Year after year when working on some of the largest trade shows in the world I have found that some of the same mistakes are made over and over again by many people. The mistakes not only are time consuming, but in more than a few cases have caused burn out, unnecessary budget inflation for show costs. and other problems which could have easily been avoided by taking a dose of common sense along with some key steps. Many of these mistakes have often inhibited the quality of presentation, eliminated potential opportunities for sales, or flat out gave the perception that products weren’t anywhere close to being ready for market.
Here are 8 Points that you should NOT overlook when playing in the big leagues when it comes to doing trade show events.
1) Site Surveys-
When designing that booth to fit perfectly into your purchased display area it’s always helpful to have maps and plans of the floor, but NOTHING will ever take the place of the value which is provided by spending the time with your production, design, and logistical personnel to get a physical understanding of your workspace. Knowing where that supporting structure is, or where the house lighting can and can’t be doused, or where power will be coming from along with other limitations will often alter how you place things, and help you optimize how foot traffic will flow based on technical and layout constraints.
2) Proper amount of preliminary design and logistics planning-
After making those site survey’s, spending the time and budgets necessary for 3D renderings, lighting designs, and interactive booth builds will help make sure everything fits together, and flows perfectly. In addition, budgeting in the proper preliminary timing instead of “figuring it out once we get there” will help with unpreventable budget costs, lowering the over time hours that may be incurred and shortages of rental or equipment gear that you may find if you leave it to last minute decision making.
3) Product zoning and placement near projected high foot traffic areas-
Do you know what the distance is to the nearest main entrance near your booth? Where are the main isles for foot traffic around your booth? Knowing where people will be and how the foot traffic will flow around your booth can help you in effectively placing elements and eye catching segments of your booth layout in key positions. Discussing foot traffic flows with your development team as well as coordinating information that may be provided by show promoters can help you in boosting the value and capture your audience successfully.
4) Booth fabrication and local fire code compatibility-
There are a lot of “oops” moments that happen on trade show floors. Some of the results either cause shut downs completely of designs on the spot or force crews to end up making costly on site modifications to open their display just screeching past the deadlines before the show floor opens. Often times designs will be developed, visions will be created, but they fail to integrate or ask the questions of local codes and compatibility for attendance capacity laws. Depending on the event your booth may be attracting hundreds if not thousands of people an hour. If you don’t have your structures built with fire and other public safety factors in mind you very well may be shut down by inspectors and fire marshals who are on the look out for the general publics’ safety. Make sure if you DON’T have someone on your team managing this you find a company or design consultant to help provide you the necessary information and facts to help you avoid these costly and show threatening mistakes.
5) Technology preliminary design and build-
When do you need to layout the floor cabling for your booth? Have you accounted for every area that will need an internal or external network connection? Do you have enough power run to your equipment and props throughout your different demo stations? When will you hang the lighting rig for your booth? Do your large set elements need to be placed before or after the carpet is placed in your booth area?
These are a few of the questions you should ask yourself. If you don’t know the answers and don’t have someone that can answer them or help coordinate these elements for you, get someone ASAP! It’s not enough to just have a booth designer, or a booth building coordinator. Knowing when specific parts of your booth need to arrive, be built, when labor will be needed, and specialized electricians, riggers and others to support your technical endeavors are now a critical component to most booths regardless of size. Technology isn’t just an extra item anymore, it’s a must in one degree or another. Make sure you plan accordingly to make sure it doesn’t dominate your exhibit experience with frustration and nightmares.
6) Lighting and video content design-
Whether your booth setup has a couple of simple flat screens with some floor accent lighting or a wrap around LED with moving lights hanging above your exhibit, lighting and video content help to ATTRACT as well as accentuate elements of your booth to provide that extra factor to set you apart from those around you. Coordinating your overall color and visual themes while developing unique content for various zones and product placement areas in your booth is a must to see value from these elements. The secret that makes the pros stand out from the rest is the investment they make into the PRELIMINARY design, pre-production and INITIAL vision DEVELOPMENT costs before they even step foot on the show floor. If you’re planning on using lighting and video elements to make your exhibit stand out, make sure you invest in the time and resources BEFORE you get to your booth to make your display shine.
7) Static content and promotional material design-
Custom print designs, screened content for exhibit walls, and hand-outs for attendees to view after visiting your booth should all have symmetry and a unified voice in branding and your exhibit theme from event to event. If you’re wanting to show that perception of professionalism while standing out from the disorganized chaos of your competition, think ahead, and plan on developing print and static content that’s UNIQUE from event to event. Don’t build that hand-out and expect people to see quality in your product when you have your booth personnel using a black marker to eliminate those references to the previous event which they were really printed for. Think ahead and develop those visual and printed content pieces to provide a unified voice in design that promotes your brand with excellence.
8) Follow-up marketing strategy-
How do you handle those leads from the show? Do you simply have your booth staff hand out business cards and hope that your attendees will CALL YOU? How soon do you respond or get back in touch with those requesting follow-up on your products? Don’t expect high perception of value from potential clients if you don’t respond quickly after the event. The way that you respond often times can either turn your potential clientele away or give them more reason to do business with you. Using professional e-mail campaigns, or inviting them to be a part of your online social networking platforms and providing feedback of the impact they felt as a result of visiting your booth helps to engage your audience. This also provides a great value statement that you care about what THEIR OPINION is even before you’ve even made any type of business transaction.
Thinking, planning, and developing strategies to add value to your trade show environment will help in growing that return on your investment in time and resources to show off your brand and products to the world. If you or your company know you need to do more, but don’t know where to start, find successful partners that have worked in many trade areas across the globe. That way you’re not tunneled into what your competition might be doing, but you’l be able to find out what the latest good and bad trends are that you need to factor in for your future brand promotion.
If you’re planning to stay in the traditional norm of showing off at an event and not really caring about lasting results, you’ll get just what you expected which probably was nothing. Plan ahead, deliver quality in your branding and promotion and the value of your trade show experience will begin to grow. If you don’t know where to start, partner with people who can help bring your brand success that you can measure and build future endeavors for better marketing results through trade show marketing.
