Planning and properly executing your trade show booth is critical in order to get traffic to your display and become a trade show success story. However, if your results aren’t being measured, then all of your efforts have been wasted. There are a number of things that can be done before, during, and after the show to tell you and your staff if the event was worth your time. Below are the top 5 ways you can measure results and find out if you were a hit or a flop at the show.

1. Pre-Show Marketing

Get that competitive edge by having a targeted marketing campaign that will give your audience information about your booth, contests or giveaways that will take place, and anything else that may draw current or new customers to your exhibit. Keep track of how much was spent on your marketing items and how many people it brought to your booth. One way to do this is by sending out postcards that attendees must bring to the booth in order to get a prize or enter a drawing.

2. Know Your Budget

Have a good idea on how much is being spent on booth space, travel accommodations, etc., and compare these numbers with what your budget actually is. This is an excellent way of finding out if your budget needs to be adjusted for the next trade show or if less/more money should be spent in other areas of your show arrangements.

3. Tracking Leads

Lead forms, whether on paper or electronically, can be used to jot down all of your leads’ information. After this has been done for each possible new client, rate them by writing an A, B, or C above the form, A being a high-quality lead.

4. Trade Show Display

Some people won’t know about your display until they walk by it down the aisle, so having a design that pops can bring in tons of new and relevant traffic. Measure how well-designed your booth is by counting the total number of people who walk by and look at it for 10 seconds. Do this every hour and then multiply by 6.

5. Measure ROI

Once the event is over, add up what the return was against total costs in order to tell you if the show was worth it and what can be improved upon for the next event.

There’s no doubt that trade shows can be extremely rewarding for you and your business, but going into it blindly without any goals, budgets, and result measuring tactics at all will set you up to fail. Keep these ideas in mind as you prepare for your upcoming trade show. 

By Kristin Hovde

The goal is to create a design that is eye-popping and will grab people's attention in that very short window of opportunity when they're walking by your trade show booth. You typically want to avoid having too much text on your display (and focus more on a strong visual that will stand out in a crowd.) Bullet points and tag lines are ok, but most people don't want to stop and 'read' your display. 

You have about a 2 second window as people are walking by your booth before they're thinking about moving on to the beer garden or the next aisle. You typically want to avoid having too much text on your display and focus more on an eye-popping, attention-getting layout  Bullet points and tag lines are ok, but most people don't want to stop and 'read' your display.  The goal is to draw people into your booth with a strong visual, and let your literature/brochures do the rest.

So how do you go about creating that visually stunning display that will literally stand out in a crowd?

A.) Finding the right photo(s) can go a long way to conveying your message and getting peoples' attention. If it's specific to your product or service you may want to consider hiring a professional photographer, or else take your own pictures with a good camera. The goal here is something clear, crisp, high resolution, vibrant colors. Alternatively, you can find a stock photo on a third party library like shutterstock.com or istockphoto.com where you can search on any subject. Many designs incorporate a single image stretched across an entire display combined with other elements in the foreground, or a collage of different photos. Also something else to consider, some of the better displays I've seen do not incorporate photos of any kind.

B.) Consider your overall theme - do you have a specific color scheme in mind? Contrasting or complimentary? There are many unique ways to tie your different elements together, but sometimes less is more. A layout with a lot of curves can affect how the eye will follow your message, depending on how your layout is designed this can work for or against you. The trick is to try several different ideas, then narrow it down through process of elimination. Your choice of color scheme and design elements can have a huge impact on the impression your graphics will make. Some designers get really imaginitive, others find the simple approach works best for them. 

In part two we will explore other various considerations for planning the layout for your next booth, and how every little detail can make a huge difference.

In most cases people believe if they had a good show their display stand did its job. Has it done its job, there are a lot of other things that should be considered before you can reach this conclusion.

First consider the purpose of the stand at a trade show, which is to get people to notice your product and why they should stop and get information. Here are some things you need to look for:

·         Do people comment on the stand or say I saw this on your graphic and want to know more.

·         Watch people as they walk by, look at their eyes. Does your stand hold their interest and for how long. Even if they are not looking for your product did they read or see your message.

·         Do people see your trade show stand and immediately turn in and ask questions?

·         Do they notice your display walk by and turn back to talk to you?

·         Do the people stop, stare and then leave.

·         Walk right by without looking?

Most of these things will happen during a trade show, for a lot of different reasons. What you want to look for is a pattern in behavior or a lot of the same things happening. This little trick can tell you a lot about your booth stand and maybe something about the attendees.

Now what can we conclude from our observations and what can we do about it? First we want people to notice our exhibit, if they are noticing; pat ourselves on the back for this show, knowing it might change at the next. What can we do if we are not getting noticed? Think about the following:

·         Is it clear what we are selling, if not add some props or change your message. Use a tag line that tells them clearly what you do and how you do it better. Don't try to explain everything you do on your stand, it will make it cluttered and possibly send a wrong signal. Keep it clear and simple and make them stop and ask questions.

·         People are not stopping at your booth? Does the message on your trade show stand tell the attendee who you are and what makes you different. Does your exhibit booth represent your company the way you want it too? Keep it modern, clean, inviting and uncluttered.

·         With a trade show full of graphics now days, how well is your graphic drawing attention. It should catch the eye and get the message across without looking too busy.

·         Ask neighboring booths or people walking up and talking to you about whether your booth is effective.

·         Walk down the aisle and see what your booth looks like to you. Do you get the message, are you taken in by your trade show stand.

·         Call a professional with pictures of your booth and get their opinion.

By Dennis Nixon

In the business world of today, trade show displays have a growing number of uses, outside of trade shows, conventions, and other face-to-face events. Since the time that I began thinking about trade show exhibits – many months ago – I have been amazed at how many various places I have seen full displays, or at least exhibit elements.

Trade show display events can be a major contribution to the success of your company’s annual marketing plan (and bottom line), but only when carefully planned and executed. Trade show exhibits that enjoy the most accomplishment are tailor-made. Tailor-made means that every aspect of the display – and all plans – are tailored to the expected audience at the show. Of course, then, this hinges upon selecting the right show, or shows, to take part in.

Now this is not to say that you should obtain a trade show display from just any company online. No way! But there are a few select companies on the Internet that truly care about your plans and needs, and are completely professional and ready to help you succeed. When you have found that special online tradeshow exhibit company, they will be every bit as good as a brick-and-mortar showroom store, if not better. Perhaps the following five reasons to buy your exhibit online will assist you in finding the right display provider.

An island exhibit in a trade show simply means that there are walkways on all four sides of the booth area; the exhibit stands alone with no other displays directly next to it. Obviously then, an island trade show display is viewable from all sides, as opposed to only one, two, or three sides. Therefore, island exhibits are what is commonly referred to as “custom” displays or exhibits, meaning they are not a standard, or typical, trade show display types because they draw strategy from many display types.

If someone were to blindfold you and stand you in front of a ‘green trade show exhibit’ and then said that you are about to see a green trade show display, what would be the picture in your mind before the blindfold is removed? What would you expect to see? I suspect that for many of us, the removal of the blindfold would be a sizeable surprise.

The very best trade show displays come from proper research, in-depth planning, purchase or rental of the display from caring professionals, pre-show marketing, professional execution of all aspects of your exhibit, and post-show marketing and follow up. After all, you only have a precious few seconds to grab attention. Of course the main piece of that is the actual display itself. Many exhibitors spend thousands of dollars, even up to a million to get the best exhibit. Whatever the budget, there are clearly several components that are used that help you get the best possible display for your investment. Let’s take a look at some of these components:

As with any trade show display, everything begins with goals, objectives, and a plan. The primary goal of any plan – upon which everything else hinges – is to stand out from the crowd and draw people in to your exhibit. Very often, when people think of custom trade show displays, they think of huge, grandiose, very expensive exhibits, but a custom display can be virtually any size. Let’s take a look at both small and large custom trade show displays. For this article, we will assume that booths that exceed 20 X 20 (on up) are larger exhibits.