Exhibit Design Meets Show Floor Interaction
Here are some design ideas that are driven by the voice of experience. Readers like you have shared some observations about getting the right exhibiting solutions to fill their program's needs. The first contributor talks about the need to balance the content of the exhibit with the need for people space in a comfortable and effective marketing environment.
"Fear of White Space. . . When laying out booth design resist the temptation to fill every available inch with display materials. Sometimes the white space on floor plans can illicit strange behaviors in Product/Brand Managers. Unfortunately, the emptiness makes them feel that they must put EVERYTHING they own in that space. Remember, both staff AND attendees must fit into your booth along with relevant displays."
- Rick Dunlap, SMC Corporation of America
Knowing your prospects and customers is an essential ingredient in any successful business. Going the next step to incorporate their expectations and desires into your exhibit design is a natural way to increase the depth of your relationship with your target audience.
"Our customers always give us feedback that their legs/feet get tired at trade shows. We provide a comfortable, inviting place for them to sit and relax. This also allows us to have informal, business discussions with them without the "sales" feel of a demo. My experience has been that they listen a lot more when they are sitting down and the whole thing becomes a conversation instead of a "presentation."
- Randy McClain, EVP Marketing, Software Earnings
Once you have a clear idea of how your booth operations are going to support your exhibiting objectives, it becomes much easier to design work space. As the next reader's comments show how they create an environment to generate qualified leads, one can easily visualize bringing the process into exhibit planning.
"I like to designate areas in the booth to correspond with the level of pre-qualification. In other words, the more interested an attendee is and the more qualified they are for my products, the deeper they walk into the booth. I usually have a point person standing on the edge of the booth in the main traffic area to pre-qualify attendees. Once a guest is pre-qualified, the point person introduces them to someone deeper in the booth. This person, usually a trained sales person, further qualifies the attendee and perhaps shows them a demo or gives them other info. This method keeps unwanted traffic out, helps focus our trained sales people and helps develop more solid leads."
- Jim Hauer, Regional Sales Manager, DTI
Design considerations can be especially challenging in a smaller booth space. As the next reader show us, knocking down barriers to guest movement is an important first step.
"The best tip I've learned so far -- get rid of the table in front of the booth. The table in the front serves as a barrier and encourages potential leads to keep moving with the flow of the trade show attendees. An 'open' booth will allow them to step in to your booth and out of the flow of traffic."
- Wendy Ross, Navigator Telecommunications