How to Stand Out at a Crowded Trade Show

Standing out at a trade show is an ongoing battle. The need to differentiate your company’s booth requires good design knowledge and style as well as knowing how to integrate pleasing visual differences into your message so that they are compelling. Getting people to line up at your booth or to keep coming back takes ingenuity and creativity.

Coming up with a unique style and creating a buzz around your booth and what’s on offer is an ongoing challenge.

Here are a list of things that you need.

• An exhibition theme
• A striking stand
• Great lighting
• Activities
• Food and drinks
• Giveaway(s) and visitor data collection
• Social media

Choosing Your Exhibition Theme

What do you want people to remember about you? How’s the best way to make that happen? Themes related to an existing campaign are always good. So is a theme that introduces a new product or service. Identifying your theme sets the tone for everything else that goes into your booth. If you don’t know what you want people to remember, guess what? They won’t remember you.

Exhibition Stand(s)

Once you have a memorable theme, use your exhibition stand as the excellent marketing tool it is. Each exhibition stand can be a new, creative project for setting up your brand in such a way that your visitors can step into and become immersed in the message that you want them to take with them.

One way to do this is to use height. Depending on your theme, you may want to heighten the entire stand by adding a second floor, or simply heighten one or two walls to make your logo pop out above everything else. A color palette with a bright color surrounded by more muted colors from the same palette also works well to create a pleasing space for people to step into and see what’s on offer.

Dramatic Lighting

Lighting works to accentuate the most important elements of your theme. Though the entire stand needs to be lit, it is smart to use LED strips and spotlights to call attention to the most important elements in your booth. The lighting needs to be well done because over-lighting a space can negatively impact the appearance of your booth. Good lighting also helps the flow of traffic through your booth by keeping people moving safely in the same direction.

Activities at Your Booth

Activities are a great way to draw attention at trade shows. Especially activities that bring people back to your booth, like a raffle. When people enter your booth get their information in exchange for a raffle ticket. The raffle is to be held at a specific time and the give away should be something valuable. This keeps your booth in visitors’ minds for the entire day as they await the appointed time for the drawing.

Another idea is to mount video equipment and broadcast something of interest to visitors. At the JVC stand at IBC in 2017 in Amsterdam, JVC demonstrated their high-end video equipment by simulating a broadcast of a soccer match. To do this, an entire downsized soccer field was installed in the booth. This idea kept their exhibition stand crowded throughout the show.

Food and Drink

Booths that have food and something to drink are natural places for visitors to stop. They also provide a great time to talk while your visitors are enjoying a welcomed surprise. Tasty food, something to drink, and a well-appointed booth are magnets for visitors.

Giveaways and Visitor Data Collection

 Trade shows are places to meet potential customers and prospects as well as gain insights about who they are. You can learn more about their specific product interests, and how they prefer to be contacted after the exhibition. Be sure that you get contact and interest information from the visitors that come through your booth.

Giving something away is a great way to get information. Make sure it’s something original, something other than corporate pens and mugs, something quirky with your company’s brand on it. Laptop skins, headphones, socks, and sunglasses are among almost endless options.

Whether you use data collection tools, collect business cards, write things down, or you use a combination of approaches, be sure to collect information on everyone coming through your display so that you can follow up with them.

Think of your exhibition stand as a giant business card; a card that attracts all sorts of new opportunities to explore including new customers, possible partners, potential suppliers as well as opportunities to hear from existing clients. Exhibitions offer great opportunities for business growth and development.

Social Media

In today’s world, it’s important to remember social media and to use it to stay in touch with the people you meet at tradeshows. It’s a great way to keep people informed about upcoming events, promotions, and new products.

You can have people sign up online right at the show by having an interactive booth that’s full of fun facts and online information that can be accessed right from the booth. Having an interactive booth let’s people know that you are interested in staying current. It gives you an opportunity to let people know more about you by having information you want them to have available via a few keystrokes.

Send out notifications to your existing lists before the show. Get the list of expected attendees from the show organizers and send emails to people you want to meet, inviting them to stop by your booth. This helps you to meet key people without ever leaving your booth.

Think outside the box is still a valuable saying. Do it! What do you look for when you attend a show as a visitor? Are you providing your visitors with a well thought out theme and display? Do they get something for the time and effort of coming? If you can say yes to these questions, you are on the right track. Keep going!