If you’re looking to earn publicity, generate leads or grow your business, you should definitely consider heading to a trade show. These events bring together a large cross-section of your target audience, making it the ideal place for you to promote your business. While trade shows all over the world are truly amazing marketing opportunities, the trade shows in Orlando are generally considered to be head and shoulders above the rest.
The city is a major industrial and technology center, which is why it draws in the biggest crowds at every event, giving you the opportunity to expose your company and your offerings to the largest possible audience. But, when you’re heading into a trade show, especially one in Orlando, you need to make sure that you plan everything perfectly.
A good trade show booth will enable you to highlight your brand and tell its story, but a badly-designed booth could leave you with very little to no return on your investment. If you’re wondering if there’s anything you could do to up your trade show game, here’s a look at some common mistakes people make while renting a trade show booth and a few tips on how to avoid them:
Common mistake to avoid while creating booth
Not Having a Goal in Mind
Whenever you decide to attend a trade show, the first you need to do is ensure you have a clear goal in mind. It may seem like your trade show goal will be inconsequential to the design of your Orlando trade show displays, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. The goal you outline for the event will dictate everything from the layout of your trade show booth to the graphics that will be displayed and the way your products are placed during the show.
If you don’t have a clear goal in mind, it will be reflected in messy booth design. A good way to understand what your goal should be is by taking a look and your overall brand marketing strategy. If there’s an event that lines up with the launch of a new product or service, your goal for the show is easy to understand. In other cases, your goal may be to promote your brand in a crowded market or generate as many leads as possible. Once you have a goal, you’ll be able to get the rest of your trade show marketing plan in order.
Having a Complicated Message
What is your brand all about? Find a way to summarize your brand’s message so that it can be converted into easy-to-read graphics that will make up your trade show booth rental. A lot of brands make the mistake of having a super complicated message. They want people to know that they offer a wide range of products but also that their packaging is eco-friendly and that they achieved their goals for the previous quarter.
This will be incredibly difficult to reflect on a single booth. If your message is too long or too difficult to understand in a single glance, the audience may avoid your booth completely. Remember, trade shows are busy places and people don’t have the time to visit every single booth. A clear message will definitely make you a top contender for attention at even the most crowded event.
Picking the Wrong Trade Show Booth Size
At trade shows, it’s important to remember that bigger isn’t always better. You may want to opt for a bigger booth since it makes you more visible on the show floor, but if you don’t have enough material, your booth will look empty and uninviting. It may also look like you’re underprepared, which is not what you want the attendees to think. Conversely, picking a small booth when you need to focus on product displays is also a bad idea.
The booth size you should choose will depend on your main goal and your vision of what your booth should look like. Once you know what you want the audience to see, you’ll have a better idea of the kind of space you need at the trade show.
Filling Your Trade Show Booth to the Brim
In order to cut down on their budget, a few brands end up with a trade show exhibit rental Orlando that is far too small for them. They end up packing their booth with too many displays or products, which makes the booth look extremely busy all the time. Most attendees will walk by these busy booths without a second glance.
This is because booths that are full also give the impression that there aren’t enough people to service every new guest’s needs. When you’re planning the design for your trade show booth, you need to ensure that you give enough importance to negative space in your display. These empty spaces will make your booth appear more welcoming, which is definitely what you want at a busy Orlando trade show.
Sweating the Small Stuff
We understand that you want every aspect of your booth to be absolutely perfect, but spending a chunk of your budget on ensuring that the table, which will be covered with a tablecloth, is absolutely spotless is quite pointless. A lot of brands end up overspending on tiny booth details that most attendees won’t even notice. If you’ve found yourself a good rental partner, they’ll alert you whenever you start doing something similar.
Pay heed to their warnings and let some of the small things that will fade into the background go. Instead, you can reroute your resource to your graphics and floorings – things that every person who walks into your booth will definitely pay attention to.
Being Complacent When It Matters
At the other end of the spectrum are people and brands who are okay with showing up to the show with a booth that’s faded or of sub-par quality. Such a booth is a bad reflection on the brand and conveys a poor message to the audience. Attending a trade show is definitely an expensive affair, but there’s still no excuse for showing up with something that is not at all up to standard.
When you have the choice, opt for better quality fabrics and equipment to ensure that your booth looks better than most others on the show floor. By budgeting for a high-quality booth, you’re showing your audience that you aren’t afraid of putting in time and effort whenever required to meet and even surpass their expectations.
Not Understanding the Audience
You could create the most exquisite trade show display & exhibit in Orlando, but if you create it for the wrong audience, it will be a waste of not just time, but also your money. Different trade shows draw in different crowds. Make sure you do your research on whether you’re expecting decision-makers to be walking around or if you’re only talking to middle-management staff who are at the event solely to learn more about the industry.
The messaging you display on your booth will have to be different for the different audience groups. If you’d like to know who you can expect, you can speak with the trade show organizer. Typically, they’ll have some analytics on the kind of people who have attended the event in the past. This will give you a clear indication of who your audience will be.
Forgetting About Staff
At a trade show, it goes without saying that your booth is the piece the resistance. But, forgetting to fill your booth with the right staff is the kind of blunder that could convert a successful event into a complete failure. When it comes to picking your staff, you need to think very carefully about the number of people you will bring. You don’t want to end up with more people than you have place for. On the other hand, you don’t want to show up with just 2 staff members who are unable to handle high volumes of booth traffic.
Your staff should also consist of a good mix of senior executives, product experts and sales personnel. Together, they’ll be able to support each other and ensure that every query a potential client could have will be answered with ease. The ratio of people you bring from your different departments will depend largely on your overarching trade show goal.
Although they offer incredible success, trade shows are also one of the most expensive marketing tools available today. In order to ensure that your brand earns a high return on your trade show investment, you need to avoid these common trade show mistakes at all costs.
After all, the mistakes could end up costing you a lot more than your trade show booth design. With a little bit of planning and the expert help from your trade show partner, you can head into all your Orlando trade shows with a spectacular booth and a marketing pitch that is sure to wow the audience.
Read here – Six ideas to help your trade show display in Orlando succeed.
