Making Your Exhibit Memorable

Part 3 of 6
Whether you are working with a large, corporate budget or are putting the display together with more limited funds, there are quite a few things you need to remember.

• Make sure your company sign has big, readable letters. This is the first way you will grab people’s attention. It should be color coordinated to match your company’s logo or brand colors. If you set up the sign on top of the display or at eye-level of those passing by, it will be easily seen.



• Have a plethora of marketing material such as business cards, brochures and flyers readily available on the table.



• Does your company have a video or PowerPoint presentation it uses to show potential clients or one that is posted on your website? Why not set up a laptop computer in your display with the video or presentation running continuously?



• Offer a door prize or incentive for stopping by your exhibit. Have a big bowl or container available to capture a business card from the visitor in order to enter them in the drawing for the prize. The card will have their name, address, telephone and email address on it. This information is golden as follow-up for future sales calls, adding to your emailing database, inviting them to connect with you on LinkedIn or Facebook, or if you particularly enjoyed speaking with that person, setting up a future meeting to get better acquainted.



• Make sure that the person(s) you have staffing your booth know your product inside and out. Friends are great to enlist as helpers, but they will be useless to you if they can’t answer the questions they will be asked by visitors.



• You generally find promotional items, such as pens and post-it notes, as give-away items, preferably ones that have your company name or logo on them. Ideally, these “tchotchkes” would be related to your business in some way. For example, a computer repair company may offer screen cleaners that attach to a PC computer monitor. The user would have a functional item that has the name of your company in front of him daily. Who will be the first person he or she thinks of if they need some computer work done?
  

Next Post: More tips on setting up a display at a trade show or business expo.