So you're all signed up for a trade exhibition or event stand and you want to take advantage of this chance to show off your company to potential customers. You realise how vital it is to stand out amongst so many other companies doing exactly what you do. But just how do you get your business to jump out among hundreds of other businesses that are attempting to do the very same thing? We've got you covered with our top tips for making your business stand out at a trade show.

THE SPACE

Make sure you assess and plan the area you have been designated. Do you need electrical provision for any monitors, light sources or other electrical equipment? Do you need your own seating areas such as bench stools to have conversations with prospects? Are there areas where a prospect can browse your materials at their own leisure? Ensure you have the right height as well as width to include everything that you want to display. Will your display materials have your key message visible at eye-catching levels to ensure the prospect can see it clearly and easily without hindrance or obstructions?

USE AUDIO & VIDEO

Are you able to include audio and video content into your exhibition stand? This can be one of the most effective ways to make your business really stand out at an event. This doesn’t have to be costly at all, in the image below of our own display stand material, you will see a media stand with a monitor, we used this to project our own animated corporate showreel, click to see our showreel: https://vimeo.com/212768608 and also by linking it to an iPad we also captured useful prospect data by creating a simple interactive Pairs or Snap game. The quickest player (prospect) won a special prize that we sent them a few days after the event by way of re-engaging with them, this was also socially shared to remind other attendees we were there.

GET YOUR BRAND MESSAGE ACROSS

Whilst most attendees will have an initial scout around the various stands, ensuring your stand display system, wall or information graphics are well designed, clear, professional and slick will also entice them to stay longer and ultimately ask you for more details.  Your brand message needs to be well displayed through your display graphics to be effective and easy to understand. We have a wide range of large format, branded display materials at our disposal that we can design and also print, visit our sister website for more details on what we can print:  https://www.middlesbrough-printing.com/exhibition-displays.html

ENGAGE WITH YOUR PROSPECTS

Hopefully as a result of implementing the above tips your prospects will come in droves and ask about your offering. Therefore it’s essential that they walk away with enough information to get a quick and clear appreciation of what you do and how it can benefit them.

An abbreviated brochure or simple leaflet will allow them to peruse at their leisure during a coffee break or before a seminar. Branded merchandise giveaways are always a favourite at events so make sure you allocate a budget for things like pens, mugs, and notepads as a minimum. If you can stretch to something different then even better still. Don’t forget to ensure you have a data capture form on hand to make a note of those prospects that are genuinely interested in your offering, this can be a simple paper form or something a little more interesting such as the aforementioned digital snap game that we created for an event we exhibited at.

MAKE THEM REMEMBER YOU

Amongst the plethora of other exhibitors with their goody bags and freebie merch, it would be a good idea to make sure your stand has a branded theme or quirky message. For example, previously we created a sweet shop, pick ’n; mix theme for a medical insurance client of ours. Whilst their message was highly professional and corporate we convinced them to go with something completely off brand with the style to their exhibition. The pick ’n’ mix idea was created as their legal services could be chosen from a set so a client could simply select what aspects of their service they wanted.

The client loved this idea and we developed this further with an actual retro sweet shop effect brand style that also extended into stock imagery of different kinds of sweets for the stand backdrop and printed paper bags, which the client would fill with actual sweets they had on their stand as giveaway treats to prospects. The branding was rolled out into a presentation folder with inserts showcasing the client’s services. All in all this was a good example of developing a theme that helped not only convey the client’s core business services but also provided prospects with something eye-catching and different, let’s face it who doesn’t like a bag of cola cubes once in a while?!

THE FOLLOW UP

Be sure to follow any enquiries up whilst their experience with your business is still fresh in their thoughts. Notify the winner of a business card draw (or in our case the quickest snap game winner) by telephone, email or through social media, tagging the event in to ensure other attendees see your post, more exposure for your business.

Here’s a selection of branded displays we can produce to help make your exhibition or promotional stands more memorable:

If you're interested in having a chat to discuss new and fresh ideas for your upcoming trade show or exhibition, or for branded giveaways and display material printing, drop us a line to see how we can help get you more engagement with attendees. 

Call us 01642 804534 or email studio@viacreative.co.uk

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