Even though many things have shifted to being digital these days, trade shows and exhibitions are still a great way to showcase a company and its products. Since so much business is done remotely these days, being at a trade show is a great way to give a business a human touch that is often missing from the digital landscape. For in-person interactions, depending on your industry, you can see a high return on your investment by attending a tradeshow.
When your business attends a trade show, you want to draw people to visit your booth, which means it needs to stand out. Since you typically have a few months of preparation before attending a trade show, you can spread out your preparation to design your display to ensure that potential customers do not overlook you. Whether you are putting together a new trade show display or looking for some ideas to give your existing display a fresh new look, we have put together this list of ideas to help you get started.
What are your goals for your trade show booth?
Before you start designing your trade show booth, developing some goals for what you hope to get out of attending the trade show is important. You need to have some objectives, both about sales and non-sales objectives, to help you strategize your attendance at this trade show.
You can determine which objectives to focus on based on the goals of your business overall and the nature of the trade show you are attending. For example, if you are attending a trade show for sales, you will want to ensure that you have enough products to meet demands; bringing too much is always better than too little. If your objective is to connect with your customers and learn more about their pain points, bring the materials needed to collect that information. For a company that is trying to establish its brand, bringing promotional materials that have detailed information about what they have to offer is important.
Once you have determined your goals for the trade show, you can use them to work on putting together your booth.
Sales Objectives
- Identify new customers.
- Selling your products or services.
- Connect with key decision-makers.
- Identify the pain points and challenges of your customers.
- Inform potential customers about your products or services.
Non-Sales Objectives
- Learn about what your competitors are offering.
- Discover new market trends.
- Build and maintain your company’s image with your customers and competition.
- Test new products and evaluate customer interest.
- Build up the morale and engagement of your employees.
Tips for Planning a Trade Show Booth
Combine Purpose and Brand Identity
The design of your trade show booth needs to show off your brand identity clearly. Make sure that the layout of your booth will clearly show what your business has to offer so that prospective customers will have a good idea of what you have to offer before they decide to approach your booth.
Try to Find a High Traffic Area
This is not always doable, but whenever possible, try to secure a booth location that is going to be in a high-traffic area. The ideal location is putting the booth away from the outer edges of the venue and as close to the main walkway as possible. Other good locations are near exits, restrooms, and food vendors.
Promote Your Presence
Once you know that you have secured a booth at this trade show, start promoting your presence online. Post some teasers about what you will have available at the show, especially if you are unveiling new products. Share some behind-the-scenes information about what you are doing at the show. Then, when you get to the show and begin getting set up, start sharing photos on social media about the show. Post live updates through the show to keep the hype going.
Most of these events will have their own hashtags, so make sure you are using those to extend the reach of all of your social media posts.
Can you cover parts of the floor?
You only have so much space in your trade show booth, so make the most of it. If the venue will allow you to put things on the floor, place some floor decals with your logo or just some floor mats with the logo. By doing this, you may end up catching the eye of someone who may not have otherwise noticed.
Optimize Your Booth Layout
If your booth is 10×10, securing a corner location is ideal. This will give you two open sides to talk to potential customers and allow your team to interact with multiple people at once.
Incorporating Faux Stone into Your Trade Show Display
While you might think of faux stones as something that is intended mostly for remodeling your home or the physical location of your business, they are much more lightweight than you might think. Since faux stone panels are both light and durable, they are a great way to add a little bit of character to your trade show display. Let’s take a look at some of the unique ways you can make your trade show booth stand out with faux stone.
Add it to the Walls
If you have walls that you bring into your trade show displays, you can easily install faux stones on them to make them stand out a little more than they currently do. Since there are many color options available for faux stone and brick, you should be able to find a color scheme that works with your brand. If not, some faux stone companies offer custom colors, so you can create something that goes perfectly with your branding.
Accent Your Displays and Counters
For a trade show display that has counters or a display case, you can easily install faux stone on the display case to accent it. If you have a countertop that you bring with you for trade shows, having faux stone on it will help catch the eye of your prospective customers.
Highlight a Sign Outside the Booth
Do you have a sign that sits outside of your booth? You can surround it in faux stone, whether it is the background for the sign, along the columns holding the sign up, or in a different manner. Since the faux stone is different, it is going to make your sign stand out more so that your potential customers are more likely to notice it.
One unique way to highlight your sign is to create an archway above your booth with your sign on it. Then, you just need to wrap the columns holding the arch up in faux stone. This is something that is different enough to catch the eye.
Create a Stand-Style Booth
Depending on what products you are selling, one unique way to use faux stone for your display is to build a stand-style booth. You can use the faux stone as the siding of the stand. This is not a very common design element, so it is something unique that can capture the attention of potential customers.
Other Ideas for a Trade Show Booth
Now that we have looked at how to incorporate faux stone into your trade show display, let’s take a look at some other ideas for designing your booth.
Use Sounds and Smells
Have some ambient music playing in the background of your booth to help get attention. A scent diffuser is a good way to help attract attention, too, but it is important to be cautious with those because some people may be allergic to the scents coming from the diffuser.
Use Gamification to Improve Engagement
Creating some sort of games for your trade show is a great way to engage with your audience at a trade show. You can encourage attendees to compete against one another for prizes to keep them coming back to your booth. You can even consider creating a leaderboard to keep them coming back to see who is winning.
Have Live Presentations or Demonstrations
Depending on your products and services, this may not be doable, but whenever possible, try to have some live demos or presentations about your products during a trade show. If there are special guests or speakers during the show, try to bring in someone from your team to give one of these presentations.
Ask Attendees for Feedback
Talk to the attendees about what they liked about your booth and what they might have liked to see or experience. This can help you come up with a more effective booth at future trade shows. Make sure you follow up with customers, when possible, in a timely manner.
Final Thoughts
Trade shows are a great way to help you improve sales and connect with your customers. It takes a lot of thought and strategizing to design the best booth for your business, but it is something that can be changed at every show until you find the perfect layout for you. Fauxstone is one of the best options for designing your trade show booth since it looks like real stone and can help grab the attention of customers.
