First, why do want to participate in a trade show? There can be more than one reason – unveil a new product, increase brand awareness – but identifying your objectives will help to focus your efforts.

Some trade shows will be more suited to your purpose than others, so do some research. Select a trade show with the audience that you want to reach and with an objective that aligns with your goals.

Once you’ve chosen the right trade show for you, plan your budget and book your space. Learn all you can about the venue, and pick the best space for your goals that your budget will allow. Next, consider the conditions or your location. Is it a high traffic area? What companies are displaying in your vicinity? How is the lighting? Plan your display with these types of things in mind.

Also consider your audience. Whether you’ve chosen a show for retail buyers, wholesalers or people in your industry, plan your display accordingly as each group shops differently and has different needs.

Remember to notify your contacts of your participation in the show. Include the name and venue as well as your booth number. Try creating some anticipation by offering incentives or hinting an upcoming reveal.

Making decisions with these things in mind will focus your energies in achieving your true objectives.

Be easy on the eye. You don’t want attendees to get confused or stressed out by looking at your display. Keep your design and layouts clean and simple, and your images clear and bold. Visuals that pop communicate quickly and effectively.

Keep it short. Not only is a short, snappy headline easier to remember, it’s also easier to display. The shorter the headline, the larger it can appear on your display and the further away it can be seen. Choose a font that is clean and simple to increase visibility.

Get to the point. Be as concise as possible when writing a description of your company for a trade show. Attendees have long lists of to-dos, and don’t want to spend a lot of time reading or figuring out what you’re trying to tell them. Sell your booth in as few words as possible. Try using bullet points, and avoid getting too technical.

Don’t forget your name! You won’t get very far if they don’t know who you are. Attendees don’t want to spend time looking for the name of your company. Put it where they expect to find it: in the header portion of your trade show display.

Consider the trade show experience from an attendee’s perspective. Make your message comprehendible, memorable, digestible and identifiable.

Do you want to drive traffic and increase brand awareness? One strategy is to purchase a large quantity of a small, inexpensive item and distribute to everyone that visits or passes by your booth.

Do you want to get the word out, but only to potential clients? Spend a bit more money and reserve your giveaways for those individuals who show genuine interest, not just everyone looking for a freebie.

Do you want to provide incentive? Perhaps a demonstration is part of your program this year. Maybe you hope to collect information. Give an incentive gift to thank individuals for their participation, or in exchange for providing you with information.

Regardless of your objective, the product you select as your giveaway should be relevant to your business and to your audience. Visitors to trade shows collect a lot of swag, so don’t just pick something that fits your budget and slap your logo on it. Make sure your giveaway stands out by connecting with your brand or message. If you choose your promo gift wisely, your message will continue to resonate long after the trade show is over.

Message: Graphics are powerful communicators, so make sure they are saying the right things. Ask yourself a few basic questions to ensure that you are on the right track. Who am I? What am I selling? How can I benefit my target market?

Design: If your company has a corporate style guide, it will serve as your reference for choosing colours, fonts and images for your graphic display. For maximum visual impact, choose contrasting or complimentary colours. Choose a highly legible font for your text. Large images must be hi-res; big low-res images look fuzzy and unprofessional. If large, hi-res images aren’t in your budget, strategically place smaller, low-res images to create impact.

Text: Any text should be brief and legible. Attendees can read short messages while passing by and read clear, well-spaced text from afar. Don’t bombard people with lots of text. Attract them with relevant, enticing, well-chosen words. You can provide more information – like specifications, statistics and pricing – to interested attendees in the form of brochure or web url.

Placement: Again, it’s all about visibility. If you want to attract traffic from far away, mount a graphic on a tower or a ceiling treatment. To engage those passing by or visiting your booth, place graphics at eye level. Don’t place graphics any lower than waist height, they generally won’t get noticed.

Production: Communicate with your design production company often and effectively. Make sure that you provide art in the correct image file formats and request proofs often. It’s much easier – and cheaper – to make a change or correct a mistake in the early stages of production.

Back-up Plan: You never know what could happen at the eleventh hour. Always have a contingency plan worked out in case something goes wrong at the last minute. Ensure that your art files are remotely accessible or saved to a memory stick.

Here are some helpful tips to help you stand out from the crowd at your next tradeshow:

• Determine a strategy and your audience. You need to find what you need and the needs of those potential and existing customers.
• Once you got that all figured out, this is your chance to hire a display/banner company to help you with your ideas and build strategies into creative and dynamic graphics that will attract customers. For example, at Creative Display, we work with many businesses to ensure we meet their deadlines, adhere to costs, and we work with many budgets as we have flexible rental programs in place.
• Consider including giveaways like stationary products with your logo on it, free food such as popcorn or candy, lighting for creative purposes, and music and entertainment.

Once you have them at the booth, tell them briefly about your company and what your business has to offer. Remember its quality over quantity; keep it brief and straight to the point. Educate them about your services and/or products and let them know if they need more info, they can visit your company’s website or call you.

There is an array of options to consider, it’s just a matter of choosing the right ones for your business and what will attract your audience most.

It may not be inexpensive, but if you have extra funds in your budget why not reap the rewards of added technology.

It really depends on the type of business that you have, but some suggestions include:

• TV screen that demo’s your products or services to the general public
• Interactive displays for attendees to interact with while getting to know your business. Have a laptop available that will allow potential customers to browse through your organizations website.
• Leverage social media. Create Twitter or Facebook accounts and make it known that your business has joined the social network community.

These are a few tips that will allow attendees to hold their focus on your business at the trade show. Using the latest in technology to enhance your image will definitely turn heads from all over the trade show.