Booths and Tabling
A personal connection and invitation at outreach events can be one of the most powerful ways to engage new audiences. Here’s the practices we recommend for a successful outreach event:
Who’s Your Audience? Think critically about who you’re trying to reach to reflect your community. Be proactive, not reactive - the events with hosts eager to invite you may not be the events that reach new audiences.
Selecting Venues - Be careful creating and hosting new events which can be hard to market and attract good attendance. Popular, established community events are great choices. The right retail location might also bring you foot traffic all day long. Think about “on the fence” destinations - the destinations that attract audiences which might be primed to engage with your site, but not quite there. For example, families that play team sports, may be more likely to be interested in visiting your park.
Professional Presence - This is your chance to put your best foot forward. Think sharp uniforms, and well-branded tablecloths, tents, SWAG, and documents.
Capture their Attention - Be ruthless, but tasteful as you get their attention. Staff should be in front of the table, not behind. If you’re having fun, they’ll have fun. What’s the most fun activity that typifies your site? What about a laptop on your table just looping a fun video? Fun trivia is hard to say no to:
“Want to see how many of our parks you can recognize in this photo?”
“We have give-aways for anyone that can tell the difference between these furs.” etc.
Inspiring their Next Adventure - Now that you have their attention, speak to why visiting your site is easy and fun for them. Remember the principles of interpretation. Share information, but also ask questions to find your relevance - “What do you like to do outside? Oh I think you’d love…” Have a lot of visuals to help your new friends understand where your site is, and what they can expect. Prepare your staff and volunteers with the answers to FAQs.
Get their Commitment - They’re inspired, now make sure they don’t forget how excited they were about your site. Someone who leaves your booth with a plan to visit is far more likely to. Bring them into your “Marketing Funnel” - can you have them sign-up for an e-mail follow-up or join your marketing newsletter? What about having a QR code that immediately gets them following your social media accounts?
Outreach booths are a great way to engage with new audiences, but always bring your A game with the strategies above.