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12th March 2014

#Branding #Design

Trade shows, exhibitions, show case events are all a great way to promote your business and put your brand in front of a captive audience. It’s a great way to extend your professional networks and meet potential new customers.

With lots going on at these shows it can get harder and harder to make an impact. We recently took a stand at the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Networking Event where we got to put ourselves in front of nearly 200 delegates – not otherwise easy to get in front of that many people in one day, unless you have a hoard of telemarketers bashing the phones.

Being a team of graphic designers we had the resources to design an exhibition stand that certainly got us noticed. We had lots of people commenting as it really had pull and it was a “sticky feature” ~ in other words people stuck around to ask lots of questions about it.

Other exhibitors came around to chat with us and a common question that they asked, bearing in mind they have already spent money on their exhibition stand designs and pop-ups etc, was “how can we make our exhibition stand more interesting without spending any money?”

So I thought I’d write a blog to share some ideas if you’re planning to do an exhibition some time in the near future.

1)    It may sound really simple or obvious but why not splash out a few quid on some flowers or a lovely plant. It’s amazing what a little greenery can do!

2)    Schedule some product demonstrations at specific times or intervals, this way you can draw a crowd and talk to more people at one time.

3)    A business card draw is a great way to collect valuable data but make sure your prize is something interesting that will have talk-ability. It doesn’t have to be related to your product / service. No one can resist a great competition!

4)    Having some tasty treats and nibbles are a sure crowd pleaser ~ a little bowl of sweets maybe, it doesn’t have to be a banquet! But could you imagine handing out snow cones in cups with your logo on them?

5)    Fancy dressing up? If you have a theme why not get your team in fancy dress? It’s guaranteed to get a second look and shows just how much effort you’ve put into the event.

Make sure you have plenty of marketing literature, brochures, leaflets etc to hand out and that you’ve thought about the message you want to get across.

After the event, it’s imperative that you have a follow-up strategy or all your time, effort and investment will not show you a return. We recommend an email marketing campaign to thank everyone for visiting your exhibition stand and directing them to your website.

Where you’ve had a particularly detailed conversation ensure that you do what you say if you’ve promised to take any action after the show. Don’t forget to use LinkedIn as one way to follow up after the event.

If you’d like to discuss your exhibition stand design or marketing collateral please don’t hesitate to call us on 0121 773 6257 and get some ideas from our creative graphic designers.