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Tips to Create an Effective Trade Show Booth
Enticing trade show attendees to drop by your trade show booth is somewhat challenging, to say the least. From the perspective of the attendee, it’s sometimes confusing to try and figure out which booths to stop by, especially when they all pretty much look and feel the same.
If you’re trying to create a memorable
trade show booth that will encourage more people to visit, there are a few critical design elements that you should take into consideration. We’ve compiled a list of tips that can help make your booth not only seem more attractive but encourage more visitors to stop on by for a chat.
Set Your Expectations and Goals
Before you can design a booth experience, you need to consider your goals.
- Are you trying to attract new customers?
- Are you trying to impress current customers?
- Are you trying to establish your company as a thought leader?
As you answer these questions, you’ll get a better idea of what you need to accomplish these goals. For example, if you’re looking to establish yourself as a thought leader, perhaps you could hand out a
booklet to everyone who stops by.
Or perhaps you would like to attract new customers or retain existing ones. A
catalog or
brochure that lists all of your products and includes the URL of your company website can help generate new business.
Start Promoting Early
As the old saying goes, the early bird gets the worm. You can help drum up interest in your booth by promoting it long before the trade show starts.
Direct mail and
email marketing campaigns are two great ways to drive more traffic.
You can run a promotion, drawing, or contest to attract both current and new customers. Sometimes your customers just want to talk with you in person as they view you as the expert. Having a conversation with your existing clients or customers can open up new business opportunities that regular marketing channels would miss.
Go Big
Trade shows are usually held in large convention halls. As such, your booth could easily become lost in a sea of similar-looking booths.
Custom booth displays will help ensure that you stand out from the rest of the pack.
Bright colors, LED T.V. displays, and large signage can pique interest from people who are walking on the other side of the convention hall. By selecting the right
trade show materials, you’ll ensure that your booth will draw people in from far and wide.
Consider Your Physical Location
There’s one thing that trade show attendees can count on: they will walk out of the show with multiple promotional pens and pads of paper that will most likely get thrown in a drawer and forgotten about. You can avoid this by being more selective when it comes time to choosing the right
promotional products.
For example, if you’re exhibiting in Seattle in the springtime, a branded promotional umbrella would be much appreciated. Or if you’re in Arizona or Las Vegas in the summertime, you can pass out tubes of branded sunscreen.
The End is the Just the Beginning
After the last trade show attendee has left the hall and you’ve packed up the booth, your work has only just begun. Your marketing efforts should strike while the proverbial anvil is hot, and your brand is fresh in the minds of those who visited your booth.
If you’ve collected email addresses and passed out cards with your social media information, you can begin a
social media marketing campaign that thanks the attendees for visiting your booth and helps set the stage for an
online marketing campaign that will drive the ROI of your trade show booth efforts through the roof.
Mobile Matters
Is your company website optimized for mobile devices? If not, trade show attendees could have trouble accessing your site because it wasn’t designed to work correctly on a small cell phone screen. It could also load extremely slow and cause visitors to hit the back button on their mobile browser.
Considering that in 2015,
Google stated that mobile phones make up over 50% of all internet searches, it makes good sense to have a
mobile-optimized website. You can even tie in your trade show booth promotions with a custom website that has a form which will collect names, email addresses, and other contact info which you can later remarket to.
Trade Show Booth Design and Construction in Alexandria
Trade shows are a major investment in both time and money. The best way to maximize your efforts and ROI is to have an experienced marketing and printing partner by your side every step of the way.
At Alphagraphics of Alexandria Va. and Arlington Va., we’ve helped countless companies over the years design and create the perfect trade show booth that helps drive new business.
If you’d like to learn more about our trade show booth services, or if you have any design questions, give us a call at (703) 549-2432 or
contact us on our website.