7 Steps to a Stellar Trade Show Booth Design

Are you thinking of attending a trade show or industry expo in the near future?

Whether your company is showing for the first time, or you attend multiple trade shows a year, you will probably find that you need a helping hand. This makes sense! The marketing world moves quickly, and unless you have your ear to the ground of the industry, you may quickly fall behind your competitors.

For a successful trade show experience, it is crucial for you to put time and care into your trade show booth design. This is an event that can influence the future of your brand; it’s an opportunity to generate leads, increase brand awareness, and reach higher sale goals. However, this depends on your trade show booth design—it has to stand out.

If your display is a dud, trade show attendees may not only forget about your brand, they might develop a distaste for it. A bare trade show booth with muddled branding and bored staff can leave a bad impression.

If you want to avoid mishaps and negative impressions, it’s best to plan ahead and work hard on a well-branded, impeccably designed trade show booth display. If you’re not sure how to do that, read on. If you follow these seven steps, you’ll have a much better chance of knocking everybody’s socks off at your next trade show.

Do Your Research

Like any big undertaking, a well-designed and executed trade show display should be impeccably researched.

Don’t know where to start? If you have the opportunity, attend another trade show in your industry as a consumer. Make note of what pops out to you, what entices you, and most importantly, what repels or overwhelms you.

These are important distinctions to make. When the time comes to design your own trade show booth display, you can draw upon your own experience.

If you can’t visit another trade show, it’s time to take to the Internet. Spend time with your marketing team researching trade show and marketing trends, particularly within your industry. As with attending an actual exposition, be sure to take notes on what you like and don’t like about the things you find.

Figure Out Your Goals and Vision

Once you’ve researched the marketing and trade show trends in your industry, it’s time for your team to get together and talk about your vision. What are your goals for this trade show?

Many companies hope to generate leads, increase brand recognition, develop a larger social media presence, or connect with new brands.

Whatever goals your company may have, it’s important to talk about them and write them down. By physically listing your goals for your brand, it will be easier to break down what is necessary for a successful trade show.

With each goal, try to take notes on ways you might be able to accomplish it. These don’t need to be concrete answers, but they will help get the creative juices flowing.

Consider Your Branding

One of the biggest mistakes that businesses make at trade shows is letting their brand get lost in a big flamboyant display. Everybody loves flash and exciting tech at trade shows, but it’s still important for brands to remember who they are and who their audience is.

Otherwise, your company could end up wasting a lot of their budget on a technology that, while interesting, doesn’t connect to your brand at all, making it just as tough to remembe—as if you hadn’t included anything at all.

This situation is unfortunate, but it’s easily avoidable. Save face—and money—by ensuring that your trade show marketing is always in line with your branding.

To do this, it helps to sit down with your marketing team and answer a few questions:

• Who are we?
• What is our mission?
• What does our brand look like?
• What makes us unique?
• How do we want to be represented?

Create a Realistic Budget

Creating a budget is one of the most important parts of embarking on any project. It is the best way for your team to ensure that all of their boxes are ticked, and will help you sort out exactly what you can and cannot have in your display.

Once you know what you have to work with, it will be much easier to make the most of it. Be realistic and practical with your budget.

Research and compare prices on things like spot reservation at the event, travel, and accommodation, or manufacturing branded items to give away.

Make a “wish list” of everything that doesn’t go on there initially. This can be worked with later on, after everything else is priced out.

Make Your Bookings

Once you’ve researched prices and sorted out your budget, you should make your bookings as soon as possible. Hotel and accommodation prices can often soar during big expos and trade shows, so it’s important to get in early.

The same goes for flights and car rentals—the earlier, the better. (Hot tip: Airline tickets are often the most affordable to purchase on a Tuesday.)

This principle also applies to the trade show venue itself. Where you place your display is important, and some of the hottest spots book out quickly. Of course, those spots are often very expensive, so where your display sits will also depend on your budget.

Let Your Creativity Shine Bright

A trade show is a time to let your marketing team do some of their best work. This is a great opportunity for them to come up with a new campaign, design an interactive experience for the trade show attendees, or utilize exciting new technologies that reflect your brand.

Many companies have been using the latest techs to incorporate fun trends like virtual reality into their displays. Others have unique giveaways, exclusive demos and master classes, or engaging games and displays for the consumer to enjoy.

What makes your brand fun? Work with your team to determine some enjoyable and creative ways to engage passersby and attendees.

Leave the Heavy Lifting to the Professionals

Once you’ve configured all of the details above, it’s time to start putting your design plans into action. The best way to do this is to call on the professionals. They will be able to help your company produce the display they’re imagining— without a headache.

At Exponents, we live and breathe trade shows. With over 30 years’ experience, our dedicated team works tirelessly to ensure that businesses around America are able to make the most out of expos and events by creating the display of their dreams.

Heading to a trade show soon? We offer rentals in a wide variety of sizes, as well as end-to-end assistance on everything trade show booth related. Our services include trade show booth design, booth construction, graphic production, project management, on-site supervision, and installation, dismantling, and shipping.

Give us a call today, and we’ll have an in-depth chat about your brand, your budget, and your vision. We’re ready to help you have your best trade show yet!