The $46,000 Trade Show Question.

noise and static trade show image for a b2b brand business blog post

This post was originally uploaded to our previous Medium blog on April 26, 2016.

Another year and another booth. You’ve committed to invest the time and money participating in another industry trade show. With such a sizable investment, do you really know what you’re trying to say and is it enough for anyone to care or is it just more white noise? Great booths don’t have to break the bank to get the attention they deserve.

If you realize that showing up at a booth is not enough then you’re already on the right track. Trade shows are an exercise in buyer psychology and need to be planned with the audience in mind. Get their attention and then show them something they will be interested in seeing.

It’s about the Psychology

People remember things that stand out. The more unique and the more valued the message, the more it sticks in the mind of your market. This trade show season, millions of dollars will be wasted on beautiful booths that say nothing! Clean lines and muted content are nice but fail to emotionally connect with your audience. The best booths are not the ones that have the biggest banner, they are the ones that tell a story in a way that attracts the eye and stays in the mind of the audience long after the show.

Different = Definitely Memorable

At any event, people remember what stood out. When everything is the same, there is a good chance it will be forgotten. Memorable items are those things which people have either never seen before or stand out in context enough to interrupt the mind of your audience. One of our clients needed a booth for an offering they were bringing to market. Imagine a booth featuring a strong patch to provide temporary repairs on chiro and massage therapist tables. No samples here. Instead, the booth featured dinosaur-sized rips. Everything in the booth was destroyed… except the strong fabric patch product. Even the sales people had shirts with claw marks that’s you’d expect after a run in with a dinosaur. Stand out it did!

Bypass the Noise

Shows are a colorful mix of backdrops and draped tables, all striving to attract attention. Unfortunately, the visual “noise” becomes blinding and literally mind-numbing. A well-designed booth bypasses this noise by going straight to the audience’s brain. It tells a compelling story and provides a visual connection between the business shopper, the booth and the company’s offering. A booth designed with the right message and the proper emotional connection is always a draw.

Give us a call and we’ll be happy to share other examples of how we’ve helped our clients take their booths from bland to BAM!

Have a comment? Think we’re full of it? Fully agree and want to bask in our adulation and thanks for reaching out?

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