Adding a new subscriber to a company's e newsletter list.

1 ) Do one! It’s more affordable than you think . For instance, you can target customers at a local 5K. Road race expos often attract active and healthy individuals with higher discretionary income. These expos range in exhibit price from a hundred bucks to thousands of dollars.

2 ) Come up with a unique giveaway with your company’s logo and info on it. (We chose water bottles since we were at a road race.)

3 ) Blog (or microblog) before, during and after the event. Set-up a Facebook event page and invite your friends. Don’t forget to use Twitter! Tweeting from your cell phone at the event adds to the serendipity. Include the info in your e newsletter.

4 ) Further promote your biz with a logoed wardrobe piece. Try a cap or a shirt.

5 ) Make your booth stand out with color, simplicity and organization. If you’re just testing the waters, don’t immediately invest in a cookie cutter trade show display. They are quite pricey and quite impersonal.  At the show above, we set-up rows of pink water bottles on the left and green ones on the right. They both matched the colors in the logo/banner. It made for a bright and eye catching presentation that drew the runners to us. Thus, making it  easy to tell them what we do and how we can help them in the future.

6 ) Don’t hard sell. Make it fun for your booth visitors. Ask them things like “how was the race?” AND:  ”Were you happy with your time?” Of course, if it’s not a race, customize your questions to that event. Then, give them their gift. For the folks who linger a few extra seconds, ask them if they have any questions. Then, make sure to listen and answer them.

7 ) Don’t forget your little black book (or red or green…) to get email addresses for new subscribers to your e newsletter.

8 ) Turn visitors into advocates. If someone seems particularly interested in what you do, see if there’s a way to get them involved as an advocate. (For instance, I met a woman with a local women’s church group who wants to help us collect “Sweaters for Seniors,” our cause marketing program we’ll repeat this fall.)

9 ) Borrow a cup of sugar from your booth neighbors. Just kidding about the sugar. But you get the idea. Shows provide a great atmosphere for networking with fellow exhibitors.

10 ) After the event, post pictures on your blog, Twitpic, Flickr and Facebook–to name a few. Another good investment is a Flip video camera so you can make a YouTube video like the one I posted above. Good luck!

Sharna Fulton sold her first piece of hand painted pottery at the Duluth Fall Festival in 1998. Over the next 10 years, she grew a nationally known giftware company, SportsPottery.com, exhibiting at the world’s largest marathons and sporting events. During that tenure, Ms. Fulton sold her wares and interfaced with thousands of athletes and their fans from Boston to Los Angeles to London.

1. Don’t bash politicians, pundits or parties. Especially if you’re looking for business. You can opine, you can gently persuade and educate. But don’t bash.

2. Tweet about more than thine own self (a marketing consultant). Instead, more often than not, I report on interesting cause marketing programs.

3. Shamelessly plug yourself with self control. (1 out of every 10 tweets.)  For instance, if you follow me on Twitter ( sharnafulton ), you’ll see a tweet about this post. Which in turn, will hopefully lead you to my blog, www.peaceofthepie.com (So very sly, huh?) But I don’t abuse the privilege.

4. Have a “take.” You don’t have to run smack like Jim Rome or “kill” like a comic at the Funny Farm or even, naturally emit, like Shannon Paul, a certain social media panache My comfy style is to write a headline, then post the link to the story. Here’s a common format I use that I learned from an excellent writer, Joe Waters at http://selfishgiving.com/ What began a few years ago as tennis match amongst friends now raises thousands of $$$ for breast cancer. http://tinyurl.com/dzag6x

5. Think first. In the above tweet, I wanted to show how one woman’s big idea grew from grassroots to the bigtime in just a few years. It took me three and a half minutes to wordsmith it into 140.  That’s what writing takes. (Time.)

6. For good karma, give credit generously. Here’s a similar format to the above but with a name. Thanks to people like Kimberly Shadwell Jordan, recycling has doubled in some areas of Denver. http://tinyurl.com/df3mms You can also share credit by doing a retweet which looks like this: please RT @sharnafulton — followed by the RT

7. Let www.tinyurl.com become your new best friend.

8. Be disciplined if you can. Tweet a certain amount of times per day about a subject you care about. They say it takes 21 days–or something like that to form–so start slow. One tweet a day?

9. Don’t be ho-hum. IE: I just landed in Vegas. I just fed my dog. Boooooring! On the other hand, I recently tweeted about Celtics Playoff Game #1. I think some people really liked this. Why? Maybe because I was there . In Boston. At the gahden. So maybe to be a good twitterer, you need a life?! Explore, learn, share, travel, be curious. (Look for my tweet about Lebron James tonight from Game 4 at Phillips Arena. )

10) Fact check. It’s called Google. ‘Nuff said.