Congratulations! You’ve successfully received a “yes” to set up your booth at an event or at the business’s location itself.
However, getting your foot in the door is just the first step. The next? You need to know how to perform your best at an in-person ground marketing event so that you can capture more leads, and convert more people into loyal patients.
In this article, I’ll be sharing two major things you need to be aware of in order to put your best foot forward. Are you ready? Let’s go!
How to Perform Your Best at In-Person Ground Marketing Events
Performing your best at in-person ground marketing events is the key to gaining your prospect’s trust. If you don’t make an excellent first impression, chances are they won’t want to do business with you.
In order to put your best foot forward at an in-person ground marketing event, you need to know how to…
- Strategically set up your booth
- Act
- Speak
- And perform
I’m about to break these steps down for you, starting with…
Setting Up Your Booth Strategically
A big mistake that I see most people make is setting up their booth with all their freebies and goodies in a grab bag. That means their prospects can walk right up to their booth, grab a bag, and leave absolutely no trace.
That’s not going to work for you. In that situation, your potential lead just grabbed a goodie bag and left without leaving any way for you to contact them.
When it comes to setting up your booth strategically, the name of the game isn’t “convenience”. Instead, you want people to stop by your booth, shop around, and spend more time at your booth.
You can do this by simply deconstructing your hygiene kit or whatever it is you’re giving away in your goodie bag. Place each item that you would like to give away side by side like this:
You can see that there are free bags on the right, toothbrushes, floss, toothpaste, flyers, business cards, etc.
Setting your booth up in this way allows your prospect to “shop” around. Meaning they’ll spend more time at your booth looking at and collecting all the freebies. This will give you maximum time to talk to them about your offers, services, and your practice.
Seeing all of your freebies laid out in this way also piques your prospect’s curiosity. With so much in front of them, they’re going to want to take some time to take in the situation.
Once they’re stopped at your booth, you can let them know that everything they see is free! Tell them that, if they’d like to, they can grab a bag and shop around for whatever they’d like. As they’re shopping around, you’ll want to converse with them and let them know about your offers and promotions.
The only thing you want to put in the baggie from the start is your business card. Because chances are, they won’t grab that. So have your business card in each bag from the start and allow them to shop around.
If you don’t want them to grab 5 toothbrushes at once, you need to set the boundaries straight from the get-go. Tell them, “feel free to grab a bag and grab one of each item.” It’s as simple as that.
How to Act, Speak, and Perform at In-Person Ground Marketing Events
Now that you know how to set up your booth strategically, it’s time to know how to act, speak, and perform at in-person ground marketing events so that you can capture more leads and grow your practice.
First and foremost, it is crucial that you greet and say hi to everyone who passes by your booth. Even if they aren’t stopping. This will create as much opportunity for you and your practice. It’s also a great opportunity for you to lower your “shy shield.”
No matter how extroverted or introverted you are, performing at these events can feel a little unnatural to you in the beginning. But getting in the habit of greeting everyone who walks by your booth will help you slowly lower your “shy shield”, getting you more in the groove of communicating and networking confidently.
Once you say hi and your prospect stops by your booth, you can proceed to tell them that they can grab one of each item for free.
Then, if you’re ground marketing at a business, like LA Fitness for instance, you can even tell them that your dental practice (be sure to say the name of your practice) has partnered up with LA Fitness to give their customers an incentive.
Of course, you need to make sure that the incentive you’re offering is enticing enough for your prospects. So if you’re ground marketing at a fitness facility, you could offer them free whitening since you know that your prospects are most likely investing in their appearance.
After sharing the incentive, the prospect will either show interest or say no thank you. If they show interest, that is when you’ll want them to leave their contact information on your sign-up sheet.
But if they say no, don’t worry. It happens. However, feel free to tell them, “no worries, do you have any friends or family who could benefit from this?” If they say yes, ask them for their family member’s or friend’s name.
If your prospect happens to say no to both, don’t worry. We have a script to help you navigate through that conversation. All you need to do is enter your email address on this page so we know where to send it to!
Final Tips
When it comes down to it, performing your best at these in-person ground marketing events comes down to common sense, tone of voice, and a smile. Remember, be present and engage with those who are around you.
Being the in-person ground marketer at these events means you need to entice and invite these prospects. Be personable, approachable, and friendly. Even if you get a no! Everyone who walks by is an opportunity, whether they sign up for your incentive or not. At the end of the day, they’re leaving with your freebie and your business card inside of the freebie. And you never know when they’ll give you a call in the future.
Check out more at The Ground Marketing Course here.
