Trade Show Booth Design, Standing out

If innovation is the key to effective marketing and advertising, then there are few venues that exemplify this standard as thoroughly and successfully as the industry of trade shows and commercial exhibitions.  No matter what the particular businesses may be offering from their convention booths, catching the attention of a potential client or customer has become more competitive than ever, meaning that the traditional Xeroxed flyer simply won’t cut it anymore.  Professionalism, simplicity, and brand familiarity are all still resourceful tools for accomplishing this task, but to breathe new life into them is both a necessary and unending battle.  Worse yet, when advertising at trade shows, the market space is being shared with hundreds or even thousands of competitors, all doing their very best to beat each other to the finish line.  So with all of this in mind, exactly what methods can be used to bring your trade show booth above and beyond the expectations for truly effective advertising?  And in what ways can innovation play an important part in the process?

 

Let’s begin with the most obvious asset: Professionalism.  It doesn’t take much effort to set up a fold-out card table and throw together a sign made with some posterboards and a set of children’s colored markers.  Because this is the easiest and by far the cheapest method, much of the other booths at a trade show will no doubt take this route.  Granted, some money will be saved, but it will never help your company’s booth to stand out in the crowd.  Thus, the small amount of extra expense for a quality display, like a well-printed logo on the front of a high-quality tablecloth, becomes well worth the money spent, as it will make a statement to your clients that will let them know that you take your work very seriously.  Professionally printed displays will say a great deal about your company’s credibility, which will also put your attracted buyers at ease about any doubts they might have.  In short, professional displays for your booth create a professional representation for the company, which is the first stepping stone in achieving effective marketing.

 

Second, we will consider one of the more subtle arts of advertising: Simplicity.  When we’re driving in our cars and we see a pair of golden arches, there aren’t too many of us who wouldn’t think about how good a burger and fries would taste at that very moment.  Yet what we almost never consider is how effective that marketing tactic is, and it isn’t at all a complicated one.  With a simple symbol that consists of nothing more than a gold-colored letter M against a solid red background, the customers are lining up.  In the case of trade shows, too often are inexperienced companies littering their booths with overly-complex designs, endless mounds of text, and whatever else they can fit on that same cheap posterboard.  The result is a booth that looks like nothing more than a hopelessly-cluttered mess, which will demand far too much effort for potential customers to understand what you are trying to tell them, causing them to quickly give up and move on.  As the old saying goes, less is more.  Part of having a professional-looking both is making it simple enough for your clients to understand upon the very first glance.  Instead of trying to present everything about your company all at once, think about how you can present your company with a simple logo and maybe even a single-sentence description or slogan.  Instead of having countless banners and flyers, try having just a few professionally-printed displays.  The aforementioned tablecloth could function as your booth’s main centerpiece, and one or two additional displays could really help to present the company’s goals effectively without overwhelming the customer with too many garish things to look at.  Again, the goal is to say less with more, in the most professional-looking method possible.

 

Finally, we come to the concept of brand familiarity.  Once a positive  impression is made on your clients with the professional appearance of your booth, the goal then becomes to maintain that positivity as you continue to do business with your clients.  This is a process in which effective marketing will still play a vital role.  The more you are able to work with your clients, the more familiar your company will become.  As companies return to tradeshows every year, they are always finding new ways to present themselves using the same traditional tools as before.  Because of this, an evolution in the professional appearance of your company’s tradeshow booth is undeniably necessary, which means that true innovation, along with the highest-quality displays that money can buy, will be the final key in your company’s future success.

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