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6 Ways to Jazz Up Your Trade Show Booth

Ever notice when you’re at a trade show event, most booths are usually just a sea of tables with boring white or gray cloths draped over them, a few posters here and there, and that’s about it? With that in mind, we’ve written a few tips to help you jazz up your trade show booth.

The goal is to help you compare and contrast these ideas with the things you’re already doing, so you can identify tactics that may need (re)consideration and evaluation. Does anything stand out and is there anything unique or eye-catching? Chances are most probably do not stand out – with a few exceptions, most trade show booths and exhibits tend to blend in

1. Jazz Up Your Trade Show Booth
It’s goes without saying, but should nevertheless be remembered that trade shows, while a superb way to get in front of your new and existing customers, are major investments in time, money, and effort.

If you keep this distinct realization in front of your awareness at all times, it will help encourage you to think outside the box.

This may lead to designing a trade show display that can be easily reconfigured, perhaps one with many different planned configurations or a modular booth that lends itself to being quickly redesigned.

If that is the case, proper care should be taken when shopping around for a sturdy and versatile booth. Versatility is key because you want to be able to modify its size depending on what space you will be buying for the upcoming show.

This will also enable you to customize how you arrange and rearrange your booth elements, giving you the opportunity to jazz up your trade show booth and make the presentation one of a kind – unique!

2. Games and Prizes
Imagine having games and prizes at your trade show booth relevant to the products and services you’re offering and now imagine the booth next to yours replete with brochures and other marketing materials.

Now where do you think the most traffic will come to?

The one with fun, of course!

Just ensure that the games are fun, amusing and attract a crowd.

Be creative, awaken your inner teen or child and stay relevant to your information.

When people show up to play games and win prizes, this is the perfect opportunity to collect their information and have a little chat to qualify them as a lead – remember little chat, no more than three minutes or less.

Doing this alone will benefit you in immense ways – for one your leads will go home remembering your products and booth over others, which is what we all want in the end, don’t we?

3. Snazzy Promotional Items
Speaking of prizes, another element to include would be unique promotional items.

No, not pen or stationary giveaways, but something high quality and memorable that your clients and leads can use over and over – and more importantly always be kept in the loop to call you or await your call to further the deal if they’re interested. Recently popular items include branded iPhone and iPad covers, mobile phone chargers, seasonal items like sunglasses in the summer and hand and toe warmers in the winter – there are lots of great suggestions online – here’s some examples from the popular E3 trade show.

Remember again to give away these items after collecting the information of your prospects so you can follow-up with them.

This element would supplement the games and prizes element of your booth, should you choose to have it, very nicely!

4. Technology is the wave of the present!
Effective use of technology in your booth can give an immersive and interactive experience to your visitors.

They’ll be intrigued by your booth’s digital signage and touchscreens that provide interactive information and resources.

In this way, your prospects won’t feel like they’re visiting just another booth to be pitched at about products and services, but that they actually got something more out of the experience.

This will leave a nice impression in their memories and have them waiting to call you to hear more about what your company has to offer.

Proximity marketing is a great resource that’s being used more prevalently throughout trade show because of their effectiveness in every aspect, including cost.

While attendees roam around nearer to your space, messages can be sent to their cell phones containing special giveaways or offers if they visit your booth and perhaps even participate in your booth’s games.

5. Everyone loves demos!
If you’re investing in a trade show event through your participation in order to get more leads, close deals and widen your market reach, then chances are you have a product or service you truly believe in – test that belief by demoing your products or services.

Consider the prospects visiting your booth as an opportunity to display your services and products in real-time, that is if you have a product or service that can be demoed.

Let the potential clients see for themselves what’s so great about your offerings and sneak in little details as they’re using it, focusing on the value it provides them.

Involve your prospects as much as you can because once more, they’ll be thinking of your company at the end of the day and will probably have made a decision to buy your offerings by the time they’ve done demoing and they see the value in it insofar as how you present that to them.

6. The Age of Social Media
This is indeed the epoch of social media and there are a myriad of ways you can incorporate its tools.

Active social media updates, whether on Twitter, Facebook, or other platforms, during the event will keep you connected with attendees as well as no-shows.

The attendees will be made aware that your booth is there and will visit you if you actively engage them or interest them with relevant social media updates, information and keywords and hash tags.

The key is relevancy to your attendees’ lives and situations. Click To Tweet

Find out where your clients spend their time on line and make sure you spend time there too!

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Remember that these are just half a dozen methods to bring new life into the institution that is the trade show. You can find more ideas in this article.

In this decade, when everyone’s vying for attention, the best way to stay on top of that attention is to engage and immerse your prospects with relevant and key information, product and services launches, and interact with them that uses all their senses in some way – whether it’s through active games engaging their kinetic intelligence or it’s using their devotion to social media.

Always think out of the box, be consistent and professional, but don’t forget to have a little fun as well!