Making the Most of Trade Show Displays: 5 Cost-Effective Tips

For any small business, networking and getting your brand name out there is essential if you're going to forge a place in your chosen industry. While many will struggle to get through the early days, others look for every opportunity to give themselves the best start in life as a business with trade show displays proving to be one of the most effective marketing and networking methods.

While you may not have thousands to spend on elaborate marketing campaigns like the established brands who already have a loyal following both on and offline, trade shows are a way of reaching out to a specific audience who are there looking for companies just like yours to work with. For that reason alone it's vital that you can impress them with what you have to offer and the kind of things you can do for them.

You don't even have to spend whatever money you have left on gimmicks and gadgets with the sole aim of saying "look at us." Instead, it's more important that you show your brand values and what you can do that makes you stand out as a professional and friendly business, as there five cost-effective tips for all trade show displays underline:

Brand Logo and Colours
You're trying to get your name and brand out into the wider world in front of your target audience. It's a trade show and these people are there to look for companies just like yours meaning you have to get into their minds.

You need to make sure that whatever trade show displays you create, you make sure that the designs are in your brand colours and that you logo is there for them to remember. If people remember you as "that company with the cool colour scheme" or "the guys with that logo", then they've remembered you and you may have got yourselves a customer.

Examples
If you offer any kind of product or service, then being able to show your target audience what you can do for them is essential. While others will hand out leaflets documenting what they have to offer, if you have either the physical product on show, or a laptop with you in order to run through your process and how you can help people, it gives them the chance to see things first-hand rather than listening to "just another sales pitch."

Be Friendly and Approachable
On that note, you want to make sure that any staff you have at the show are not just trying to push a product. You almost want to be standing in the background, allowing the display to bring people in with questions and queries for you to spring into action and explain how you can help. People don't want to hear a sales pitch, they want you to explain what's great about your product or service, and this kind of approach is absolutely free, yet it has the potential to bring in hundreds or even thousands if you get it right.

Hand-Outs
At just about every exhibit people are giving things away. Some will have made cakes to keep the hungry audience well fed, others will give out branded equipment like pens or stress-balls. It's often the most ‘out there' hand-outs that have the best effect, however, especially if you can brand them with either your logo or colour scheme.

If you can make sure that it's a good hand-out, that is relevant to your business and something the audience will genuinely find useful, then it could be a worthy investment to bring in the business in the days that follow the exhibit.

Dress to Impress
The final tip relates to your appearance as people, not just a company. If you can show your audience that you're all professional and that your product or service - and brand - means something to you, then you're on the right track. If you can then show that you're friendly and approachable at the right time, you've got it nailed.

Some exhibitors will be dressed in business suits, others will have come in branded t-shirts… if you can show that you're somewhere in between then the audience will come to you knowing that they can have an informal conversation while getting everything they need to know about what they've come for.