Eight Success Tips for Your First Trade Show Booth

Exhibiting in a trade show can involve a major investment of money and time. But the financial returns for your business can be excellent if you learn some of the secrets of trade show booth success before signing up for a show and investing in your displays.

If you're considering setting up at a trade show for the first time, here are eight tips for a successful trade show booth display:

1) Rent the smallest possible booth space for your first trade show. The first time you exhibit, you'll learn a lot about what works for you and your products and what doesn't, and what you'd like to change for your next show. Also, seeing other exhibitors' booths and ideas will inspire you to evolve various aspects of your own display. So it's a good idea to keep your trade show expenses lower as you learn, by renting a smaller space and starting with a simple display.

2) Create an open trade show exhibit. Make it a space people can enter comfortably without feeling trapped. If you set a table across the front of your booth and stand behind it, it's harder to draw customers in and involve them - so they tend to walk on by.

3) Keep your booth uncluttered so customers can focus on what's important - your product. When approaching your display, anyone should be able to discern immediately what your booth is promoting. No one is going to take the time to study it and guess, when there are hundreds of other booths to visit.

4) Before planning your trade show booth display, find out everything you can about your allotted space. Know its dimensions, where it will be located in the building, what companies or organizations will be in your neighboring booths, whether it's in a high or low traffic area, whether you have access to lighting and electricity, and anything else that will affect your exhibit display setup.

5) For your first trade show, consider renting booth display components. Rental displays can relieve you of the issues of transportation and storage, and allow you to be a little more daring in your exhibit design than you might be if you were purchasing them. Also, studies show that many first-time exhibitors never do a second trade show. If you only exhibit once or twice, purchasing your own exhibit components doesn't make economic sense.

6) Design your booth with an eye to keeping shipping costs low. Oversized or heavy displays can be very expensive to ship to the trade show, and may also require that you hire expo personnel to bring them into the exhibit hall and help you set them up. Opt for smaller, collapsible, lighter weight displays as much as possible.

7) Plan to secure your expensive items so that they can't be stolen at a trade show. If you use a laptop computer for a multimedia presentation at your booth, be sure to have it securely locked to your display, and take it with you at night if it's a multiple-day event. Display the samples of your more expensive products either well inside your booth where they can't "walk off" as attendees stroll by, or inside a locked display case.

8) For the most professional image, create a unified appearance for your displays. Choose no more than three colors for your display elements and table coverings - such as gray, white, and blue. Each exhibit component should be one of your three colors. Also, choose no more than three textures - such as brushed metal, matte vinyl, and clear acrylic; each display element should be one of these textures. This creates a professionally pulled-together booth that lets your products stand out in the display.

In summary, although it's tempting to go all out when designing your first trade show booth display, it makes more sense to keep your first booth small and simple, and focus your energy on marketing your products and networking at your first show. During the event, learn as much as possible about how you'd like to alter your exhibit for show next show, and write down all your ideas either during or immediately after the show.

Once you have your first trade show under your belt, you'll have a much sharper idea of what you do - and don't - need in a trade show display to make each successive show your most profitable one to date.

About The Author

Rena Klingenberg is a jewelry artist and small business owner. Her website, http://www.trade-show-booth-display.com, is filled with new success tips and articles to help other small businesses market their products. Subscribe to her free "Trade Show Success on a Small Budget" ezine at http://www.trade-show-booth-display.com/newsletter.com.

rena@trade-show-booth-display.com

MORE RESOURCES:

RELATED ARTICLES

Steps to a Successful Audience/Trainer Relationship
A major cause of trainers being unreceptive to their audience is stage fright. Being so self-involved the trainer has very little energy to devote to making personal contact.

Guidelines for Rehearsal Criticism
It is both good planning and considerate to provide auditors with a guide for their criticism. It would be quite difficult for them to note everything which needs attention without some reminder of what to look for.

Tips for Thinking on Your Feet
If you really aware and alert, your audience's behavior - faces, bodies, and their hands, will literally transmit scores of "messages." It is possible to judge how well you're being received, how much attention your audience is paying to you, and often how close your objective is to accomplishment.

Ten Tips on Using Flip Charts and Whiteboards
Flip charts are so common that we all think we can use them. But how often have you sat in presentations wondering what all the scribble was really about? Like many people you have probably seen flip charts that make no sense, that you can't read from the back of the room and that look like a spider has crawled over them.

Cell Phone Dos And Dont During A Meeting
What would we do without our cell phones? Wow, there's a scary question. It's hard to imagine a world without them.

How to Attract New Business Like George W. Bush Wins Elections
THE LITTLE-KNOWN SPEECHWRITING SECRETS THAT WON GEORGE W. BUSH THE US ELECTIONHe's been accused of "mangling the language, destroying its meaning by avoiding the use of verbs, twisting nouns into verbs, and endlessly repeating phrases until they become zombified" (Source:'Bush and Blair accused of mangling English' by Kate Kelland, Reuters.

Seven Tips for Coping with Pre-Stage Jitters
Whether you need to address large groups or small, familiar faces or new, you may feel that the stress of speaking is always with you. If so, these seven tips will help you work through tension and communicate with confidence.

Secrets of Successful Presentations
Does the thought of speaking in front of others send you running in the opposite direction? You�??re not alone. Many people avoid public speaking at all costs �?" and there is a cost.

Just Say No to PowerPoint: Enough is Enough!
Have you ever been slideswiped? You walk into a meeting and once everyone has arrived, the lights are often dimmed and the show begins. The presenter clicks the mouse again and again, showing you slide after slide until you can take no more.

I Love the Smell of PowerPoint in the Morning: The 5 Sensory Approach to Business Presentations
You're in a conference room. You're giving a PowerPoint presentation to several of your colleagues.

27 Tips For An Effective Presentation
So you're not a professional speaker. That's no excuse for NOT giving a professional presentation.

Present for Success: Simple Strategies to Add Confidence and Credibility to Your Next Presentation
Tomorrow's the day and you're dreading it. You're scheduled to give a presentation to the senior management team about the new program you're proposing.

The Secret Language of Money
At a number of business seminars and presentations, I passed out an index card and asked each person in the audience to write anonymously a single answer to each of three questions. The three questions are:1.

Tips to Energize Your Presentations
"There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours.

A Discussion about Facilitation Skills
Interview with Julia Apple-Smith, Manager of Employee Development at Sauer-Danfoss Ames, Iowa about Facilitation Skills:Q: Would you tell me a little bit about the culture at Sauer-Danfoss?Julia: About nine years ago, Dave Pfeifle, President and CEO had a vision for us to change our culture. We, at one time, were part of the Sundstrand Corporation, and as such, over time, had evolved into a company that was fairly autocratic and not very customer focused.

10 Tips For Bringing Your Event To Life
Your job as an event planner doesn't stop with the meeting in the company boardroom. You may be call upon to organize an employee appreciation event, an awards dinner, a product launch, the celebration of a company milestone, a gala recognizing a longtime employee's retirement, an incentive event for the company's sales force, a fundraising event, a holiday celebration?the list goes on and on.

The Crucial Components of a Lesson Plan
MAKING INFORMATIVE LESSON PLANS: --The performance objectives should answer this very basic question - what should the trainees be able to do at the end of the training period that they were was not able to do at the beginning of it? --For evaluation procedures, how will the trainee's accomplishment of performance objectives be demonstrated or measured (written test, skill test, skill demonstration)? Evaluation procedures should provide documentation of the achievement of all performance objectives. --For equipment and supplies needed, what is available? What must be used? What cannot be used? What unusual items will be needed? Any special student materials? Instructor materials? Handouts? Lesson plan for the students? Manuals? Visual Aids? Props? --When entering space requirements calculate room size, number of rooms, seating requirements, seating arrangement, writing surface needs, and any special training environment needs.

5 Breakthrough Marketing Ideas
Do you ever get frustrated with your marketing? Are you putting in a lot of effort but not getting the results you want? Don't you wish you could just hit a switch and get a better response from your mailings, sales calls and web site?You hear a lot about breakthroughs; is it all hype, or can you really create a breakthrough in your marketing and sales? I know that you can.I spent last weekend skiing in Vermont with my spouse, nephew and his finance Sonia.

Presentation Skill Mistakes
Last week my husband and I attended an awesome 4 day work conference! I decided to sit in on both days of business presentations hoping there would be a nugget or two I could share with you.Presenting to an audience of 100 to 300 top producers were executives of a large company.

Create A Better Impresion With Your Emails
How do you come across in your emails?As I receive more and more requests for assistance by email, I also get more and more poorly worded or badly formatted emails.When you ask someone for help, or approach them for the first time, you will get a much better response if you word your initial contact carefully.