Late summer is a busy season for trade shows and other industry events. A booth can be a great forum for sales lead generation and getting new customers — as long as key prospects attend. Your pre-event marketing activities should be engineered with one goal in mind: to convince prospects that a visit to your show booth will be time well spent. When planning your preshow marketing program, consider these three tips from Crystal Uppercue, marketing manager of EU Services (euservices.com):

1. Start by targeting. Get your hands on the event’s preregistration list as far in advance of the event as possible. Rather than blitz every contact, pare the list down by removing current customers, competitors, and prospects that aren’t a fit for your business. Don’t limit preshow marketing to registered attendees. Be sure to compare the preregistration list against your in-house prospect database, and include any important omissions in your pre-event marketing plans.

2. Use multiple media. Most lists of advance registrants are missing some forms of contact, such as email address, phone and fax numbers, etc. You can collect this information using an integrated marketing communication campaign. These campaigns integrate media channels, collect additional data, and manage responses by triggering future strategic communications based on the response or lack of response to the first marketing attempt. For example, a direct mail marketing campaign can invite recipients to visit a preshow Web site where they can sign up to receive a free gift and provide their email addresses. Visitors can then be flagged for email-only follow-up, while those who haven’t responded may receive another direct mail piece.

3. Personalize. A successful pre-event marketing program should convince prospects that there’s a compelling reason for them to visit your booth. One possibility may be a “personal invitation,” bearing the full name of the recipient, that can be redeemed for a gift at your booth. You may even wish to have salespeople personally deliver invitations to selected prospects for a bigger impact.

For more tips on pre-event marketing, download the August issue of FuelNet Monthly, an 8-page newsletter designed to help owners and managers of companies of all sizes maximize their marketing opportunities and grow their business. Other issue highlights include:

• 5 brand-positioning no-no’s
• The secrets to a great slogan
• Ways to enhance customer satisfaction research
• How to partner with your customers
• Why face-to-face trumps mass marketing

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