How local businesses can turn tradeshow visitors into qualified leads at the Flathead Building Association’s biggest event
Presented by the Flathead Building Association | March 7th, 10am-5pm & March 8th, 10am-4pm
The 2026 Home & Garden Showcase is set to be the largest in Flathead Building Association history. With more exhibitors and homeowners attending than ever before, local businesses face both an incredible opportunity and a significant challenge: how do you make your booth investment pay off when you only have two days to connect with hundreds of potential customers?
Having attended tradeshows ranging from the Consumer Electronics Show to specialized marketing conferences like SMX Advanced, I’ve observed one consistent pattern: the businesses that succeed aren’t necessarily those with the biggest booths or flashiest displays. The winners are those who approach the event with a clear strategy for identifying and nurturing the right prospects.
The Real Challenge: Quality Over Quantity
Time is your most precious tradeshow asset. With show attendance spanning just 6-8 hours per day and serious prospects typically comprising only 20-30% of total booth visitors, undisciplined engagement wastes resources on contacts who will never convert.
The mathematics are sobering: if your booth attracts 100 visitors daily but your team spends equal time with everyone, you’re devoting 70-80% of your capacity to non-buyers while potentially under-serving the 20-30 genuine prospects who could become valuable customers.
Industry research shows that 79% of tradeshow leads never convert, but this figure masks the real problem: most exhibitors fail to qualify leads during initial contact. Organizations that implement qualification protocols during booth interactions report dramatically different outcomes: 10-25% conversion rates with proper follow-up, compared to sub-5% for those who treat every badge scan as equally valuable.
For local home service businesses, this distinction translates directly to bottom-line results. A contractor investing thousands in Home & Garden Show participation cannot afford to chase 100+ unqualified contacts post-show. You need 30-50 qualified prospects with genuine project timelines, realistic budgets, and decision-making authority—leads worthy of the follow-up investment required for conversion.
A Note on Marketing Budget
Before diving into the strategies, here’s important advice for smaller businesses: let the FBA do the job of marketing the show. I regularly see small businesses spend money on ads asking people to visit their booth, which leaves nothing for follow-up. If your budget is limited, wait and invest your marketing dollars in the follow-up—that’s where conversions actually happen. Larger businesses with more resources can certainly market before, during, and after the event, but for most local operations, strategic patience pays off.
Strategy 1: Implement a Tiered Giveaway System
Quality giveaways create visual appeal and differentiate your booth from competitors, driving the initial foot traffic necessary for any engagement. But the most successful exhibitors don’t distribute premium items to everyone—they use a tiered approach that reserves valuable gifts for qualified leads while offering lower-cost items for general traffic.
Survey data shows that 53% of successful exhibitors use multiple giveaway levels, distributing more valuable gifts to their best leads. Only 33% bring single low-cost items for mass distribution—and those exhibitors typically report lower ROI.
A practical three-tier approach:
- Tier 1 (Under $1 each): Branded carpenter pencils, pens, or stickers. Anyone can grab these, and they keep your name visible.
- Tier 2 ($2-4 each): Mini LED flashlights with carabiner or 24oz BPA-free sports bottles with your logo. These go to visitors who engage in brief conversation.
- Tier 3 ($10-15 each): Stainless steel insulated tumblers, multi-function tool sets, or quality tape measures. Reserve these for prospects who spend real time with you and share their contact information.
The key is placement: don’t lead with your premium items. Position them deeper in the booth where natural conversation flows. Think of tiered giveaways as your offer in exchange for their time and attention. As a visitor progresses from casual browser to engaged prospect, you can level up the giveaway—creating reciprocity while qualifying their interest.
Strategy 2: Use a Door Prize to Build Your List
A substantial door prize serves a different purpose than tiered giveaways—it’s a systematic list-building tool. While tiered items reward engaged conversation, a door prize attracts broader attention and captures contact information from visitors who might otherwise walk past.
Door prize best practices:
- Choose universal appeal: Give away something anyone can use. If it’s too specific to your trade, you’ll limit interest. Gift cards, an iPad, a nice cooler, or even a local experience package will attract more entries than specialized equipment.
- Make entry easy but valuable: Use an iPad or tablet with a simple form—first name and email address only. The fewer fields, the more entries you’ll collect.
- Allow additional entries for engagement: Here’s where you separate serious prospects from giveaway hunters. Offer additional entries for those who spend time with a team member, answer qualification questions, or schedule a follow-up consultation. This increases your best prospects’ chances of winning while minimizing the likelihood of your prize going to someone with no interest in your services.
- Be the booth people talk about: When visitors say “Did you stop by the booth that’s giving away a…?” you’ve created organic marketing that drives additional traffic.
Strategy 3: Systematize Email Collection
You won’t be able to have meaningful conversations with everyone who visits your booth. Your goal should be to capture as many email addresses as possible and have a solid plan to follow up. The businesses that win at tradeshows are those who understand that the event itself is just the beginning of the relationship.
Making collection seamless:
- Have one or two iPads on site with a simple signup form. First name and email address—that’s it. Every additional field reduces signups.
- Connect your form directly to your email marketing platform. Entries should flow automatically into a tagged list (for example, “Home & Garden Show 2025”) so you can segment and track these contacts separately.
- Position signup stations at multiple points in your booth—entry, exit, and near the door prize display. Remove friction wherever possible.
- If you don’t have an email marketing platform, I recommend Kit (formerly ConvertKit). Their free tier supports up to 10,000 subscribers. Other features include landing pages, automation builders, and solid tagging capabilities—everything you need to execute the follow-up strategies below.
We can help set up an email marketing automation campaign for your business.
Strategy 4: Execute a Strategic Follow-Up Sequence
The follow-up is where ROI is made or lost. Most businesses reach out once—if they reach out at all—and then wonder why their tradeshow investment didn’t pay off. A systematic follow-up sequence separates professional marketers from hopeful amateurs.
The immediate follow-up (Day 1):
- Time-delayed email (2 hours after signup): Most visitors will be home by this point. Send an automated email thanking them for stopping by, reminding them of your services, and including direct contact information for your sales team. If they entered a door prize drawing, remind them of the announcement date—this prevents immediate unsubscribes.
- Warm lead calls: If you identified genuine prospects during the show, call them first thing Monday morning. Be the first contractor or service provider to follow up—speed matters.
The Monday follow-up:
- Send an email to your entire collected list thanking them for stopping by. Include a photo of your friendly booth team at the top—this creates visual recognition and personal connection.
- Remind door prize entrants of the announcement date.
- Highlight any show specials with clear expiration dates.
- Remember: there may be qualified leads who never made it to your booth—they didn’t notice your offering or walked by when you were too busy. This email reaches them too.
Strategy 5: Play the Long Game with Email Nurturing
The email addresses collected at tradeshows represent one of your most valuable marketing assets—but only if you use them strategically. Not everyone who stopped by your booth was ready to buy. Many were in early research phases, planning projects for later in the year, or simply exploring options. Your job is to stay top-of-mind until they’re ready.
Building a nurture sequence:
- Develop a series of 4-6 emails over the following month, gradually introducing your company, your services, and the value you provide.
- Keep emails educational rather than sales-heavy. Share tips, project ideas, common mistakes to avoid, or seasonal maintenance advice. If recipients find your emails useful, they’ll continue opening them—and think of you when they’re ready to buy.
- Invite interaction. Ask a question and request a response. This engagement signals to email providers that your messages are wanted, improving future deliverability and keeping you out of the promotions tab.
- Consider retargeting through digital advertising. Platforms like Google Customer Match and Meta Custom Audiences allow you to upload your email list and reach these contacts while they browse the web, use Instagram, or scroll Facebook. This extends your reach beyond the inbox and reinforces recognition across multiple touchpoints.
Putting It All Together
The difference between a profitable tradeshow investment and a disappointing one usually isn’t the booth location, the signage, or even the product quality. It’s the system—having clear processes for attracting attention, qualifying interest, collecting information, and following up strategically.
The 2025 Home & Garden Showcase presents a remarkable opportunity for Flathead Valley businesses to connect with homeowners who are actively planning projects. The FBA has done the work of assembling the audience. Your job is to make the most of it.
If You See Me, Say Hi!
I’ll be floating around the Home & Garden Showcase captuing photo and video content. If you see me, make sure to say hi and smile for a photo!
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About the Author
Jerad Hill is the founder of Hill Media Group, a digital marketing agency serving small businesses across Montana. With over 20 years of WordPress experience and having taught digital marketing to more than 120,000 students through online courses, Jerad helps local businesses build systematic marketing strategies that deliver measurable results. Hill Media Group specializes in websites that convert, email marketing automation, and local SEO for service-based businesses.
Learn more at hillmediagroup.com or schedule a free 15-minute Digital Growth Strategy Session to discuss your marketing goals.
