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[T1209]Trade Show Exhibit Booths

by Pam Magnuson, Pam

Those who know how to attract a partner will be busy entertaining visitors, chatting up their stuff, and wowing the crowd. The busy ones will have attracted visitors to their booths, with great incentives and rewards. How do you give a prospect something to look forward to, when he visits your booth?

You do it by motivating them to put your booth on their "must see" list. When you combine all your marketing tools into a single, themed focus for your booth, you create an irresistible attraction.

Start with your theme for the show. It could be a sport, such as football, or fishing. It could be a game, or a maze. If the show itself has a theme, try to tie your theme in with the show's theme. This will improve your prospect's focus on your presentation, and help embed your company's name in his mind.

Then, use related graphics and language on all your trade show materials and communications. (Use it consistently with both pre-show, and show time materials.)

Let's say you decide on a Fishing theme: "Fishing for Gold!" The activity at your booth could be for visitors to "fish" for a gold coin in the bottom of a container. The bottom, filled with fake "gold" coins, (like those foil-wrapped chocolate ones,) could also contain a few "special coins" redeemable for the Grand Prize: a real gold coin. What a treasure for the lucky few!

Your copy materials would carry out the fishing theme by saying, "You don't need to fish around anymore when looking for top quality parts." Or, "When you hook up with our packaging options, you'll know you've finally caught the big one!"

If you're a minerals company, you could use, "Mining for Gold!" rather than 'fishing.' Then you'd say in your copy, "You know you've hit the Mother Lode when you use our high quality minerals."

The idea, here, is the same as creating a "brand." You want quick, easy, memorable images for your prospects to ponder, as they wander the trade show floors, looking for someone to help them. Use this theme to build interest and curiosity.

Once you have a theme, find give-away items that work with the theme. Think outside the box of pens, calendars and key chains, for an incentive to visitors. Make sure that what you choose has inherent value, on its own, and is useful or sensible, in some way. The greater the perceived "value" of your give-away gift, the more people you'll drive to your booth. You'll discover the rewards of doing something different.

When you make the trade show experience attractive to potential clients, your company will be remembered and talked about, for a long time after the show is over.

Be it a small scale trade fair or a large scale one, someone who is inexperienced about it is sure to feel a little nervous about the whole thing. He would wonder how to attract the attention of customers to his stalls when there are so many companies competing with him. And to be honest, his fears are not quite baseless - without proper trade show exhibits, his chances of attracting visitors to his stalls are next to nil.

As you set up stalls in a trade fair, you will have to incur certain marketing expenditure. The cost includes space rental, telecommunication, networking travel, accommodation, promotional literature, trade show exhibits etc etc. If you fail to attract the visitors, all the trouble taken and cost incurred will go down the drain.

Do not try to save money on the trade show exhibits. These are the only means that will attract the attention if the visitors. Remember you have only three seconds to catch their attention. Unless you can attract them within those three seconds, they will walk past without even a cursory glance. Even if they look at your stall fleetingly, that will not translate into real interest. Therefore, it is imperative that you have proper trade show display which is just another term for trade show exhibits.

If you are planning to buy the trade show displays, do so from a company having a good reputation and decent customer service. They must also possess a team of experts in the chosen field so that they are capable of meting out sound advice regarding displays that match a certain product type. Another factor to be kept in mind would be the size of the available space.

In North America, the minimum space rented out is 10'x10'. You can rent spaces in multiple of that. You can take two stall side by side and then you will have an exhibiting space of 10'x20'. Like wise if you want a stall as big as 20'x20', you will have to take four stalls. You can have one as big as 100'x100'. In Europe and Asia, exhibit spaces are rented out on 1m basis, the smallest being 3mx3m.

You do not need to be a genius to realize that the trade show display for a 10'x10' stall and that of a 100'x100' will be very different. If you are displaying cars, you will need a different type of displays than if you are selling insurance policies.

You can also go for renting trade show displays from trade show display rentals instead of buying them. This would help you reduce your financial inputs substantially and also save you the headache of storing them afterwards. However, if it is your regular custom to attend trade fairs, it is much better for you to buy some of the most frequently required items. This would help save the repetitive cost of the rentals that you would pay for them each time you attend a show.

If your booth is very tiny, try procuring tabletop displays. One may intelligently guess from the name that it implies displays that can be set atop a table. The tables are generally supplied by the organizers of the trade fair. There may be any number of tabletop displays, some of which are -
* Banner stand table top displays
* Modular or Hybrid table top displays
* Panel table top displays
* Pop-up tabletop displays.

On-the-floor models of these displays are also found for larger display booths. In addition to all these you can have pipe and drape display as well as truss display.

Of these, truss looks truly awesome. It provides a sophisticated, professional and sturdy display booth and can be put together without the use of tools. A 10'x10' truss display will come for around $5,400 and look great too. Those designs that are a little less elaborate are worth $2,500. Panel displays for 10'x20' booth can be bought for a price range from $3,000 to $17,000.

The price of a display unit would vary according to size and design. More magnificent a display is, greater the chances would be of its attracting the customer's attention. However, it may not always be advisable to buy $ 17,000 or such amounts on displays used for one occasion only. Hence, the rental companies have shot up in popularity these days. They take up projects on a turnkey basis and also provide free expert advice in addition. These turnkey projects save you from over-spending as well as the headache of organization.

However, it is for you to decide what you should do. However, do not forget that you have just three seconds to draw your prospective customer's attention.

Article Source : Trade Show Exhibit

About Author

Both Pam Magnuson & Benny Wilkinson are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Pam Magnuson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Trade Shows, Marketing and Trade Show Exhibit. Pam Magnuson is a freelance copywriter with a wide spectrum of experience in Radio, TV and newspaper advertising. She specializes in the Dietary Supplement industry.. Pam Magnuson's top article generates over 9900 views. to your Favourites.

Benny Wilkinson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Trade Show Displays, Trade Show Exhibit and Trade Show Displays. Benny Wilkinson being a leading expert in the field of advertising and promotion through , is always on the lookout for new. Benny Wilkinson's top article generates over 5400 views. to your Favourites.