Trade Show Display Design

tsinsider — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:05:35 +0000

Designing an effective trade show display is critical if you want to stand out at your trade show, but fortunately creating an effective design doesn’t require a professional designer and a huge budget (although a professional designer may not agree with this ). All you really need to design effective trade show displays is an ample serving of common sense. Strangely enough, though, judging by the surprising dearth of effective trade show displays at many shows, it seems that common sense just may not be all that common. From what I’ve seen, I often wonder what some trade show exhibitors must have been thinking when they came up with their display designs. But you don’t have to follow in their footstep and march of the cliff into trade show obscurity… if you read and follow the three common sense steps that I outline here, you’ll have the “uncommon” knowledge to create and design effective trade show display designs that will stop potential prospects and allow you to talk to them and turn them into customers. All you’ve got to when creating your design is to focus on these three “common sense” basics to insure your design does the job.

ONE: People must notice your trade show display when they walk by your trade show booth. Think of your booth being like one fish in a huge school of fish (the other booths). Your trade show display design must differentiate your booth from all the other trade show booths. You won’t get much display booth traffic if people just ignore your display booth and walk on by. One very effective method of “getting noticed” is to use a big flashy background picture with a catchy tagline.

TWO: You’ve got to communicate who you are as well as what you do. Your company name should be easy to read in large bold letters. This is not the time for a fancy but hard to read font! Also in easy to understand terms, you must clearly explain what your company does. Don’t use insider or industry jargon! If people can’t look at your display and immediately know who you are and what you do, you need to go back the drawing board and start over.

THREE: You must let people know WIIFM (what’s in it for them). You must answer this critical question in order to seal the deal and have an effective trade show display design. People come to the show looking for solutions, and they want to know how you can help them. Offering a solution to their problem is the key to stopping them and starting a conversation. State your WIIFM. For instance, if you are a SEO business, you might say that you can put them on page one of google for their keyword phrase (of course, this needs to be true!). Or as another example, if you run whale watching tours out of Santa Cruz, you might mention how your boats spot more whales than any other boats, and you have a guarantee that if people don’t see a whale on a trip, they can keep going on more trips for free until they see a whale. Whether your business is SEO, whale watching, or selling corkscrews – you must state the unique benefits you offer to the customer (unique meaning that your competition doesn’t also offer the same benefit). Benefits can be price, quality, service, timeliness, hipness, value, etc. Which reminds me of the old saying a business man supposedly told a customer that was asking for better pricing on a pending RUSH job, “You can pick two of the three: done cheap, done quickly, and done right”). But I digress… back to the third point: No matter what else your design does, it must tell people how you will benefit them and What’s In It For Them.

IN SUMMARY: Creating an effective trade show display design means creating a design that does the three things above. Your trade show display design should catch people’s attention and pull them into your booth. Your trade show display design must say who you are and what you do. And most critical, your trade show display design must state how you help or benefit them. You can easily improve your trade show marketing efforts by just creating a trade show display design that does these three simple things. Design an effective trade show display, and may you end up with more traffic and prospects at your trade show booth than you know what to do with. Here’s to your trade show success.

BONUS TIP: A great way to pull more traffic to your trade show booth is to offer a “trade show giveaway” (also known in the industry as “trade show swag”, freebies, and simply promotional products). You want to make sure your company name and contact information are printed on the giveaway, and you want to make sure you aren’t wasting them and are only giving them out to qualified prospects. You can find some trade show giveaway ideas here.

The Trade Show Insider is Born

tsinsider — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:51:35 +0000

Welcome to the Trade Show Insider, a trade show marketing blog where I intend to cover both the fundamentals and the finer points of what leads to trade show marketing success. I will be covering a variety of topics, including trade show planning, trade show displays, trade show booths, trade show exhibits, trade show giveaways, trade show promotions, generating trade show leads, trade show sales, and trade show traffic… and the often overlooked but always critical trade show follow-up. If it has anything to do about trade shows (or tradeshows) or event marketing and promotion, I intend to cover it here… one blog post at a time.

So who am I? Who is the Trade Show Insider? For now I will just reveal that I work at a trade show displays company and have been in the trade show industry for over a decade. Perhaps as you read through my blog you will discover more about who I am… as you also learn the secrets of trade show success. I invite other “trade show insiders” and trade show marketeers to share their insights and add their comments, and guest posts are always welcomed are encouraged.

Well, that’s it for now… enjoy the new Trade Show Insider blog.