If you are exhibiting at a show, unless you are strictly a service provider, you will most likely be showing off the products you make, featuring your new products and giving attendees a chance to get all “touchy feely” with your product line.
Challenges with showcasing products exist for products that are both large and small. To effectively determine which products to select and how to create the right means to display those products, you should begin with not only a review of marketing strategies and objectives, but also a practical approach to logistics and a series of questions about your products.
- What size are your products? Big? Small? Know the dimensions – this is important for exhibit design.
- Will they sit on the floor?
- Do you need slat wall & racks, shelves, tables or counters etc.?
- Is there a need for a live product demonstration?
- Do you need to include a video demonstration or other audio video experience to highlight the features, benefits and uses of your products or systems? Keep in mind Pictures and video are great additions to any display and exhibit program but nothing replaces the old fashioned “let me get my hands on the real thing” experience.
- Do the products and demos need power? How much? Can it be accomplished via battery?
Knowing answers to these questions can steer the course of your exhibit and display design needs.
Here are 7 tips to create a professional display area for your products within your trade show and exhibit space.
- Don’t Bring Excessive Amounts of Product:
Good exhibit designers can assist in helping you decide ways to further accentuate your products and make good use of your exhibit space without overcrowding it with the product you are trying to sell. Though product is the focus, remember you need enough room in the booth to accommodate staff and the prospects who visit. Don’t crowd them out. You need room to move, to facilitate demos, conversation and lead information retrieval. You want prospects to feel welcome in the booth and linger so you can turn prospects into customers. If people are uncomfortable because product is crowding them out, you won’t get that opportunity.
- Provide Product Demonstrations:
An intriguing product demo stops traffic, engages prospects, prompts further dialogue and leaves a positive lasting impression on your audience. If you are lucky enough it may also earn you added show publicity with show media and trade publications too. Talk to your exhibit designer up front about what type of space, or other items such as counters and storage space, you will need in order to adequately complete your demo so these elements can be designed into your exhibit.
- Support Large Products:
Having an automobile, or any over-sized attention grabbing product, in your booth is really cool; but your audience needs to understand why it is there. Be sure to have adequate branding and explanation via accompanying signage – hanging signs, towers, even banner stands will work. Determining how much signage support, and locations for them, needs to be part of the initial display design planning.
- Showcase or Amplify Small Products:
When the products you manufacture are tiny, it is best to call attention to them. This can be accomplished through product demonstration or using graphic enlargements on your backwall, on lightboxes or via large video monitors built into your exhibit. Some products can be showcased inside counters, or attached to slatwall, hanging on racks, or attractively displayed on shelves. Perhaps you make a large variety of smaller items. This too can present challenges as to what to bring, which items to highlight, etc. Discuss options with your exhibit consultants; they will often provide multiple solutions based on past experiences and successful exhibits they have done for other clients in similar situations.
- Mount Your Products:
Not too big, not too small? Maybe mounting your product will be just right. Often this is a technique used to bring your product into eye level focus and can be quite impressive. Choose a display system with the strength to accommodate the weight of wall mounted products so you do not have to worry about structural concerns during the show.
- Create a “Retail Shopping” Environment:
Sometimes displaying your product on shelves as if it were in a retail store actually works best. It may seem simplistic but most folks are comfortable with this type of display and it fosters the salesperson shopper experience and dialogue. It may seem elementary but, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!”
- Build A Set or “As Seen in Real Life” Area:
Create an environment that resembles or mimics how the product would be used in real life. This could be as simple as a photo backdrop or as complex as a three-dimensional piece to recreate a specific environment. In the photo shown above Mark Bric Display created a counter with a see through panel and graphics to show the underside configuration of piping connected to recessed drains to show how they would look set into a floor surface as this is where they would be “in real life”.
BONUS TIP!!!!
- Don’t Forget Lighting:
If your exhibit were a stage, where would you want the audience’s eyes to focus? Shine light there! It’s a fact that light draws attention. Spend the extra money on lighting – don’t let it be a forgotten detail. There’s nothing worse than feeling dreary in a large overcrowded show hall. Perhaps those shelves need some extra light, maybe that large product needs some down-lighting. Consider the use of SEG Fabric lightboxes for branding, company logos, or product graphics to really accentuate who you are and what you do. Even counters can be fitted with additional light.
If you are currently looking to create the right showcase environment for your products at a trade show or even in your retail environment, give Mark Bric Display a call at 800-742-6275 or click here for us to call you! We have experience in creating exhibits with all of the considerations mentioned above. Our exhibit designers and customer service representatives are very good listeners and want to partner with you for success. Our ISOframe Exhibit family of Intelligent Exhibiting display choices, and our additional visual merchandising and branding product lines, position us so that there is no challenge Mark Bric Display can’t help you tackle. Our no obligation quote and free “see it before you buy it” full color 3D rendering offer makes it easy to choose Mark Bric as your go to display house.
Find all of the ISOframe Intelligent Exhibiting products here: www.ISOframeExhibits.com
Watch videos of our incredible display products in action here:
ISOframe Custom ISOframe Wave ISOframe Ripple ISOframe Fabric ISOframe Lightboxes ISObar Counters ISOframe Express ShowFlex Butterfly
- By Stacy Poole, Marketing Professional for Mark Bric Display Corp.
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