, it works. Pens.com is a good place to check out. These are the pens I had in mind: Promotional Pens - Liberty Metallic Pen. I'd order them in black, with silver imprint, since those are our colors. They are kind of nice, not super cheapy deapy, but at the same time they won't exactly take the bank. I wouldn't buy a crapload of them either. Maybe 100 or 200. But if getting 100 pens out there gets me one detail, they've more then paid for themselves with that detail alone.
 
If it's hot out get some small bottles of water from Costco and put them in Ice for passers by, for free. Candy for the kids is popular too.
 
Only way to guarantee traffic and people stopping by your station at car shows.....booth babes. Hire a local model, you'll get more ROI than flyers that 90% of which will end up in trash can.
 
AZN_C300 said:
Only way to guarantee traffic and people stopping by your station at car shows.....booth babes. Hire a local model, you'll get more ROI than flyers that 90% of which will end up in trash can.
Click to expand...



It may cause more people to your booth, but what if your at a car show with a bunch of old guys that are just out showing their 50's and 60's classics.. Does that really sound like they'll be interested in your services.
 
damn there is some good information here for sure. I believe there is a car show coming up at the end of the year here. I might have to pick up on this tactic.
 
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