Tips for Trade Show Displays
How to Create Trade Show Displays That Will Engage Potential Customers
       
1) Think neatness and visibility when putting your trade show displays together
Use a display board to hang some of your products at customer eye-level to draw them into your display. Make sure your display is organized and tidy; customers will be turned off by messiness or by having to do too much searching to find what they want. Have all your prices clearly marked.

2) Build the impression of demand into your trade show displays
Customers will want your products more if they think they're in high demand. Place a strategic sold sign on one or two items. You might even leave a display spot empty, giving the impression that you've been too busy to restock.

3) Pull a crowd to your trade show display
Use interactive trade show displays, such as quizzes, computer games, contest draws, scheduled demonstrations; it doesn't need to be fancy to draw people's interest and get them to cluster around your trade show display rather than the others. At a gardening trade show, I once saw over 50 people crowding around to watch an exhibitor demonstrate how to turn compost!

4) Have a stock of promotion items that you can use as trade show giveaways
Small items that people can take away and use (while being reminded about your business) are best. Be sure you place these items in a location where people will have to walk into or through your trade show display to get them.

5) Use a prize draw or contest
Having some kind of prize draw or contest as part of your trade show displays is a great way to collect contact information from booth visitors. You can give away promotion items to encourage people to participate.

6) Make it easy for booth visitors to get information
Use signs in your trade show displays to give information about prices, minimum orders, shipping costs, or any other basic information they might need to know, to save them the trouble of having to wait to ask when you're busy with another potential customer.

7) Make sure you have plenty of promotional literature on hand
You'll want to have a good supply of color fliers and brochures as well as order forms, price sheets and business cards that you can hand out to trade show display visitors so it will be easy for them to find all the information they need about your business later. You should also have a press kit prepared for the trade media.

8) Be ready to do business.
Be sure you have a good supply of order forms, pens, credit card slips, or anything else you need to conduct sales and keep track of people's orders at your trade show display.

9) Have your trade show displays manned at all times.
Someone has to be there to greet browsers, engage them in conversation, and take their questions. If you can't be there every minute the trade show is open, you'll need to have at least one other person help man your booth.

10) Actively engage trade show display visitors.
Give people who approach your trade show display a friendly welcome, and welcome their questions. Be sure your body language is friendly; don't stand there with your arms crossed over your chest, for instance. "Chat" with booth visitors, and find out what aspect of your business they're most interested in. Be prepared to offer specific solutions to their questions. The trick is to draw them in without intimidating or overwhelming them.

11) Follow up promptly.
Send out email, regular mail, or make the phone calls to follow up on the contacts and leads you made during the trade show as soon as possible. The faster you send them out, the more your business will stand out from the rest.

Trade Show Displays Have to Do Two Things
So there are two main considerations when you’re putting trade show displays together. Your trade show displays have to be visible and interesting enough to get people over to take a closer look. But once they get there, you have to make that closer look worthwhile by engaging them with conversation and information.

Do these two things well and trade shows will be an incredible sources of contacts and customers for your business.

Low-Cost Ways to Improve Your Next Trade Show
Trade Show Tips to Make Your Next Trade Show Your Best Ever

There are lots of ways to improve your team's performance at trade shows from snazzy new displays to intensive training to rewards and incentives for top producers. it's difficult to even count the myriad ways. But many of these trade show improvement methods come with hefty price tags.
Don't despair.

There are many ways to pump up performance without breaking the bank. In fact, I've collected 27 low or no cost ways to improve your next trade show.

Use these trade show tips to make your next trade show your best ever:

1. Research the trade show before you commit: Does it attract a large number of people from your target audience?

2. Give yourself enough time: Planning and preparation for a major trade show can take 12 to 18 months.

3. Involve top management in the planning process. You'll get better results from your team if they know upper management is supporting their efforts.

4. Send e-mail reminders to loyal customers and strong prospects before the show, urging them to stop by your booth.

5. Define goals and objectives for trade show participation.

6. Share these goals and objectives with your booth staff. They can't achieve your goals and objectives if they don't know what they are.

7. Plan for security as needed: you don't want expensive prototypes or demo models 'walking away'.

8. Brief your team on common trade show espionage practices and how to defend against them.

9. Send enough people to ensure adequate trade show booth coverage throughout the show.

10. Give each booth staffer a specific role, with job expectations clearly spelled out.

11. Stress the value of friendly greetings, polite manners, and appropriate body language.

12. Take the time to familiarize your team with the lead collection technology you'll be using before the trade show.

13. Make sure at least some of the people going to the show are prepared to answer technical questions.

14. Send friendly, personable people with a genuine enthusiasm for your company, its products and services. These may not be your most senior people: make your choices based on effectiveness, not seniority.

15. Check in with your team throughout the trade show to assess performance, reward positive behaviours, and stop negative trends before they get out of hand.

16. Establish a dress code for your staffers: They'll look more professional and act as better ambassadors for your company.

17. Don't forget the shoes, hair, and accessories: people notice the details. Manicures are crucial, as your team will be shaking hands hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times during the show.

18. Two words: Breath Mints.

19. Practice asking qualifying questions with your booth staffers.

20. Product demonstrations are a great way to draw a crowd: Make sure your team knows how to give an effective, engaging presentation by having them practice before the trade show.

21. If you are sponsoring entertainment, a speaker, or other event, make sure your team knows what to do during this time. From working the crowd to collecting leads, there's plenty they should be doing to promote your company's name and image.

22. Designate a 'go-to' person to act as a liaison with trade show management. The better your relationship with management is, the better your show experience will be.

23. That exhibitor's service manual the trade show organizers sent you when you registered? Read it: it's chock full of valuable information to help ensure a stress-free show.

24. Copy appropriate pages from the exhibitor service manual and pass them along to the relevant staffers: It doesn't help you to know when everything has to be broken down and off the show floor if you're not the person doing that work.

25. Order services ahead of time. Making deadlines = big savings.

26. Establish a follow up protocol for hot leads, promising prospects, and likely customers. Use this protocol to turn leads into sales.

27. Say "Thank You" to attendees for stopping by, to anyone who fills out survey information or participates in a demonstration, during your follow up calls.