If you are exhibiting at a trade show this year, what you need in order to bring your exhibition stand to life will come at some cost and EVERY single penny of what you spend your money on should create a return contributing to the achievement of your goals. It is not size of stand and spend that define success at an exhibition. Think of it as a LIE (L.I.E). We only work with clients year after year where they make a return and where the money they spend is all spent on things that are defined by the LIE. So what is this famous LIE we are speaking of?
L is for LOOK: Each and every delegate will form a first impression of how capable you are by your exhibition stand design. Think about your company values when you are designing your stand. If your brand is based on products that are primarily aesthetically slick and pleasing to the eye, ensure your presence is consistent with that and be clean and precise in your presentation. If your products are solid and dependable, ensure your stand presents an obvious solidity. If your products are innovative and creative, ensure your stand catches the eye with a curve, an angle, an illusory effect.
The ultimate goal is a vision of your exhibition stand that can be rationalised against your business ethos and values. Think of your stand in the same way a store thinks about their space as an experiential environment. It needn’t cost the earth.
I is for INTERACTIVITY: Next, think about the experience each delegate might have with you at the show. Are they interacting with your staff, products, message or all 3? Do your products need to be picked up or lit in a certain way to catch the eye? Are they backed by messaging that communicates value? Are those values best communicated in a story told by your sales people, minimising messaging for example might encourage questions to be asked and relationships to grow.
E is for ENHANCEMENT: Everything you use to display or represent your products should enhance them and allow them to shine and be the star as well as be consistent with your company values. On a product focused exhibition stand, delegates shouldn’t notice the stand. Unless you are exhibiting to make a statement of power and dominance over your marketplace as your sole goal every penny spent should be about enhancing your 1. BRAND 2. PRODUCTS OR SERVICE 3. VALUES
Always consider ‘does spending money on that unit, piece of lighting, flooring, graphic panel, add to the experience of the visitor when they interact with my stand and are they more likely to buy with me as a result?’ If you ask that question you will never go far wrong.
So whenever anyone tells you exhibiting is about having a fantastic behemoth of a stand, tell them it isn’t. You know about the LIE.