In-person convention events provide an unrivaled opportunity to meet potential clients and customers. Though digital advertising isn’t going away anytime soon, nothing beats shaking hands or speaking face-to-face with a community you’ve built online. But how do you attract traffic to your booth at a convention? With geofencing, you can target people in the convention center area and invite them to visit your booth. This strategy can be a great way to increase traffic and get more leads from conventions. 

What is geofencing and how is it used for convention booth promotions

Geofencing is a location-based marketing tactic that can be used to drive traffic to your booth at a convention. By setting up a geofence around the convention center, you can target people who are nearby with special offers and promotions. This can be a great way to boost traffic to your booth and increase sales opportunities.

It refines your geo-location

Think about the convention centers you’ve visited – Most host multiple conventions simultaneously, with attendees from a wide range of industries. Geofencing marketing tools use a technology that allows for hyper-targeting using building contours. Hence, you only market to attendees within the walls of your specific convention.

How can you boost engagement

You could create a specific landing page for what you’re selling at the trade show. You can also give attendees a link to click on and a contact form to fill out. You will then have valuable data to evaluate the success of your geofencing marketing campaigns. Even better, most geofencing marketing tools allow you to market to trade show attendees for a set period after the event. As a result, you will have even more opportunities to remarket to potential customers using tailored landing page content.

event marketing case study

img. from Electronica

How does geofencing work after the convention

This powerful strategy collects cell phone advertising ID data from event attendees. This information is used to serve audience-targeted display ads between 3-5 times per day. Since attendees will have their cell phones with them, geofencing allows advertisers to capture their attention and market to them for up to 30 days after the event. This strategy has proven to be effective at trade shows and conventions, along with businesses like restaurants, gyms, hotels, and retail stores.

How to use geofencing for events

Geofencing events may appear complex but it is actually quite simple. So, how do you get started with geofencing? Create a campaign with a reputable geofencing platform and target your audience based on their physical location. They will become a part of your audience once they enter your campaign’s boundaries (pass through the geofence). 

These are why you should use geofencing to help you market your brand to conference attendees. Through it, you can gain new clients and re-engage with existing ones.

Final thoughts

Geofencing is a highly targeted marketing method that is vastly underutilized. Including this location-based channel in your trade show marketing strategy has the potential to significantly increase your convention ROI. However, as previously stated, other factors come into play, and geofencing should not be your sole method of attracting people to your booth. It works best as part of a well-planned customer journey that combines traditional offline tactics with digital marketing.