Tips for Attracting More Visitors to Your Trade Show Table

With all of the eye candy out there at trade shows these days, how do you make your booth stand out? You have to get creative. Here’s how.

Huge Signs, Audacious Colours

One of the best ways to draw a crowd is to design your booth in such a way that it becomes a landmark. This isn’t always possible, but with proper advanced planning, it can happen. You’ll want to plan several months in advance, pay the money for prime location, and then design your booth with audacious colours that stick out like a sore thumb.

Next, pin up massive signs that showcase your brand, but don’t make them cheesy. You don’t need neon lights, but you do need to make them bold and readable. You don’t want your booth to be an eyesore. You want it to be visually stunning.

The reason you want “audacious” colouring is so that you don’t blend in. For example, if everyone else is using greys and whites, or blues and greens, create a design that incorporates bright orange and perhaps red.

In a sea of blue, red will stand out. In a sea of orange, green will stand out. Yes, this will require some research on your competitors, but the good news is that most of your competition will be incorporating their own company colours into their booth, so visit their website and scout them.

Then, you’ll have at least a rough idea of what they might be coming up with at the show. Of course, a lot of businesses still show up with very boring booths, so if this is your experience, coming up with something spectacular won’t be all that difficult.

Offer Incentives

Incentives are a great way to get people to visit your booth. If you sell games, for example, you might use these custom playing cards to entice people to stop by and checkout what else you have to offer. Give away playing cards with your company name and logo printed on them.

If your target market is into games, they’re going to see your logo every time they play. That’s low-cost advertising.

But, make sure your giveaways make sense for your business. If you’re running an ice cream shop, cards don’t make sense – but free ice cream might. So, the giveaway is contextual. You could hold a raffle, or auction, but there’s a difference between people showing up for a raffle and people showing up because you have something interesting at your booth. So, don’t entice people with free stuff if there’s no reason for them to stick around or if the only benefit is the free giveaway.

Be Aggressive But Not Pushy

You have to be aggressive in your approach when people show up to your booth. You’re competing for their attention, and everyone else is trying to get them to focus on their booth. At the same time, you can’t be pushy. Lead with a brochure, a free item, or a a video demo of your product, and them ask people to try out your product right there at the booth.

It gets them involved, and it primes them for a sale or at least for a business card and an exchange of contact information.

Timothy Gibson is a small business advisor. He likes sharing his marketing insights online. Look for his posts on many business and marketing blogs.

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