Attending trade shows can be an incredibly rewarding experience. You get direct, personal access to your business’s perfect target audience, for a set amount of time, during which you can show off your product or service in the best light possible. Getting it all together takes some planning though – read on for our top tips on getting your exhibition stand just right.
Identify your goals
Before you can start planning what your actual exhibition stand will look like, you need to sit down and think about why you’re attending the trade show. This could be for any number of reasons, from conducting market research to trying to forge new industry partnerships.
Based on your goals, you’ll likely want to take a slightly different approach to your exhibition stand. It’s important to be clear on what those goals are from the get-go, so you don’t have to retroactively adapt the stand to meet that goal.
Use a professional service
If you want to take your exhibition stand design seriously, then you’ll need to work in collaboration with a service such as Focal Exhibitions. They’ll be able to work with you throughout the process, from helping you to define what you want from the stand all the way to supporting you with putting it up at the actual exhibition. It’s well worth the investment in most cases – not only will you end up with a product that lasts for a lot longer, but you’ll also increase your conversion rate as well.
Interactive components
It’s important that you don’t treat your exhibition space as a static object that people just look at. You should encourage interactivity in a number of ways, to really try to get people interested in what you have to offer.
While the people you have at the exhibition stand will obviously play a part in that, you can also have things like interactive screens and VR headsets, depending on your business and what it is that you offer. It can be a good idea to try to gauge feedback from each of these at the event, so that you can make adjustments based on what is and isn’t working for the next trade show you attend.
Get your team familiar with the space
The exhibition stand won’t work all on its own, and it’s important that your team who will be running the stand are familiar with it before the big day. Make sure that they’re aware of its functionality, and that they have a solid idea of how they’ll interact with visitors in that space when the time comes.
With the right approach to planning, you can absolutely make your trade show attendance a complete success. By starting with a clear understanding of what it is that you want to achieve, you can develop the experience based on that clear goal, rather than having to restructure things at a later date. The more work you do before attending the trade show, the better your results will be and the more fun everyone will likely have.
