5 Tips For Creating Custom Trade Show Displays That Inform, Engage, And Compel

While few exhibitors question the positive outcomes of trade show exhibiting, many still find themselves struggling to a personalized exhibit that maximizes crowd impact and produces good ROI. If you’re in the process of creating your marketing strategy, understanding a few key tips on creating a winning display can help transform your corporate presence from mere background music, to main event.

1. Choose the Right Team: The first step in developing a great exhibit starts with your design team. While you may find yourself overwhelmed with various designers claiming to be industry experts, it’s critical to do the necessary due diligence to guarantee that you’re working with a team that has the experience, insight, and capabilities needed to make your design vision a reality. To help narrow down the team, consider these questions: Who has the voice of the customer? Who is the most adept at design and messaging? Who has the most trade show experience? Who is ultimately responsible for marketing? Keep your team small and find people that can be objective and understand the audience. Your design process will go much more smoothly.

2. Your Exhibit Size Matters: When it comes to trade show marketing, many organizations instantly assume that bigger means better, but this simply isn’t the case. Rather than focusing on getting the biggest booth possible, think about your objectives and what the best way is to meet them. Visually compelling shapes, a unique design and bold colors will do far more to captivate the audience than merely choosing a big (but boring) booth. Read here to understand which exhibit size may work best for you and help you meet your trade show objectives.

3. Make Your Brand Identity the Focal Point: Your brand is the most important message to convey to attendees at a trade show. Make sure your brand sends the right message. The key goal trade shows is to showcase your brand for long-term, sustainable promotional impact. Work with your chosen design team to make your brand identity a centralized focal point throughout the exhibit so every passerby instantly understands who you are and what you do.

4. Carefully Choose Graphics: Beyond your brand image, you’ll also want to include various graphics throughout your exhibit as well. Choose wisely. Including too many graphics or too much messaging detracts from your impact and can look unorganized and unprofessional very quickly. Instead, use one large image or maybe two smaller ones on the majority of your display. Use anywhere from 5-20 words, depending on the size of your display. Let your booth staffers be the ones to tell your company story and explain your offerings.

5. Include Marketing Resources: Yes, custom trade show displays can hold their own against newer marketing resources; however, this doesn’t mean that modern promotional tactics should be eliminated entirely. Including your website, social media pages, and even your corporate blog somewhere in the trade show booth, even if it’s on a video screen. Invite attendees to interact online. This can only enhance your ROI.

You have an average of three seconds to make an impact on an attendee as they walk by your exhibit. Make sure you don’t leave anything up to question or make them work too hard. Convey a clear and clean message and design wisely.

By: Mark Taylor