How to Create and Use Trade-Show "Billboards" to Improve Your Event Marketing

Do you or your company exhibit at trade shows or conferences? Maybe you are demonstrating your products at one event every week, or every month. Perhaps you even have stopped going to trade shows all together due to a low Return on Investment (ROI).

To those unfamiliar, the cost of exhibiting at a single trade show can quickly go over $10k. How? Imagine paying 3k – 5k to exhibit, 1k to ship items, and another 2k per person for hotel, flight, and food. If you have at least two people on staff at your company booth (which I hope you do), you can see how a 2-day exhibition becomes costly.

As you can tell, exhibitions are expensive. However, I want to change that perception for you so that you can increase your event ROI, brand awareness, product awareness, and become the money-saving, lead generating hero at your company!

This blog post covers the following 3 actions, so please feel free to skip to any one of them.

First Action: Create an Informative and Engaging Booth Design which Focuses on Brand

Goal: Increase Brand awareness.

Second Action: Create Eye-Catching Pop Up Banners for less than $500

Goal: Increase Product Awareness. 

Third Action: Place your Awesome Pop Up Banners in Strategic Locations

Goal: Increase the Amount of Foot Traffic. Educate/Convert Potential Leads.

So, let's get straight into this.

First Action: Create an Informative and Engaging Booth Design

Goal: Increase brand awareness 

 Your 10 ft x 10 ft exhibition booth plays a vital role. If your potential prospects come to your exhibition space, and they don’t know what your company does, they will look to the 10 x 10 static graphic behind you for the information they need. 

Also, when people walk past many booths, they will spend 2 seconds passing by your booth. If you are reading this on your phone, the time you finish this sentence is how long someone will pass by your booth. So, how do you turn those 2 critical seconds into 2 minutes?  

Make sure to include the following on your booth graphic

1. Your Company Logo

Result?

You will have a graphic representation of your company which stands out to people who walk by and will grab their attention.

2. Your Business Value Proposition

Result?

Your booth will get the attention of prospects and tell them what makes your company different from the rest.

3. The generic category name of products you offer, and what your customers refer to your product as. (Instead of "flip-phone", say "cell phone")

Result?

By avoiding your company jargon for product names, you will enable prospects to understand in their own words what you create.

If a three-year-old can understand what you sell by reading this portion on your graphic, you will save time talking with prospects and focus on their needs.

4. The industries in which the majority of your customers are currently in, and the industries you are expanding in.

 Result:

You will attract other prospects by narrowing your marketing efforts to the industry in which your company has the most success and knowledge. At the same time, your previous success until now will reel in new customers from the markets you want to expand into. 

The key here is to use past success to create future success.

Another critical factor is where to put all of the above information. Booth graphics are usually 10 feet wide by 8 feet tall. However, make sure the above key information is on the top half of your graphic.  

Why? The bottom half of the graphic ends up being useless since the wording on it is impossible to see. The bottom half ends up being blocked by neighboring booths, side rails, podiums, and other objects. 

So, in short, place the information where your future customers will want to see it, where they can see it. 

Here is a quick layout. 

Remember, the booth is for showing off your company, but what about the products? I am going to assume that your fantastic booth graphic has told your customer to be, “This company is interesting.”

So, the next step is “Why your product?”, and there comes the benefit of what will make or break your booth: The 36-inch x 80-inch Pop Up Banner. And hence, the second essential action.

Second Action: Create Eye-Catching Pop Up Banners for less than $500

Goal: Increase in Product Awareness.

If you don’t have a pop-up banner, I highly suggest you buy a couple. Why?

1. Cheap. At $250 per banner, the price comes out to 5% of your total event cost.
2. Attention-grabbing! At 80 inches high, people can see them from far away. 
3. Informative Visual for Customers. Tells and shows prospects why they should buy your product.

Now that I have convinced you to purchase a couple of banners, what should you have on them? Going down the banner, include the following:

1. The Top Headline - 

First ask yourself...

What do 80% of the people ask or want to know about your product?

OR

What product feature gets your customers to buy your product over others?

The answer to these questions is what turned prospects of the past to your current customers.

So 

Write down that question and the answer or product feature at the top of the banner in the second person. 

Result:

Increase in foot traffic to your booth by writing and showing your past success.

Now, after your eye-catching headline has reeled people in, focus on the

2.    Descriptive Picture of Your Product

If you have a product webpage, use the image which most explains your product the most.

Result: 

Gives the same “visual explanation” of your product as your website does and grabs the attention of people. Also, the image will serve as a visual aid when describing what your product is.

After this simple but important addition, include

3.   List of Product Specifications and Benefits (one list per banner)

3A. List of 5 – 6 bullets highlight product specifications, limiting to 3-5 words per line

Example: 10-megapixel front camera

3A Result: 

Grab the attention of the prospects who prefer the numbers. Think about Google Marketing.

OR

3B: 5-6 benefits of specific product specifications, limited to 3-5 words

Example: High-Quality Selfies

3B Result: 

Grab the attention of the prospects who prefer the benefits. Think Apple Marketing.

 Result of Having Both Banners:

Increased product awareness by aiming your product message to multiple people based on their needs. Having both banners in your booth space will enable you to adjust your conversation to the preferred style of your future customers. 

If someone is an Engineer, go to the product specification banner. If someone is in Marketing, go to the product benefit banner. The key is to use the presentation style which your prospect is used to in order to create a customized experience.

Similar to the booth graphic, these three critical pieces of information should be near the top half. At least have the pop-up banner headline and image on the top half, and the bullet points centered towards the middle. That way, you will grab attention from people and invite them to come to talk to you.

 Here is a quick layout similar to the booth graphic.

Remember, different from your booth graphic, which stands behind you; the pop-up banners are for telling people why they should learn more about your product. With this simple design, you will reel in more people into your 10 ft x 10 ft booth space. 

So now that you have fantastic pop-up banners, what is next? As my geography teacher in middle school said: location, location, location. 

Your background graphic can't move, but you know what can? The pop-up banners! They are the billboard signs of your booth and get people to stop when they "drive-by" following the exhibition foot "traffic."

Third Action: Place Your Pop Up Banners in Easy to Notice Locations

Goal: Increase the amount of foot traffic.

Depending on where your booth is, you want to put your pop-up banners where people from afar can see them. If you are like the many exhibition booths which are stuck next to one another with limited visibility, your pop-up banners will make you stand out from the crowd. 

Assume you have the floor plan below, and you are stuck in this limited space? How can you increase foot traffic? Well, assuming your pop-up banners have the main benefit of your product listed at the top instead of your brand, they should attract prospects. With the graphic below, you can see how obstacles can get in the way and how to use the pop-up banners to maneuver around them to get the attention you deserve.

Result:

Doing so gives you the most visibility possible with the limited space you have and will increase the number of prospects, and leads. Also, you will have better conversations as well.

Similar to reading down this page, as someone walks down the aisle of exhibition booths, the pop-up banners should reach their field of vision. So, as their line of sight approaches your space, the first thing their attention should go to is the top of your pop-up banner. 

Pro Tip. Simulate the traffic and put yourself in the prospects' shoes. Walk down the exhibition aisles when you are setting up. Walk from all possible directions towards your booth space and see if your pop-up banners are visible on both corners. Move the banner positions around until you can get the widest viewing angle possible. Make sure that the top of the pop-up banners are visible because that headline written at the top will be the key marketing message to bringing in future leads.

So, in short, try different angles, and one last pro tip regarding banner locations.  

1. So, booth graphic? Check!
2. Pop-up banners designed and standing tall? Check!
3. Are your pop-up banners visible from every possible angle? Check!

You should be good to go for your next event. Or who knows, maybe that event is today. So, move those pop-up banners a few feet to the front, and watch the prospects come on in!

P.S. Another Pro-tip. Use your pop-up banners as visual assistants or mini PowerPoint slides to when talking with customers. Let the bullets guide your elevator pitch.