Do you have an exciting and innovative product to sell? Looking for your potential buyers? Chances are you will do very well displaying them at trade shows. This is why companies exhibit at trade shows every year – to advertise, demonstrate and bring the latest trend to the market. And from the other side, buyers go to trade shows to be in the trend, to see the real thing in hand, see it in action, and compare multiple manufacturers at the same time. You want to create an environment that draws people in, one that will represent your company and best display your products. The design process is critical to your trade show success.
To better utilize your space and effetely display your products, consider these questions:
Your answers to those questions will help get you started. Here are 7 tips that will further improve your likelihood of success:
1. More isn’t always better: An exhibit overflowing with products look like a flea market and builds a barricade that inhibits prospects from entering your booth. Think of it as a junk drawer – it gets so full you can’t open it, and when you do, you can’t find anything. To avoid creating confusing clutter, consider bringing only your biggest sellers or your key new products. This is proven advice shared by many exhibitors who increased their results after making the change.
2. Demonstrate your products: A good product demo is extremely effective in stopping traffic, engaging prospects, and leaving a lasting impression. This is one of the hallmarks and advantages of trade shows over other media. Invest considerable time in creating and practicing great demos for better trade show results, and then designing spaces for those demos in your booth.
3. Make your product stand out: While large products often sit on the floor, you still need exhibit components, such as hanging signs and towers, to define your space and promote your brand. Often large products are well served with kiosks next to them to describe their features and benefits. Bring your hard-to-see products to life with larger graphics showing them in use, or a demo that is filmed and projected onto larger monitors around the booth.
4. Mount your products: Products that are heavy, valuable or that you want in a certain place with supporting graphics or to get at eye-level are often displayed better when mounted directly onto a wall. Often small-to-medium-sized products are mounted in an arrangement, but large products can even be wall-mounted, too, although they require greater structure to support them.
5. Build a set: Create an environment similar to where the products will actually be used, whether it’s with the architecture of the booth, images on graphics, or additional props beyond your products that help signal to the buyer that they are “home.”
6. Tell why you’re better: We’d all like to think our products sell themselves, and it’s tempting to think that once your products are on display, they will. Give yourself more visual proof by supporting your products with graphics that make your products’ benefit obvious. Do your products last longer? Do more, faster? Cost less over time? Take less energy? Tell your products’ story with graphics and/or AV tech.
7. Light your products: If your products are the star of your booth, then highlight them with extra lighting. It may be spot lights that put more attention on your products, uplighting on the shelves or display cases, or just a lot of light blasting your entire booth if most of your space is filled with products.
