Bridal shows are a lot like speed dating. You are there to find potential matches for your services. The more you can run through quickly the better chance you have of find those few that will actually book you. Don’t waste your time on the ones that obviously won’t.
I found this quote from Jason Frederich of Screaming Light Studios on the Open Source Forum that sums it up fairly well:

As one of the speakers at the last convention we attended said, while they’re in front of you at the show is the best possible time to figure out if they’re worth spending any more time on, or not. Do they have a wedding date? If no, hand them a brochure and move on. Does your price put them off? Thank you, next! The whole point of the show is to match you up with potential clients, not to stand around for 6-8 hours talking to people who can’t afford/don’t need you.

Read the thread, it has some great information for everyone, not just photographers.

That is Jason’s booth in the image above. Great job Jason. Does the cat make a lot of sales at the show?

Here are the major take-aways from this series.

• Start your prep early
• Do as much pre-show marketing as you can
• Set your booth apart and tie it into your handouts
• Be on during the entire show and leave the right impression
• Network with the other vendors
• Gather leads in your booth for your post show marketing
• Follow up, follow up, follow up
• Track your response for next year’s marketing plan

Bridal shows are a lot of work and expensive to do. They are a few hours of brutally intense marketing sandwiched between prep and follow up. If you are going to invest your time and treasure in this marketing tool you need to use every trick in your arsenal to make them pay off. Otherwise stay home and put your feet up.

For more good stuff on bridal shows, subscribers can check out this month’s Marketing Column at Think Like A Bride. Not already a subscriber of Think? Here is a free month on me.

Related posts:

1. Spreading Your Brand Across Many Platforms How many different places do you advertise? A couple of...
2. Bridal Marketing and Building Buzz Your business will not grow if you do not market...
3. Branding your bridal or wedding business One of the fundamental steps towards marketing success is clearly...
4. Personal Engagement Marketing When I first started in this business the single best...
5. Never Underestimate the Power of the Suck-Up Has it ever occurred to you that some of the...
6. Is It Time To Re-Visit Direct Mail? If you are a regular follower then you know I...
7. Pay Attention to The Comments I talk a lot here about social networking and word...