First Time Trade Show Advice

Attending and exhibiting your product or service at a trade show can be great for reaching buyers and make sales on the spot. If you never presented your product or service at a trade show here are some of the essentials to know about before investing in a booth and going ahead with your first trade show.

1.Plan of Action

Plan your show 3 – 6 months in advance.

This will give you enough time to get all of your ducks in a row with your team and delegate responsibilities like purchasing a booth, trade show display, printing business cards, arranging travel etc.

Creating and designing your trade show booth is easy. All you need is your logo in a vector format, to allow your logo to scale up and look crisp and clear.

Use your tagline or a sticky marketing message as visual text to incorporate in your design to connect your brand to that specific statement.

If you have these two things covered that will handle most of the work for your tradeshow backdrop as far as design.

This will help you reduce stress for a better experience presenting and pitching your products without small worries getting in the way.

Once you have a general idea of what materials you’ll need for a successful show you can narrow down a time frame for a cool, calm and collected presentation.

2.Claim Your Spot

The site of your booth is very important and depending on where you’re stationed, the flow of foot traffic will vary.

If you’re hidden in a dark corner where only trolls and leprechauns exist, people will avoid walking those few extra steps it takes to reach your booth.

People naturally like to congregate in the center of towns, cities, and arenas. It’s instinctual it’s in our DNA and we cluster in the center to avoid predatory animals that could pick us off if we become separated from the herd.

Avoid setting up your booth in the outskirts or far ends of the convention center or auditorium to have people walk less to see your booth.

Some of the best places to claim your spot are the center or somewhere near the center of the building, arena or convention center. Other places to post up if all the centralized sections are taken is near the entrance/ exits or next to the bathrooms.

Corners are the last choice, but realize that people get tired of standing and walking at these events so you want to reduce the distance it takes for your buyer, agent or client to get to your booth.

3. Bring The Essentials

In thinking of showing our products successfully without any glitches we can sometimes get lost in the speed of the opportunity. It’s important to plan as much as possible to get the best results out of the trade show.

Bring a pen, notepad, & stapler. People are often so busy running around trying to cover all the big things that they forget the little things that can make a big diffrence.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to a show and a first-timer is busy looking for the small things. Heck! My first time I didn’t bring them either and I never made that mistake again. 

Along with the pencils and pens don’t forget to bring some chairs for your potential buyers, remember long periods of standing and walking around can get uncomfortable quickly for many attendees and offering a comfy chair to a potential buyer can create a better experience while talking about orders and business.

If you have room for a table or two bring them along and place your merchandise, business cards, postcards or monitors. Don’t forget the comfy shoes and the company logo shirts for staff to add that professional uniformed look, I suggest going with black polo shirts and your logo on the left chest.

Black shirts keep cleaner longer, well… they seem cleaner and since you’ll likely be eating on the go and chatting it up with people a stain can really ruin the first impression. We can help with custom logo shirts and other printing materials just send us an email with your design and we will help you with your order.

4. Network With Key People

Get to know and talk to everyone you get a chance to speak with, this is a great opportunity to network with other artists, talent and like-minded people that are in the same industry as you are in.  

It might seem strange to go up to your competition to ask them questions but do it anyway, you’ll never know what ideas or collaborations may come from these conversations.

Trade shows are a great way for connecting with people who can help and guide you and your business to the next level.

Look for exhibitors who have 3 to 6 years of experience presenting their product to get a sense of their product evolution the ups and downs of their business and to gauge where you’ll be at in 3 to 6 years with a similar product.

This is also a great way to find out what you’ll need to correct in your business or personal life if that’s not where you want to be at 3 years from now.

If you have a new product or concept talk to distributors to get their opinion on what improvements you can make to the packaging, design or if it’s even a sellable product.

You’ll have a variety of buyers and agents that are willing to help you develop and make your product better you’ll also have the opportunity to talk to a large group of people and get valuable feedback in a short amount of time.

5. Get Attention

Try different openers that will stop buyers in their tracks. Come up with a list of engaging questions to ask a passer-by that will cause him or her to laugh, think or stop to ask for more information.

Example: if you have a clothing line you’re presenting and a passer-by is checking out a hoodie on the rack.

You say with enthusiasm and a smile  “I have one in your size, try it on and tell me what you think” this accomplishes two things that are really important.

You engage your buyer by asking him what his valued opinion is on your product and two he is more likely to make a buy on the spot because he/ she is now feeling how comfortable and soft that hoodie is.

Questions are great to get to know your customer and for practicing your pitch to see what gets attention from your buyers.

His feedback on what he likes and doesn’t like about your hoodie gives you the opportunity to make adjustments based on the real buyer. So have fun and take lots of notes!

If you have any questions on setting up and printing your tradeshow booth, let us know!

You can email us at info@laprintanddesign.com or you can fill out the form below and we will get in touch with you within 24 hours or less.