Participating in a trade show is a great way to market a small business. It’s an opportunity to network and get your name out there and meet potential customers, also known as income. There are three things that you should focus on when you are building your exhibit booth design: brand awareness, lead generation and relationship development. Every part of your custom exhibit design should be catered towards making these three things happen. Here are some tips for attracting attention to your booth.
Stand Apart
You want your trade show booth designs to stand out yes, but you also don’t want to blend in to your booth yourself. What you wear should be apart of your exhibit booth design. Wearing quirky t-shirts with funny sayings on them is a good conversation starter or just extremely bright colored clothing. Whatever makes you stand out and make people notice you. Half the battle is just getting the people there to know you exist. Once they know that, the rest of the work isn’t too hard. You don’t want to be obnoxious. Funny is best at trade shows; everyone likes to laugh.
Use Gimmicks
There’s nothing wrong with having a few props as part of your exhibit booth design. Custom exhibits usually have something fun for the visitors to do while talking about your company. Something that encourages them to ask questions about your business is the best kind of prop. Often times, a good exhibit booth design will include a cut out or something fun that visitors can take pictures with. You could even hand out small prizes and advertise as ‘Ask a Question, Gain a Prize’ to encourage people to approach. Any gimmick or prop you use should be with the intention of drawing attention. You could use anything from magic tricks to prizes in order to get people to come over and look closer. Gimmicks help you to have a friendly, approachable atmosphere which is very attractive.
Give Away Free Stuff
Everyone loves a freebie. Make sure your booth is marked clearly that you give away cool, free stuff and that will definitely attract some attention. It has to be better than dollar store junk to. The free stuff shouldn’t put your company out of business with how much it costs, but it should have some investment made to show potential customers you care about them. Make the freebie something that embodies your company and brings awareness to your business. Food always attracts people especially at trade shows when they are probably getting pretty hungry after wandering around all the different booths. Little samples aren’t usually enough though. Maybe offer a sub sandwich and even a chair for them to sit in and eat, this will give you ample time to talk to them about your company.
Train the Employees
Make sure whoever you take with you to represent your company at a trade show are well trained. It takes a special person to be able to work a trade show properly. There’s a special balance that each booth vendor needs to have. Visitors to trade shows tend to avoid making eye contact with the people working at the booths and if approached too aggressively it will scare them away. However, if completely ignored, they won’t approach at all, either. An effective method usually entails starting up some kind of good conversation. Asking them the beginning part of a joke is a good ice breaker conversation. An untrained employee can ruin the experience even if you have all the other tips in place. Once someone is at your booth, employees need to know what to do then and if they are boring, annoying or have a lack of confidence, it can destroy the lead.
If you can implement these four tips into your trade show experience, then you will likely have great success in the three areas mentioned above. In case you forgot them they are:
- Brand awareness – Once a person knows you are there, you have built an awareness to your brand.
- Relationship Development – Beginning a conversation with them, about whatever, is the beginning of developing a relationship.
- Lead Generation – Finally, an exchange of information can generate a very positive lead.