The Exhibitor's Resource – Trade Show Marketing Blog

If you’re starting your search for a pop-up trade show display, you may be finding it hard to compare one display to another during your initial search, in part because the differences are most apparent in person. Therefore, you may be looking for some guidance on which specifications to insist on, and which might not matter as much. Well, we have one piece of initial advice: Avoid Velcro.

Veteran trade show marketing professionals will tell you that using “hook and loop” (the generic name for Velcro) to attach graphic mural panels to a pop-up display frame isn’t the way to go. While Velcro has its place in the trade show exhibit world for certain applications, such as attaching temporary graphics to fabric panels, the best way to attach full-size graphic mural panels to a pop-up display frame is with magnetic strips. Even for someone installing graphics for the first time, a magnet-to-magnet connection is quick and easy, and the result is a perfectly-aligned graphic. The polarization of the magnetic strip helps guide the graphic panel into place. By contrast, Velcro-applied graphics can be a struggle to install and align properly. Velcro can attach too early or too strongly, making adjustments difficult. And even when Velcro panels are finally aligned, the result isn’t usually a smooth and clean joint, but often a wrinkled gap between the two panels. A display with magnetic graphic panels, however, appears to be a single continuous graphic backwall, with seams that are only visible if one looks really closely.

Our second piece of advice for the new pop-up purchaser: Visit a trade show exhibit showroom to verify that the fit and finish of the display you are considering meets your quality standards. Get a demonstration of the setup of the display and test it out for yourself. Will this display be something that you and your staff will be able to manage the setup of? Will the presentation be clean and professional and reflect your company’s values? While there are more options and quality specs to consider than just how the graphics attach, insisting on a pop-up display that uses magnets is a good start to getting something that will work for you, your team and your business.

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A significant and potentially hidden expense of exhibiting at trade shows may not seem like a big deal until you run the numbers after a show. That’s right, I’m talking about the costs associated with producing, shipping and dealing with promotional literature, whether it’s company brochures, product catalogs, or white papers. In the planning stages, little thought may be paid to this traditionally mandatory element of exhibiting at trade shows. However, that lack of planning early on might double, triple or quadruple your costs for this increasingly altogether unnecessary expense. Last minute copy or design changes to literature can delay getting your files to the printer, and force you to pay rushed printing fees, and then rush shipping and handling fees to get the literature to your booth before the show starts. Depending on how much literature you’re bringing in, you may be subject to convention hall drayage fees, and “late surcharges” to boot.

These literature-related costs make you wonder where where all of it ends up. Some estimates say that over half of printed literature handed out at trade shows never even makes it back to the attendee’s office.

So what are some strategies for minimizing this expense?
Exhibitors could bring some literature with them on the plane, but smaller pieces that just hit the highlights but still give the visitor something to remind them of them later. Or exhibitors could bring individual sell sheets so that booth staff can provide info on the specific thing that the visitor was interested in, rather than providing an entire catalog.

Exhibitors could bring a small supply of literature, and replenish only what they start running out of with a quick electronic order via a national quick-print chain (you know some popular options). You can even leave your home city while the final tweaks to the design of the new brochure are being made, and have the digital files electronically sent over to the print center in the city your show is in and have them fulfill small batch orders from there.

Or you can be a savvy exhibitor and bring none, but be set up to print on-demand inside your exhibit on the show floor. On-demand printing gives you an extra advantage because it allows for custom-tailored information to be added to the documents being printed. Not only can you provide information specific to the products or services that the prospect is interested in, but you can even include their name for a personalized touch, and the name of their regional representative or local dealer office.

But you could be a real maverick and not just send no literature, but offer digital-only versions of everything. Depending on your industry and how your company does business, this might not be as out-there as it might have once seemed. The literature you once thought to be a requirement might actually be a burden that your contact doesn’t want to carry around the show the rest of the day or weigh their luggage down with. And what better way to follow up with your prospect or client after a show than to email them the product catalog they requested and you promised? Even mailing out select pieces of literature can be a smarter move than providing it on the trade show floor.

Need another good reason to consider alternative lit printing strategies? Here’s one: reduction of your company’s carbon footprint. The less literature you print and ship (especially air ship), the better for the environment it is. Reduce the number of trees required to produce the paper. Reduce the amount of fossil fuels it takes to not only ship bulk literature out to the show, but to ship the left overs back to your home city.

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Have recent economic pressures created a situation for your organization where you’re trying to accomplish more with fewer marketing staff on hand to manage everything? Are your trade show management tasks now part of your marketing manager’s growing list of responsibilities? Are they struggling to keep on top of all of the exhibitor deadlines and planning tasks?

Well, you’re in luck. There is an easy, readily available, and cost-effective solution to your problem: Outsourcing Trade Show Management to an expert. We have found that many of our clients have realized a lot of benefits from letting us handle the myriad of details that come with preparing for exhibiting a trade show, freeing up their staff to focus on the wider marketing strategy and messaging campaigns.

We help companies of all sizes design, plan and execute their event marketing programs. We have seen companies reduce their event marketing expenses by increases in efficiency, reduction in mistakes and late or rush fees, and identification of cost-saving opportunities.

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