One of the greatest challenges for event marketers is standing out from other booths at a trade show. The obvious way is to have the biggest badest booth in the expo hall, but with tightening budgets, spending more may not be an option. A more low-cost approach is to have a theme.

Here at ReachForce, we have a history of getting attention (mostly good) at DreamForce, salesforce.com’s annual user group conference. Each year we have a different, fully integrated theme to help attract more booth visitors. Last year our theme was Let’s Make a Deal (you know the old game show hosted by Monty Hall).

If you don’t remember the game show, I’ll give you a quick rundown. Monty Hall, the host, bartered with contestants dressed in costume and would allow them to choose their prize from behind one of three curtains or from one of several envelopes. The contestants always had an opportunity to trade in their prize for another mystery prize.

We decided to play Let’s Make a Deal to drive more booth traffic and engage attendees. If you attended DreamForce last year, you may remember seeing Fred and Wilma Flintstone; that was us. Fred and Wilma walked the floor handing out envelopes with $1 bills and told attendees that they could trade in their envelope for a chance to win much more at the ReachForce booth. Those of us working the booth were in costume as well (yes, I was Little Bo Peep). Booth visitors could then play a game of Let’s Make a Deal. To do so they had to take a demo of our latest software offering.

In the end, we reached all of our goals for capturing leads and gave more demos than expected. And people still remember us. One lesson learned was to consider who you are putting in costume. Our sales guy had more than a few people tell him they just could not take him seriously while he was dressed as Fred Flintstone. Be sure to draw attention but not at the cost of distracting from your message.

Different areas where you might consider incorporating a theme:

• Pre-show promotion
• Post-show follow-up
• Giveaways
• Costumes
• Booth signage