Posted on 23, March, 2020
Last Modified on 23, March, 2020
Social Media Display Walls: Displaying your social media feeds at your trade show has the potential to fill several important purposes in your trade show success. It gives attendees and booth visitors an immediate idea of what your company’s purpose is for being at the show and what you are promoting. It alerts them to your campaigns, gives them a chance to see the conversation your followers and customers may be having at the show and about your company. There is also the potential for them to see what customers are saying about your product and service in real-time. Nothing sells your company and its products or services like good customer-feedback can. All of this can be incredibly beneficial for your trade show success because it clues booth visitors in to all this information and it can do so without anyone from your booth having to speak with them. In the event your staff is swamped with visitors or attendees are just walking around your booth to get some information, they can find it easily without needing someone free to talk to them.
Social Listening and Tracking: If you’re going to use a social media display wall at your trade show booth, it’s critically important that you utilize social listening and tracking apps or platforms on your wall. Not only does it display your trade show and company social media campaigns to attendees and booth visitors but it also can help keep your staff up to date on the conversations being in real-time from people at the show or customers who may just be talking about your company in general. These platforms and tools provide incredible insight about your brand, people’s perception of it and your campaigns. You’re not likely to change a lot about your plans or campaigns socially at the show, but if you spot a negative trend or a problem, your staff has a chance to monitor it and get some insight into how to fix it quickly.
If You Game It, They Will Come: Gamification of your displays and booth presentation is a great way to generate excitement about your brand. It has to be well executed, but if it is, you should be able to draw plenty of interest to your booth from people to either “compete” or at least see what the excitement is about. The more of a crowd your game show draws, it will make others curious to see why your booth is so crowded. This is really easy to incentive as well. Require a badge scan to get their names, company name and email to play. As long as you make the prizes or incentives worth their while, you will find people interesting in participating. It’s also important to make sure the prizes you are giving away promote your brand well. In these cases, don’t just give away things like keychains, magnets, pens and other branded swag. Include them, but the main prizes should hold something of real value outside of your brand so that these participants, and hopeful future customers, have something they want to play for. If the prize is good, they’ll remember your company anyway, maybe even more than they would just taking home a branded tote bag.
Charging Stations: This is low-hanging tech fruit for your trade show booth. You can buy or rent charging stations for your booth. All types of show attendees are likely to want or need to recharge some sort of device throughout the event and if they spot yours first, you might have earned a potential lead on a client or customer. At the very least, you have the opportunity to talk to them and pitch them on your company. Don’t be too overly aggressive that you make this option unattractive for others to use, but charging stations are a low-effort, potentially high-reward tech option to add to your trade show booth.
Trade Show Apps: Nearly every, if not all, trade shows have an app that attendees and vendors download once they commit to attending to exhibiting at the show. Take advantage of this platform and access to reaching attendees very easily. Plan something of value, a call to action or request a response through a push notification on this app. Most apps for trade shows allow vendors to do this and if you properly tailor your message and call to action, it can be valuable in reaching attendees and encouraging them to come visit your booth. There are a number of different ways to engage attendees through this tech avenue, from promoting your games, giveaways, presentations, speakers and more. Check to see what the event and app will allow you to do and come up with a specific plan to effectively reach attendees at the upcoming trade show. Don’t wait until the last minute to do this. Attendees are likely to need this app before the show, so you have the opportunity to begin reaching them and giving them information before they even arrive.
Bright, Attractive Signage: A 2017 study with over 2,000 participants concluded that the average human attention span is down to eight seconds, which is down from 12 as recently as the year 2000. This is shorter than goldfish, reportedly, who have an average of nine seconds. It’s close, but this study suggests the average person has a slightly smaller attention span than a goldfish. For trade show exhibitors and vendors, this means grabbing the attention of an attendee is not only crucial, but possibly more difficult than ever. How can you give company and trade show booth the best potential chance to grab an attendee’s attention without having the chance to even speak to them? Large, bright signage that they can identify from afar. That means custom printed graphics and displays with LED lights that are big enough to stand out from anywhere on the trade show floor. These LED displays don’t have to be hard to put together and give you reusable options for them with item such as replacement fabric banner graphics, replacement lights and hardware, making them high-quality long-term investments for your company to use at future trade shows as well but with the ability to feature new graphics. Easy to spot, well-lit trade show displays give your company and booth a greater chance to get noticed by a prospective customer or client.
Bring A Tech Person: All of these ideas, displays and trade show tech items give you a good chance at a successful trade show. Even just one of them could earn you a handful of extra potential visitors and customers. However, you could easily squander those opportunities that are on effort but high on rewards if something technical goes wrong with any of them. Possibly the most important trade show tech tip you can receive to successfully incorporate any of these ideas into your trade show booth is to have a tech person on your trade show staff. LED-lit displays probably do not require much tech maintenance, but it would be a good idea to purchase additional lighting as a backup. For trade show tech concepts such as charging stations, your social media wall displays, games and especially your own computer software for presentations or data collection, having a tech specialist on your trade show staff is vital. Technical issues can ruin the best laid trade show plans in a hurry, but it can be preventable by just having someone on staff to help if something goes awry.