To ensure you reap the benefits and avoid any financial mishap, there are some guidelines on what you should do before you participate in a trade fair:

Research – attend a trade fair to make sure it targets your specific market before you commit as an exhibitor.

Plan – map out exactly what products or services you will be showcasing and how you want to display them, then meet with a trade fair exhibition company who can show you how to economically display your wares.  Use PR tools to market yourself prior to the show.

Partner – considering partnering with another small company to cut exhibition equipment and space costs.

Design – your space should be designed to create maximum impact, and you can accomplish this by focusing on a single message that will be carried throughout your booth with graphics and exhibition equipment like pop-up displays.

Recruit – have enough people on hand to handle all the business inquiries that will likely be coming your way.  If you are a small business with few employees, recruit relatives and friends – but be sure to brief them fully on your products and services.

Collect – focus your efforts on collecting email addresses, business cards and any other contact information so you are able to leave the show with a way to stay in touch with those you met.  Create a system for follow-up so you don’t lose prospects to inattention.

The first thing to do is find which exhibitions are coming up for your industry and you can do this either via a search engine e.g ‘Video Game Exhibition Event’ or by asking your suppliers what the popular exhibitions of the moment are.

Once you have found a few choices make sure you visit their websites and get a general feel to see if it’s the right type of show for you. Ask the following questions when scouting:

● What are the visitor demographics? Do they match yours?
● How is the show going to be promoted?
● What have past attendance been?
● Do you see the names of any of you competitors?

Obviously the exhibition organisers web site is a sales pitch so you need to look at their websites through cynical eyes. Look for exhibition and event review sites or speak to companies who have attended in the past for an independent view. Usually event websites list last years exhibitors list and if you’re lucky you may also see this years exhibitors. If you do find both lists then the following comparisons and tasks can help determine if this is a successful event:

● Are the same companies coming back from last year?
● Is the number of exhibitors up or down from last year?
● Call up companies who don’t compete directly with you and ask them how they found the show.

Once you’re happy that the show is popular and attracts the right people for your business, i.e. ones you could convert into customers, you need to look at costs. Is it worth attending? Have a look at our article ‘the cost of exhibiting’, which gives a rundown of costs you will incur when exhibiting, and then compare this with how many potential customers you will reach and how much this is worth to your company. Remember that as well as customers who will sign up or buy products at the exhibition itself you are also building brand awareness, which may result in sales in the future.
One big tip to keep costs down is to book late as you will often get a better price, although beware as this might be the result of an under-attended event.

One final point is that for first time exhibitors bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to exhibitions. There may be lots of traffic at a big show but you might meet stiffer competition. Also big shows often last several days so the costs of keeping your stand manned will be higher.
Maybe consider a smaller local exhibition to test the water as there is less risk involved with outlay of money and time.

Crucially you must make sure you have a monitoring system in place that enables you to determine if the show was a success and if it will be worth attending next year. Keep goals such as; break even, get X amount of people to sign up to my mailing list, make X amount of leads. The more data points you use the better your post-show analysis will be.

Hopefully you will now be in the position to choose an exhibition to attend and have rough costings worked out. Make sure you check out our other articles and tips for successful exhibiting.

1. Use a design program. A program like Paint Shop Pro is a great starting point. It isn’t as complicated as some of the more professional level design software, but has all the tools needed to produce a great looking banner. Crucially, there are a lot of internet guides for it, both on YouTube and sites such as Grafx Design.

Many banner stand suppliers have great online design tools that are easy to use, but may not give as much flexibility as using a stand alone program.

2. Make sure you print in the correct area. Keep important information at eye level, and remember that there is a bleed (the area that isn’t printed on), area for banners. Check with your supplier on how big the bleed is, but for banner stands this usually is the bottom few inches. The lower half of the banner is a good place to put your call to action (see tip 7).

3. Use colour to your advantage. You want the colour to stand out but not be too garish. Rather than make the banner one whole colour, use a photo as a background and make the text a colour that is synonymous with your brand. If your logo is blue and white, then make your text that colour. This will strengthen brand awareness by linking the text to your brand’s reputation. Think of the Google logo for a great example of this.

4. Keep your message short. Most potential customers at trade shows and exhibitions will look at your banner but won’t read it, especially if there is a short story’s worth of text on it. Keep your message to your company name/logo, the name of the product you are promoting (if you are targeting one specific product or service), and your slogan if appropriate. There are other ways to attract people’s attention with design, which will be discussed in this guide.

5. Make sure your design isn’t cluttered. Continuing from the previous point, it is important not to have too many different aspects on your banner. A message, a logo and a call to action is all you need to construe all the relevant information. Have a look at the designs on our banner stands to get an idea of what works well.

6. A picture says 1000 words. Use a picture that would attract a passer-by’s interest and that fits in with your brand image and the product you are promoting. The picture could be of the product itself, but if not then use one that depicts a positive scene, which will elicit an appropriate response from the consumer. You can find lots of great free stock photos to use on Google.

7. Make use of call to action. After you have caught the attention with your banner, you need to entice them to take the next step. At an event the obvious statement to make is along the lines of ‘come talk to us for more information’. You can also include a phone number, e-mail address or website URL, in order to generate several possible avenues of connection long after the event finishes.

8. Design in the correct resolution. If you have no idea what resolution is, then the most important thing you need to know is that higher is better. When submitting your design to a company to print the usual rule is that the design resolution should be in proportion to the scale. So if your design is a 1:1 scale of the actual banner size it should be set to 100dpi, but if it is 1:4 then it should be set to 400dpi. Go here for more information on resolution.

9. Make it memorable. Using the above tips such as colour, message and adding a photo, you have the key ingredients to make a great looking banner. Remember that at an exhibition or trade show the majority of your competitors will be using one, so it is crucial to make your one stand out from the crowd. The use of a clever slogan, eye-catching picture or an offer that can’t be passed up could be effective in making sure that your banner sticks in people’s minds once they’ve left the event.

10. Increase your design knowledge. By reading this article, you are on your way to improving your banner design skills. The Internet is a goldmine of information; it’s just a case of filtering the useful from the useless. Here is a great site to get you started.

Hopefully you found some of these tips useful, check back here for updates on our banner design service and other guides.