Exhibiting is a big investment in both money and time. So, if you’re going to do it, do it right! This means thinking through every aspect, from what your exhibition stand might like to look, to how to set it up, through to how you’ll sell to customers when you get there.
In this post, you’ll learn how to set up and sell on your tradeshow or exhibition booth and ways to ensure that your stand is the one people will remember most. We’ll also share 15 exhibition stand design ideas and why they might work for your audience.
How to sell on your exhibition or tradeshow stand booth
1. Start promotion early
A big mistake many make is leaving the promotion of their show to the last month or two. However, if you look at some of the biggest and most successful brands who exhibit, they begin promoting their next exhibition right after the doors close on their current show.
You should send out a ‘save the date’ a minimum of eight months beforehand to ensure you reserve a place in people’s diaries. Build communication from then onwards to keep everyone up to date and stay in the forefront of their minds. Ideally, keeping those lines of communication open all year round (you can start by using our 52 week event communication plan).
Design banner ads to add to your website; a customisable e-blast to send to your customer database; and a branded email signature, so that your show presence gets promoted with every email you send.
2. Get noticed by organisers and trade press
One of the best ways to promote your tradeshow presence is to speak to the organisers about promotional opportunities. Some may require payment but others, like producing a thought piece for the website, might be gladly accepted. Trade press will also often cover an exhibition and will be interested in any news being released at the show, such as a launch or re-brand.
3. Make prior appointments with visitors or hosted buyers
To encourage valuable, qualified customers to visit you on your stand, aim to make prior appointments or get involved with the event hosted buyer programme if there is one. This allows you to to identify and screen potential attendees and organise a number of appointments with them.
Hosted buyer programmes were pioneered by event industry show IMEX in the 1980s and have proved a huge success, with the organisers now hosting thousands of buyers every year. This is a great way to ensure that before you’ve even landed on the show floor, you have qualified leads to meet and greet
4. Engage with visitors at all times
One of the biggest tradeshow mistakes stand staff make is not engaging with the visitors. Many visitors will wander by and find the stand staff chatting between themselves, on their phones or sending emails. Try to find a position where you can comfortably be open to greet any guests that walk by and practice one or two openers that will help you to engage them.
This might be as simple as asking how they are, to inviting them on for a five-minute demo. The less you ask of a passerby the more relaxed they might feel about visiting your booth.
5. Let visitors gets hands on with your offering
One of the best ways to sell what you do on your tradeshow booth is to let visitors see it for themselves. Try to offer at least one interactive element that is more than your visitor just hearing your sales pitch. This could be a product demo, a chance to test something out, an experiment, game or quiz. Immersing your visitors to your brand is the best way to keep them engaged and give them something to remember when they go home. They might be visiting hundreds of other stands at the show – how will yours stand out?
6. Create a call to action
If you’ve had a great discussion with the visitor on your booth, make sure you follow up with them. This could be a request for them to send you examples of their business use case, an email after the show or a piece of free content like an ebook that you can send to them. The more personalised the call to action is, the better. Many businesses send a blanket email out to each person they met on the stand during the show – so yours needs to stand out. You might also choose to connect with high quality leads over the phone, for lunch or on LinkedIn to mix up the medium.
How to set up your booth ready for an exhibition or tradeshow
Setting up an exhibition stand for success is essential to making the most of your exhibiting opportunity. Here are a few things to consider:
- Connect with the organisers – ideally on the day of build, introduce yourself to the organisers and have any questions prepared, ready to ask them. This will ensure they know who you are and will help if you need any assistance while setting up your booth.
- Organise seating – think how long exhibition attendees have to spend on their feet. You may want to hire or buy a small table and chairs so that visitors can take a seat during meetings and presentations.
- Know your timings – most exhibitions have a cut-off time when the show doors will open, as well as peak times when attendees will arrive and when it will be quiet. Ask the organisers, or previous exhibitors, for this schedule.
- Provide a staff briefing – before the doors open to make sure your on-booth stand staff know exactly what’s expected of them. From what to wear, where they should stand and how they should approach visitors. A sales strategy will ensure your booth is set up for success.
- Collect data – every exhibitor needs a way to collect attendee details. Many will use the method of scanning badges but you could also use an iPad with a sign-up form (which will take care of GDPR requirements) or something more creative like a polaroid headshot to help you remember who was who.
- Encourage social sharing – amplify your tradeshow booth beyond the ground by adding an element that will encourage social sharing. This could be a giveaway with a social element, a funky booth that people will want to photograph, or a surprise celebrity guest.
- Follow up with visitors – most importantly, make sure you follow up with your sales prospects post-event. Many companies will put effort into attracting people to their booth, then forget to contact them. You want to stay front of mind and connect with your potential customers in different ways post-event.
Advertising ideas for standing out during a tradeshow
What can you do to stand out during a tradeshow and attract more visitors? Here, we share some ideas:
- Offer a giveaway – everyone loves a freebie. Promoting a giveaway on your stand could increase footfall. Giveaways that are highly visual, like sweets or goody bags, will also help attract more visitors onto your stand.
- Provide an exclusive event-only promotion – anything exclusive will help you to stand out amongst a hundred other tradeshow exhibitors. This might be a special discount code, a “buy one get one free” offer or a chance for some free consultancy with your expert team.
- Launch a product – if you have a new feature, a re-brand or a new service coming up, use this launch to stand out during the event. Industry press is often sent to cover new products at the show and may feature you in tradeshow-related coverage.
- Host a talk – education is often cited as the number one reason attendees visit a tradeshow. Host a small talk or panel discussion on your stand to help advertise your company and provide value to attendees.
- Use branding – your tradeshow booth is a chance for you to have a branded space and bring your brand to life. Make the most of custom graphics, roller banners, and wall art to stand out.
- Organise a guest appearance – having a guest on your booth will allow you to begin advertising early and to encourage visitors to make a beeline for your stand once at the show. This could be organised by a series of time slots for the guest to arrive, or during a special on-stand drinks ceremony.
- Create a competition – an on-stand tournament, gaming session or the chance to enter a competition will help increase your stand presence with visitors. Even better if you can announce the winner(s) during the tradeshow as a mini presentation.
Setting up your tradeshow table display
What items to buy for your tradeshow table can be difficult to know. Often at a tradeshow, any hired furniture will arrive plain, so you may want to add a few other elements to jazz up space.
- Less is more – particularly if your stand space is fairly small, you won’t want to add too much clutter to your tradeshow table display.
- Save space with stand-up banners – roller banners are a great way to present lots of information about your brand without needing to have printed leaflets or brochures, which take up a lot of space and often aren’t sustainable. Banners can also be used to hide away items that you don’t want on show.
- Buy attractive giveaways – if you are going to have some giveaways on show, try to make them as attractive as possible. Bright colours will draw the eye and will look nicer on your tradeshow table than something grey or dull.
- Save space for information collection – while you may decide to add a plant or decorative feature to your table remember that the aim of the game is to collect visitor information. This may mean having a clipboard, a business card bowl or your laptop present.
- Hide away personal items – nothing makes a tradeshow table look messier than personal items like keys, phones, and wallets out on the table. Hide away all of your personal items in a back area or behind the table, to keep things looking tidy and professional.