The ADfab Tradeshow Buzz
Archive for July, 2010
Key to Success in Trade Shows
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Trade shows can give a boost to your sales and improve the brand image of your company in the market. As long as you are able to keep your costs low through services like trade show booth rentals, they provide a great opportunity to go head to head with competitors and convince customers about why your products are better.
Here are a few tips to help you extract the maximum benefit out of your trade show participation:
• Careful planning: You can’t just show up at a trade show and expect to succeed. You need careful planning and strategizing about how you will go about convincing your customers about your offerings. Think about the unique selling points of your products and the major strengths of your company. These should be highlighted at the trade show.
• Attractive presentation: Your plans should be executed perfectly, especially the way your displays turn out to be. The displays should be attractive so that customers are drawn towards the booth. The level of engagement with the customer needs to be sustained, for which you will need some smart people handling the booth.
• Keep costs low: Trade show costs can spiral out of control if you are not careful about your budget. This will reduce your ROI and may even make the whole exercise futile. Keep your costs low by opting for trade show booth rentals and do a careful budget allocation. Focus on those aspects that can give you good value and avoid spending on things that do not serve an important purpose.
Using Custom Displays for Your Trade Show Booth
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
Well designed custom displays can create the right impact and attract visitors to your trade show booth. When you are sharing the trade show floor with several of your competitors, you have to ensure that the display is eye-catching and draws potential customers to your booth.
These displays can be prepared in-house or created by professional display specialists. For in-house displays, a significant amount of time has to be invested. It is usually a good idea to engage a professional display specialist even if you have to spend some money.
There are many displays that can be used to market your products effectively, such as pop-ups, table-tops, fabric, modular and banner displays. The advantage with such displays is that they can be transported easily and installed quickly in the trade show booth. Depending on your requirements and budget, you can set up elaborate or simple displays.
There are a few things that should be kept in mind when creating such displays. The graphics should be bright and colorful but not over-the-top. The lighting and booth walls should be in sync with the display. Ensure that there is sufficient lighting and the display is clearly visible even from a distance.
Effective custom displays present relevant information about the product and the company in a succinct way. The company’s name and logo must be prominently displayed so that visitors can recall them without much effort. Make sure that the booth in which the display is exhibited is comfortable, airy and uncluttered.
Traits of the Most Effective Trade Show Custom Displays
Monday, July 12th, 2010
It is very likely that you consider your company’s participation in trade shows a very important part of your marketing plan. You get the exposure that you need for your products or services and your potential clients and customers have the chance to see what you have to offer up close and personal. But getting them to your booth at the trade show is often a difficult task, especially if you are not designing the most effective custom displays! Invest all the money in the world – if you can’t get them to your booth, your investment is worthless.
Lighting and Color
When considering the most effective way to design a custom trade show display, you must take several factors into consideration. Lighting and color may be more important than any other aspect of the design; after all, we are a visual society, and we are drawn to things that please the eye. Consider lighted signage, spotlights, and backlights for your display, and be sure to use a color that will attract folks to your booth while being relevant to your company or the products and services you are marketing. Include the color of your primary logo in the design, and choose colors to go with the primary color that represents your company that accentuate it, or make it stand out even more. Blue and green are professional and sophisticated colors, but red, orange, and yellow are attention-grabbing shades and great in minimal amounts.
Sound, Motion and Smell
Om addition to color, sound, motion and smell are also vital to the display. Plan to bring your own sound system with you, and use only sounds that are appropriate for the surroundings and that don’t interfere with other booths. This means some universally pleasant background music that everyone would enjoy; avoid going with a genre of music that is specifically youthful or that is too “old” for younger clients to appreciate. Motion in your booth is a good way to draw the eye, such as with the use of a projection television to play a DVD about your product, for instance. You might also hang up colored streamers that will blow in the wind that you create with a small desk fan, disguised within the custom trade show display. And last of all, adding a pleasing aroma to your display will also draw in folks, whether it is a plate of fragrant cookies or a rented popcorn popper – you’ll find that lots of people follow their noses. Another great idea is to turn the pedestrians at the show into walking advertisements for your company with company branded bottled water – which is readily available from a number of manufacturers.
Balancing the Custom Trade Show Display
It is important to temper the use of all of these – color, light, smell, motion, and sound – into the custom trade show display. In some displays, using all of these components may make the booth appear too overwhelming, or may make it lose its focus. A good way to get the best balance in your custom trade show display is to allow a professional to design the display for you – which is often a good way to save money and end up with a display is effective for your next trade show.
Like Bees to Honey: Why a Custom Display Will Draw More Attention to Your Trade Show Booth
Monday, July 5th, 2010
Even though custom displays are a bit pricier than their pre-fabricated cookie-cutter counterparts, there is much to be said about the benefits of the custom display when it comes to your success at trade shows and exhibits. After all, having a booth at a trade show is never enough; your mere presence isn’t going to make the event a success. Drawing potential customers and clients to your booth is what fuels trade show successes and a custom display can literally mean the difference between triumph and failure at your next event. Almost any style of display can be fully customized to best showcase your company and your products and services. From the small and relatively simple design all the way up to ornately crafted custom booth displays, these designs are individualized for your company’s needs and purchasing one is a smart investment. The custom display is very polished and exudes a professional appearance that will draw trade show attendees to your booth like bees to honey.
Choosing a Custom Display
Prior to choosing the custom display that will catapult your company to success at your next trade show or exhibition, make a careful and realistic assessment of your needs. If your plans include participating in multiple trade shows and events within the next year, you will definitely want to go with a custom display. Also take the products that you will be displaying into consideration; it is always a good idea to have the display outfitted to accommodate your products so that you will not need to purchase a supporting or secondary display for display inventory, even if this drives up the cost of the custom display initially. It is also prudent to avoid ‘trendy’ looks when it comes to your display and go rather with a classic display that is not only attractive but versatile. A trendy display may be more ‘up to the minute’ but a class display will be useful for several years with the right maintenance and care. And go for the size of display that you are most comfortable with transporting yourself unless you plan to hire out the task of getting the display to and from events, which will add to the overall usage cost of the display. If you are planning to choose a custom display that you can transport yourself, make sure that you can easily set it up yourself as well when you arrive at the event.
Other Considerations
Custom displays are available in a plethora of different shapes and sizes, or you can choose a custom shape or size that meets your needs. Keep in mind that you will always want a number of horizontal working surfaces for displaying literature and brochures as well as for your products. It is equally important that you have attractive and abundant lighting for the custom display, as well as backlighting that may be needed in certain instances. Be certain that the display is equipped for sound, and depending on your product or service, for media, like DVDs, to be played. And last of all, if you want to change the graphics, signage, or other elements of the custom display later on, choose a design that is adaptable enough to allow for modifications.
Following these tips will allow you to get the biggest bang for your trade show ‘buck’ and hopefully you will end up with a custom display that will be useful to you and your growing company for the long term.
