Managing a trade show booth space takes a lot of effort, creativity, marketing, and sales knowledge.  It is difficult to wrap all that up into one nice little package - but you have to try.  You have one shot at impressing a lot of potential clients - so you need to take advantage of all the tricks up your sleeve!  Here are six ways you and kill your attendees trade show booth experience - so don't do it!!  Make a 2013 trade show marketing plan!

1.  Standing in the aisles and begging them to come into your trade show exhibit space.  This scares people.  They feel pressure.  Have a big enough booth or space within your booth to allow them to come into your space freely.

2.  Making them wait to talk to anyone.  People do not want to wait.  If you have a potential client that you are talking to, get their information and move on.  Better yet - plan to meet them after the event for a drink, lunch, or dinner.  But do not linger on any one person so that you can capture all the people coming into your booth.

3.  Eliminate choices in how they interact with your team.  Provide a variety of choices on how to learn about your company.  This can be graphics, people, kiosk, iPads, presentations, etc.  Just provide some choices!

4.  Making it difficult to participate in any booth activity.  If you only have one computer that is running and you have multiple people wanting to see what is going on - it may be difficult for everyone to participate.  Either ask them to come back or try and get them engaged in another way until they can participate in the activity.

5. Keeping them in the dark about what you are doing there.  Walking by a booth and not knowing what that company does in a couple of seconds may eliminate that potential prospect from coming into your space.  Be concise and clear on your graphics and messaging strategy.

6.  Staying the same and never providing anything new or different.  Bringing the same booth to the same show and seeing the same people does nothing.  Communicate what is new with your company - new product - new services - you moved - you grew - whatever.  Just do something that is a little different each time to attract their attention.

If you want additional information - download our planning guide on trade show success!