Successful Trade Show Exhibits

From time to time, clients ask how they can keep control of trade show exhibit costs without diluting their exhibit impact.  Here are several suggestions to help keep trade show display expenditures in line:

1. Consider renting a trade show booth rather than buying one. 
Renting a trade show exhibit applies only if you are planning a one time or occasional trade show appearance or if you have a simultaneous trade show in another part of the country that conflicts with your exhibit schedule.  It does not make economic sense to rent a trade show display if you plan to exhibit more than three times in a given year.  Be sure to rent a booth that will fit into the size of the exhibit space.  Renting will save you not only on trade show booth construction costs but also the expense of warehousing your display after the trade show is over.

2. Upgrade your existing trade show booth.  
If you choose not to rent, you can upgrade your older booth by changing its graphics, relaminating color panels, and redesigning structural elements.  This is a much more cost-effective way than starting from scratch.

3. Invest in a pre-owned trade show display. 
If you do not already have an existing trade show exhibit booth to upgrade, you can find pre-owned trade show exhibits that are greatly reduced from their original cost.  Many trade show exhibit houses offer top quality pre-owned exhibits that are well maintained and easily adaptable to new signage, often affording reductions in exhibit design time and construction costs by more than half. You also have options on size, design, scope and price similar to trade show booth rentals with a variety of style and dimension options. Perhaps with little more than a customized graphics upgrade your trade show exhibit can be “out the door and on the floor” in a matter of weeks.

4. Consider a lightweight trade show exhibit.  
A lightweight exhibit will reduce operating costs such as freight, drayage, and storage.  Select a trade show display that packs easily and is uncomplicated to install and dismantle.  A custom modular or custom portable trade show exhibit can have the look of a custom exhibit, while reducing operating costs by 50 to 90 percent.

5. Pack extra supplies.  
When your installation and dismantle company installs your exhibit at your trade show, you’ll find that emergency repairs and materials replacements often are costly.  So keep a backup supply box filled with items that may need to be replenished at the trade show.  Include power cords, tools, light bulbs, Velcro, scissors and duct tape.

6. Plan well in advance.  
This will help you avoid unnecessary rush charges from not scheduling adequate lead time for the trade show display’s graphic design and production requirements.

7. Set up the trade show display during pre-show week days. 
Avoid costly weekend and overtime labor costs on the trade show floor.  Early trade show booth assembly also helps you to avoid last minute glitches that run up the tab. 

8. Understand trade show services.  
You will frequently require supplemental assistance from trade show services at the trade show exhibit hall. These are representatives and union laborers who provide such support services as installation and dismantling, carpeting, furniture, lighting, phones, drayage and security.  If you are aware of the nuances of these charges for trade show services and plan in advance you can save money while avoiding numerous pitfalls.

Experience is the best teacher in keeping trade show exhibit costs under control.  If your display team has limited know-how, tap into the wealth of knowledge available from the staff of a reputable trade show exhibit house.  Also do your research on trade show exhibit company websites for industry insider tips.

This is a fairly typical scenario for tradeshow marketing planners: You have made the decision to have a tradeshow exhibit in your industry’s leading tradeshow. You have planned properly by selecting the appropriate tradeshow, nailed down the key objectives and goals of your company’s tradeshow marketing team, and hired professionals to build a dramatic, eye-popping tradeshow display. Now all you need to do is wait for visitors to find your tradeshow booth. You believe in the motto “If you build it, they will come,” right?

Well, not exactly. With tens of thousands of square feet of tradeshow floor and hundreds of competing tradeshow exhibits, prospects finding their way to your company’s tradeshow booth can be an overwhelming challenge.

Fortunately, there are proven ways to get crowds to your tradeshow booth.

According to Elaine Cohen, Founder/President of Live Marketing in Chicago, you need to be imaginative and pro-active to stimulate tradeshow exhibit traffic. You will need to design a fully integrated crowd-gathering campaign for success in getting visitors to your tradeshow exhibit. Once there, you need to educate them, connect them with a sales representative, and get them to take a desired action.

Cohen sites an example of a crowd-gathering tradeshow campaign that she designed to produce highly successful results for Purina Pro Plan® at the National Dog Show in Philadelphia in 2005. The campaign was titled “The Difference is Real –Real Meat, Real Commitment, Real Experts.” The tradeshow live presentation was so successful that it was repeated at the Philadelphia’s National Dog Show in 2006, and also at the 2006 Chicago Dog Show and the Detroit Kennel Club Show.

Cohen not only got people to Purina Pro Plan®’s booth, but had them actively involved once they were at the tradeshow booth: Here’s what drew the visitors:
• The stage was set with banners at the entry to the tradeshow hall announcing Purina was the presenting sponsor of the show. Signage was displayed inside and outside the event venue. In addition, the tradeshow exhibit had the prime location at the hall entrance.
• High-energy music, visuals of great looking dogs and colorful signage drew tradeshow visitors’ attention to the Purina Pro Plan tradeshow exhibit and theatre.
• A crowd-gatherer greeted visitors and directed them to the tradeshow exhibit by inviting them to learn how to get the most out of the show. People movers such as a presenter and a booth ambassador enticed people into the tradeshow booth and moved them from activity to activity. Visitors got insights into how their dogs can lead happy, healthy lives. Purina brought ten staff members to work the exhibit—brand specialists, experts and field sales people.
• A live theatre presentation featured a presenter who gave away complimentary Purina Pro Plan hats, and entries into a drawing to win a year’s supply of Pro Plan food for their dog. Pro Plan Frisbees and dog food bag clips were awarded to those who answered questions. The audience eagerly participated.
• Many tradeshow visitors who wore their hats around the show floor were rewarded by being spotted by roving exhibit staffers. Those who were spotted received coupons.

The results were significant:
• 1,222 consumers experienced the live presentation over the 2-day show.
• 60-80 people participated per presentation, with many standing and sitting around the theatre area (the theatre had 30 seats). This exceeded the initial goal of 400 by over 300%.
• 1,672 people completed all three activities.
• 2,000 Pro Plan hats were distributed.
• 100 Pro Plan hat wearers received $5.00 off coupons from Pro Plan spotters.
• 1,000 Frisbees were given out.
• 3,500 coupons were distributed.

In order to have a successful tradeshow exhibit experience, therefore, you must have a plan in place to bring people to your tradeshow booth and also give them a good reason to spend time at your tradeshow booth—no matter whether your presentation is at the McCormick Convention Center in Chicago, the Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland, the Moscone Center in San Francisco, the Hannover Exhibition Center in Germany or the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.

Remember, the next time you exhibit at a tradeshow, by having pied pipers attract a crowd to your audience-focused, live tradeshow presentation, your tradeshow exhibit will become a crowd-pleaser.

There are times when renting, versus owning, a trade show display makes good sense.  It could be that your primary trade show booth is already in use at another show; you have budget or turnaround time constraints; or you may be testing the trade show experience for the first time.

Whatever the case, here are five fundamental guidelines that will make your trade show exhibit rental experience trouble free and successful:

1. Find a highly transportable solution

Find a rental trade show display that can be easily and quickly setup to save on trade show display installation and dismantling costs. Choose trade show exhibits that are built to survive unpredictable transport and are constructed to ensure fast, flawless trade show exhibit assembly and rapid, fool-proof trade show exhibit breakdown.

2. Choose lightweight structures

Today you can find exceptionally stable, yet lightweight, platforms such as high tech aluminum extrusion profile forms that can act as the backbone of your trade show display.  Straight and curved modular elements in varying lengths also work together in virtually limitless combinations to create unique, personalized rental trade show exhibit booths. 

3.Look for versatility

Being flexible is a key to providing a solution for rental trade show exhibit environments—from trade show booth interiors and dividing walls to free standing podium additions or other options. 
You can define your trade show exhibit area’s space starting with a freestanding platform. You may want to create a quiet island for serious prospects amid the noise and chaos of the typical show floor.  Today’s versatile rental trade show display systems even have modular wall elements that can act to enclose some or all of your exhibit space.

4. Go for clean, clear, crisp and creative functional designs

By using advanced high tech design solutions, you will be able to have a rental trade show booth that can relay your company’s message in a focused and powerful way. Contemporary rental trade show exhibit structures can be custom designed to create a personalized trade show floor statement that expresses your company’s marketing goals and objectives.

5. Create environment for interaction between your sales force and hot prospects
Whether it’s a rental trade show exhibit or a permanent trade show exhibit, the ideal trade show display encourages person-to-person interactions through attention to traffic flow within the exhibit and careful placement of exhibit design elements for maximum efficiency and accessibility to product demonstrations, product displays, and marketing literature. Make it easy for your attendees to feel at home with visible and accessible literature. Set up exhibit demonstration areas designed to draw the attendee in and make the experience comfortable.

Try out imaginative and innovative trade show exposure ideas when you rent.  It’s a great way to test trade show exhibit options before purchasing a permanent exhibit or making a major trade show booth commitment.

Want to know more? Visit ProExhibits’ Idea Gallery!

Nothing lures people into a trade show exhibit more than fun. Okay, handing out hundred dollar bills does, but even that won’t guarantee they’ll stick around.

The key is to involve people, to make them part of the exhibit. There’s nothing like seeing a crowd being active and having a good time to make everyone else want to join in.

So how do you do this? Two words: hands-on experience.

Get their hands on your products.
Don’t just display your products in your exhibit booth, put them out so people can use them, feel them, touch them, try them out. Set it up so they can do fun things with your product.

If you sell cameras, hang humorous or exotic backdrops so visitors can photograph each other standing in front of them. And be sure to give them something to walk away with to remember your product by.

Take them to the movies.
Show them a film, create a theater, make it 3-D, interactive, or just immersive. Above all, make it entertaining.

Show the crowd how people use your product.
When people see a crowd, they stop to see what’s going on. If they can’t tell, they move on.

Put up angled overhead mirrors so people can see how those in front are checking out your product. Focus video cameras on them and display it on monitors above.

If people can see what’s going on in your exhibit booth, and it looks like fun, they’re going to wait for their turn.

Make it a game.
Freestanding kiosks and touch-screen displays are a great way to set up interactive games that are fun as well as informative. Make it a quiz. Turn it into a game. Or just use that touch-screen to make it interactive.

As long as it gets people involved, it will keep them in your exhibit, learning about your product while attracting even more visitors.

Make people part of the action and the action will be at your trade show exhibit!

Your work doesn’t stop just because your trade show exhibit is all set. New graphics, attention-getting design, a flashy presentation, and effective hands-on demo are all great at drawing the people in. That will attract visitors at the trade show – but why leave it to the chance of them making it to over to your exhibit booth? With a little advance work you can make them seek you out. Here are some ideas:

1. Send out a press release – Think of it as free advertising, because that’s just what it is. First, you need to find your angle. Make it something special, different and newsworthy. Maybe you’re introducing a new product or service, or you’ve added something to your trade show exhibit, like a new hands-on demo or a multi-media presentation.

Write it up like a news article and send it to all the trade magazines at least three months in advance. If you need help, ask around for a referral or check the directories for a trade show public relations agency.

2. Promote it on your web site – Create a special page on your web site (or a section if you’re that ambitious) for each trade show you’ll be exhibiting at. Make sure you include your booth number, a map of the trade show floor, a picture of your trade show exhibit booth, and of course the information from the press release you wrote after reading item one above.

If you get the page up at least two months in advance you should find your page listed when people search online for information about the show and your company. And don’t forget to put a prominent reference on your Home Page — if not every page! — something like: “We’re exhibiting at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show. Click here for details.”

3. Email marketing – Send emails to your customers and prospects giving them compelling reasons to stop by your trade show exhibit. Thanks to online services like www.constantcontact.com and www.mailchimp.com, it’s now easy and inexpensive to send out good looking emails while keeping your contact list up-to-date.

You upload your existing email list, choose a template, add your logo, then fill it in. Using those cost-effective, easy-to-use services you can send a professional looking email that will be viewed the way you expect and not wind up in your customer’s spam box. From then on the service takes care of adding, changing, or dropping subscribers. Don’t forget to include a link to the web site landing page you created for that particular show.

4. Include coupons and offers in all of the above. Everyone loves a gift, so why not offer your visitors an incentive to drop by your trade show booth? Maybe you give them a promotional freebie if they turn it in. Or you could give them half of a discount coupon and they get the other half when they stop by your exhibit booth.

Be sure to mention this in the press release, post it on your web site so they can print it out, and send it out in an email! It’s a great way to track how well your promotional efforts are working, too.

There are a lot of reasons why a trade show display rental might make sense—you only exhibit at one or two shows a year, your booth space requirements change from show to show, or you just don’t want to make a big capital outlay at the moment—but one thing keeps holding you back. Won’t a rented exhibit look like, well, a rented exhibit?

If the words “rental exhibit” conjure up images of a funky, beat up, out-of-date booth that looks like everybody else’s funky, beat up, out-of-date rental booth on the floor, then it’s time to take another look at them. Rental booths have come a long way, baby!

Trade Show Display Rental: Time for a Fresh Look?

So whether you are exhibiting internationally and opt for a trade show display rental in the country where the show is located to save the exorbitant overseas shipping costs, not have to worry about storage, insurance, repair, and transportation fees, or just need to watch those capital expenditures, you can still achieve your company’s marketing goals and objectives with a custom designed, personalized trade show booth. One that you rent.

It’s enough to make any CFO smile.

By the way… if you’d like a resource that shows a lot of rental options in one place, check our extensive Trade Show Display Rental portfolio for ideas.

The Truth about Attracting People to Your Exhibit Booth

Having a good looking, effective exhibit booth is just one piece of the trade show equation—the best display in the world won’t do you a lot of good if you don’t get people by to see it. So how do you attract crowds to your exhibit and get them to spend time there? By creative trade show exhibit planning ahead of your event.

1. Make it an event
People like to be entertained. It’s not enough to just show them how great your product or service is (even though we both know it’s great!), you need to grab their attention. Think music! Lights! Action! Celebrities are always a big draw, but so are the more affordable celebrity look-alikes, jugglers, clowns, and magicians. Once the excitement draws visitors to your trade show booth, you get the chance to tell them your story.

2. Exhibit booth giveaways
Promotional gifts or product samples are magnets that draw visitors to your exhibit booth (even if what you’re giving away isn’t a magnet). It breaks the ice and gets a conversation started between your staff and the visitors. Then they take the giveaway home where it will be a reminder of your company and product. Check the Yellow Pages or look online for “Advertising Specialties.”

3. Make it hands-on or interactive
Have you ever noticed how when you walk the trade show floor people stop at any display where they can actually do something? A creative, interactive trade show display attracts people because it lets them join in the fun, becoming a part of the exhibit in the process. Done properly, it not only entertains but educates too.

4. Contest giveaways
Everyone likes to win something, which is why people line up for a chance to enter a drawing or contest. Whether the prize is large or small, people will stop by, giving you the opportunity to talk to them. Best of all, you’re adding them to your contact and mailing list.

5. Pre-event online promotion
Not all crowd attracting happens at the show. Start the buzz in advance by creating a special web page for each trade show you’ll be appearing at. And don’t forget to place a prominent link to them on your Home Page. Use e-mail marketing to let your customers know what you’ll be doing. Make it exciting by telling them about the fun things that will be happening at your booth. You know – like all the things I’ve mentioned above.

In future posts I’ll go into more detail about each of these crowd attractors…and give you even more ideas for attracting trade show attendees to your exhibit booth. Remember – it’s important to put the show in trade show.

If you’re confused about picking the right type of trade show exhibit booth, you’re not alone. Everyone asks me how they can choose the right type of trade show exhibit. My answer is always, “It depends.”

You have choice in exhibit booth types and in how you make that happen – used versus new, rental versus purchase.

There’s really no universal “right choice.” The option that is right for you is dependent on a number of variables unique to your situation, such as: budget, timing, ease, flexibility, schedule conflicts and convenience. With a little bit of information, you can begin planning from a more informed perspective.

The following is a brief overview of each to help you frame up your ideas.

Custom Trade Show Exhibit

The custom trade show exhibit type is built from scratch. Everything is exact–width, height and depth are unique. It’s put together creatively from the ground up.

When do you pick custom? It’s best to use a custom trade show exhibit when you’ve got a big breakthrough or when you really want impact. As you can image, it typically represents the most expensive choice, yet for the right conditions it can be well worth that expense.

Custom Modular Exhibit

A custom modular exhibit is less expensive than custom exhibits, it is easy to assemble, it saves space and has lower costs to ship.

It’s the right pick when you want flexible, affordable quality.

Portable Trade Show Display

A portable trade show display is really quick and easy to install and dismantle. It’s right for your first exhibit or for your appearances at smaller, regional shows.

Used Trade Show Booth

This is a great choice if you want to cut down on time and costs. The good news is that a used trade show booth is a lot easier to find than you might imagine; many professional trade show companies have them available for sale or rent, so you don’t have to worry about finding one.

This option is best when you’ve got a time crunch or a budget constraint. You will find all types of trade show booths available for resale.

Trade Show Display Rental

A trade show display rental is right when you need to be in 2 shows at the same time, when you’ve got to add to your existing trade show exhibit (in cases where you have additional space available at one particular trade show), or you’re just simply testing the waters. It’s also a great option for companies that are just starting out and need to conserve cash flow.

So, as you can see, choice is abundant. It’s just in knowing which options are right for your situation. Talk to a trade show exhibit house with some of these ideas in mind, informing your initial discussions. However, keep an open mind to their suggestions and rational as well – after all, they usually have years of experience and can provide great guidance.

There are some pretty big mistakes you want to avoid when you opt for a trade show display rental. You are not immune to the impact of these mistakes simply because you are renting.

This has got to be the biggest no-no you can make. And, it’s also the most expensive. Never, and I mean never, pick a trade show display rental on looks over practicality.

If you do, you’ll have costs that’ll hunt you down. Freight, drayage, installation and dismantling costs will make you a very unhappy renter.

Yes, the design impact is important. You may find that you think of it as less attractive when you start factoring in some of the shipping and storing costs if your display’s design has increased the weight and involves additional shipping intricacies. For instance, calculate how many shipping crate’s you’ll need.

Do your homework – as unglamorous as it may seem, you won’t regret it. Once you have done that, step back and rethink how compelling that particular display rental is over others that are less costly to ship, install and manage logistically.

If you’re on an overly aggressive timeline, you’ll be sure to make design mistakes, incur rush charges, and you’ll lose out on early discounts. Tip: watch, like a hawk, the cut-off dates for discounts on carpeting, drayage, lighting and show services. Save your sanity and your budget.