What Can Your Business Learn from the World’s Greatest Trade Show Exhibitors?

Peter Symonds·May 27, 2013

The business environment in the UK is particularly strained at present, thanks to continuing uncertainty and pronounced volatility. To succeed in this climate, business owners must be extremely creative in their thinking and learn from innovative brands in the market place.

Take the decision to advertise at a trade show, for example, which offers considerable exposure for your firm and an opportunity to engage potential consumers. There are some leading brands that remain masters of this art, and it is extremely beneficial to study these operators and understand how they market themselves at trade shows.

nintendo booth — photo credit: Pop Culture Geek via photopin cc

With this in mind, what practical steps can you take to learn from others and create a purposeful trade show exhibit? Consider the following:

Table of Contents

Create interactive elements for your exhibit

While there is a lot to be said for nicely presented trade show stands that showcase a product and its features, this is not enough to engage increasingly demanding consumers. Instead of handling them a promotional booklet or other piece of marketing content, it is far better to create interactive elements that allow visitors to get a feel for the product and develop an affinity with it.

To see the results of this, you need look no further than Nintendo’s efforts to promote the launch of the Wii in 2006, where thousands queued to sample the console and appreciate its key selling points.

Ensure that your product takes centre stage

In the quest to create a purposeful trade show exhibit, it is all too easy to lose sight of the product at the heart of the event. This must take centre stage at your stand, as you cannot allow it to be overpowered by promotional techniques or a dazzling array of vivid colours.

When our customers order exhibition stands and display boards from Display Wizard, we always encourage them to showcase their products and ideas, rather just their branding. Lamborghini recently launched a 50^th anniversary Veneno model and as you can see in the review, ensured that the product was given an adequate amount of space to command attention.

If you believe in your product and its unique selling points, you should follow this example and create an exhibit that creates the ultimate promotional platform.

Incentivize your customers

When you present a tradeshow exhibit, your main goal should always be to market and ultimately sell a specific product.

One of the best ways to achieve this is to incentivize potential customers through an enjoyable and unique experience, which empowers them to sample a product and become engaged with your brand.

The innovative minds at Google recently showcased this technique at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, as they created an amusement park themed booth and offered visitors complimentary beverages and access to a second floor lounge. While you may not have the budget of Google, you can still seek out lower cost methods of engaging customers on a meaningful level.

The Last Word

Even though we live in an age where advanced digital marketing techniques are commonplace, trade show exhibits still offer an outstanding opportunity to market a product and engage customers on a face to face basis. By showing a willingness to learn from market leaders, it is possible to create a spectacular exhibit that affords the best possible shop window for your products.