Creating First Impressions with your Exhibit Stands
First impressions are lasting impressions. This statement is true when it comes to your trade show displays as well. One of the first things that a customer’s eyes tends to gravitate towards are the trade show displays. This is one of the reasons why it is important that your displays are clean, inviting, vibrant, and appealing.
Brand/Image. You want your company brand or image to be memorable in your trade show displays. You want your brand to be something that potential customers will remember even after they leave the venue. Your advertising campaign should have at least one memorable character or image that can be used consistently with your trade show displays. Whether you use a character or an image for your company’s brand, that same character or image should be used on your marketing materials as well. The more times that potential customers see your brand, the more they will remember it and associate it with your company.
Get A Feel For The Customer. When you are interacting with customers, pay close attention to their responses, body language and note their enthusiasm, as you want to mirror these actions. What you’re doing is trying to gauge their interest level in what it is you are offering. Listen to the customer’s needs or concerns and address them accordingly. Spend no more than 5 minutes telling the customer how your product or service can benefit them. Always get contact information for those who visit your trade show displays and ask them if it is ok to send materials to them. When you do receive business cards, take them with two hands and look at it for a few seconds before lying it down. By all means, do not throw business cards on the counter in a messy pile. When you’re ready to put the business card down, do it gently, with respect. You also do not want to put anyone’s business card in your back pocket, at least not while they are looking anyway. Some cultures see this as being disrespectful and they may not do business with you.
Humor. A form of marketing that you can use is to incorporate humor in/with your trade show displays. Doing this can prove to be an effective way of attracting new customers. When incorporating humor with your trade show displays, keep in mind that the humor should be tasteful, neutral (not gender specific), and most importantly, non offensive. You should also remember to keep your corporate image in mind. So, if you’re going to interject humor, be sure that it does not conflict with your corporate image, as you do not want to tarnish that.
Repetition. Be sure that your exhibition stand and banner stands constantly bombard your potential customers with the message that you are trying to deliver. The message on your company’s marketing materials and trade show displays should be bold and repetitive. However, be sure to convey the message slightly different each time.
Booth Staff. It is important that your booth staff is trained to deal with various scenarios tactfully and with class. A variety of people attend trade shows, some are there to do business and others attend to browse and get the free items offered by the various vendors. There are also those customers who will engage you in a conversation that has nothing to do with the product or service that you are offering. For those people, it’s ok to indulge them for a few minutes, but then try to tactfully steer the conversation back in the direction of your product or service.
For more, learn how to do post show analysis or the seven steps to a successful trade show.