Small Business Tradeshow Marketing - Put Your Display to Work

It's fairly easy to match exhibitors with the best display items for the types of shows they exhibit at. The bigger challenge is to get them to think about how to make the best use of the available surfaces to accomplish their goals.

A display serves one purpose - to catch attention and get people to stop. Once a person stops to learn more, the display has done its job. It won't educate your prospects or sell your products or services. That's your job.

Think of your display as a billboard. When you are driving down the freeway at 65 mph, a billboard has 3-5 seconds to catch your attention and convey its message. It goes without saying that expo attendees don't walk 65 mph, but when they are heading down your aisle you have about the same amount of time to catch their attention before they turn their head towards something else.

Careful graphics planning will result in attracting the people you came to talk to. Many exhibitors feel the most important message they can convey is their company name. It is usually positioned in the largest text and most focal part of the display. Since most people don't shop for company names but for solutions to a need it is usually better to spotlight what you offer.

I live in a city that is well known locally for ortho now 18 year old community center. When it opened it was one of the first venues in the area to have an indoor water park complete with waterslide. On any given day you could find mini-vans and busloads of kids arriving from all over the metro area. But how many people ever knew that this same community center also has banquet facilities and meeting rooms available?

Let's say someone from this community center is exhibiting at a wedding expo with the intent of finding more customers for the banquet facilities. If they show up with a nice professional looking display - with the heading City Community Center prominently displayed at the top - it wouldn't automatically indicate they have banquet facilities (because most people are thinking "waterslides".) By making the most focal part of the display say something like "The Perfect Location for your Wedding Reception" - actually uses the display to start the process of finding interested prospects.

Now when brides-to-be are walking by - some might think "oh, I already have my location, I'm looking for a photographer" - that's okay they can walk on by. They don't need to stop and talk, leaving the exhibitor available to talk to someone who is looking for a reception venue and wants to know more.

All exhibitors know that expos are a lot of work - wise planning uses the display to share some of the load. Don't let it just stand there - put it to work!

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