When you're setting up trade show booths, if you're always left wondering why people are attracted to other trade show displays while completely ignoring yours, it might have nothing to do with your product or theirs, it might have nothing to do with showmanship and salesmanship and pricing and marketing, it might simply be that your trade show display doesn't do much for you. Here are a few of the most important factors in setting up great trade show booths.
Booth Location
Booth location is quite important. If you can afford the prime location and haven't booked a spot yet, then you'll want to take a moment to consider location. If this isn't an option, then luckily, you can make up for a weakness in a location with other strengths, but you'll be off to a great start if you can book a prime spot for your display. You might be thinking that you don't want to book a spot near others offering similar products or services, but in truth, if you're, say, a print shop set up between two other print shops, you're in a prime location. If you're offering something that they're not, then the people looking for printers are already there. In any event, most people walk around the whole event but tend to linger in the areas they find most interesting and might miss your booth completely if it's all alone. The more crowded the area, the better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVh-5mb0OYc
Don't Cram Your Display
A big mistake that first-timers at trade shows always seem to make is cramming their display with every single product they offer, stacks and stacks of brochures, booklets and literature, two monitors showing off the videos they had produced and so on and on. Keep it small and keep it simple. A handful of really great samples should be enough to generate leads and bring a potential client in.
There is something to be said for salesmanship, for putting on a bit of a show, but overloading the walker-bys senses isn't how you go about it. Keep it tasteful.
Accessibility is key, as well. If you have a promotional giveaway with forms for people to fill out, free food, or free samples, make sure people can access it right away without having to reach for it, ask you for one or elbow their way through a crowd.
Presentation
The very last thing you want to use at your booth is a hand painted sign. Okay, there are some exceptions. If you're at a farmer's market and want to suggest an old-timey, rustic kind of atmosphere while selling crates of apples, hand-painted will do fine. This is really about it, though. If you want to look professional, then look professional.
Again, overloading the lead's senses is to be avoided. Now, using a little something to stand out in the crowd, on the other hand, is exactly how you make a mark at a trade show.
If you can attractively present your brand, with a professionally-designed and attractive sign, with a monitor displaying an animated logo or something along those lines, this can burn your name into prospects' minds even if you don't have a single person talk to you during the entire show.
Something else to keep in mind: the human eye is naturally attracted to shiny things and reflective things. Scientists suppose that this goes back to our past as hunter-gatherers, that shimmers might have represented water, so we were instinctively driven towards anything shiny. It's a cheap trick, but sometimes a cheap trick can make all the difference in the world at TD.