Author: Exhibition Stands

Nailing your Graphics for Your Next Exhibition Stand

Nailing your Graphics for Your Next Exhibition Stand

With physical exhibitions currently put on pause and virtual events taking their place, this gives businesses plenty of time to make sure everything’s in tip-top condition for when exhibitions finally make an appearance again. 

Graphics in particular need to be the thing you invest in to help you stand out; this is what your potential prospects and leads will see first, encouraging them to visit your stand and spark a conversation. So, why settle for anything other than the best?  

Stand Out From the Crowd 

For attendees to choose your stand over the many others, you need to catch their eye with something different, something unique, so they feel intrigued by your business.   

No one wants to settle for average, especially when money is involved. There are many other businesses out there trying to compete with you, so you need to figure out how you can make your graphics different in the best way possible.  

This could be highlighting your unique selling point (USP) in a short and snappy piece of text or using eye-catching colours that are difficult to miss. 

Don’t go overboard with text, but make sure that anything you do display is large and bold. Elements like your company name and why you’re different from other businesses are the main pieces of text you want people to see from the other side of the room. 

Research 

Depending on the purpose of the exhibition, or the types of people going, find out what is going to encourage people to come over to you. Consider the types of people that are going to be attending. Are they going to be wowed by a humorous approach? Are visitors likely to be more serious and business-driven?  

These are just a couple of questions you need to ask yourself and reflect in your graphics, so you receive the right kinds of attention. 

If you’re attending the same exhibition you’ve been to every year for the past decade, that’s great because you may already know what works, but if the environment is something that’s completely new to you, find out as much as you can about the event. 

You’ll be able to get an idea on how to personalise your graphics by looking at other businesses that have previously attended and if you know anybody who has visited or exhibited there before, you could also give them a call.  

This will not only help you get a feel of the exhibition’s style and mood but also highlight any opportunities for your stand that haven’t been used by others. 

Your Images 

You probably have a good idea by now of what images you should use for your graphics to fit the style of the event, but depending on the size of your stand and the banners you use, are they good enough quality? 

It’s important to inspect your images carefully before printing because when blown up to a large scale, they may come out pixelated. This is where the file types of your images and graphics come in handy! 

Ideally, you should make sure your images are saved as a PNG file. This is a high-quality image format that can be edited and resized freely, without impacting the final quality of your image.  

Another thing to consider if you’re planning on going big time with your stand’s graphics, check for any small elements that aren’t visible and appear when the image is blown up and shouldn’t be there. If so, these can be checked and edited out of your photos before the final print. The last thing you want is for peoples’ attention to be diverted by an eye-sore in your images. 

 

Are you looking for a top of the range graphic design and printing service? Look no further because our team at 200m2 have just that to offer you, so you can stand out from the crowd at your next event. 

To find out more about how you can get your hands on some brand-new graphics, contact our team on 020 333 200 92. 

Marketing Materials that You Need for Your Next Expo

Marketing Materials that You Need for Your Next Expo

We want to help make your next exhibition the best one yet and that means increasing the number of results that you get from the event.  

Marketing materials can be invaluable when it comes to generating leads and turning those leads into sales. There are a range of different materials that you can produce and use for your next event.   

Business Cards 

This is something most businesses already have and if you’re a business owner, you probably have at least one in every jacket pocket. 

 A well branded business card will be an invaluable tool to have on-hand to give to potential leads or even other business owners who you would be interested in partnering with.  

 A physical business card allows visitors to bookmark their favourite vendors and provides the longevity that digital search does not.  

Eye-Catching Banners 

Your stand is arguably the most important thing that you can bring to the exhibition and well designed, eye catching banners can make all the difference.  

Your stand is the first thing that visitors will see and this is what will attract them to your stand in the first place, so you need to ensure your stand not only gets their attention, but also conveys why you’re valuable to them. This could be the perfect conversation starter and help to increase the number of quality conversations that you’re having.  

Your banners should also follow your branding and communicate who you are as a brand.  

 Notepads or Sticky Notes  

There is a fine line when it comes to promotional freebies at exhibitions, some can be useful and some just get thrown to the bottom of a free bag by visitors, so it’s important to choose quality over quantity when you’re looking at free gifts.  

Notepads and sticky notes are a good option for free gifts, everybody needs both of these things in the workplace and branding your gifts can provide them with a well-needed reminder about who you are.  

Loyalty Cards or Offers  

A lot of stands run competitions at expos and this can help to largely increase stand footfall, however, the effectiveness of this move is short-lived. As soon as the trade show is over, people forget about the competitions they’ve entered.  

So if you want to increase the amount of time you have their interest, you could make your offer or competition an action they need to take after the event. On the other hand, you could offer a loyalty scheme for those attending or even an exclusive offer for them to redeem.  

This will help to keep you in their minds when they’ve left the exhibition hall and it will give you an advantage over the other exhibitors trying to follow-up post event.  

If you do choose to go down this route, ensure you collect the information you need from them in exchange for the loyalty card or offer, so this could be contact information like their email and phone number.  

You can then put this contact information into good use with your follow-up strategy and long term marketing.  

If you would like to find out more about exhibition banners and stands, our team of experts can ensure you’ll stand out. Get in touch with them today! 

Generate Leads During the Lockdown

Generate Leads During the Lockdown

This is a bit of a different blog for us, usually we’re talking about how you can use exhibitions to generate leads and increase your sales. However, we’re currently in lockdown and al events have been postponed for the foreseeable future.  

That doesn’t mean that your lead generation has to stop, we want to help you explore different ways to generate leads where previously you may have focused on exhibitions.  

Downloadable Content 

If you want to give back to your audience, but also generate a few more leads, this could be perfect for you. Creating high-quality content for your visitors to download will not only increase the value of your business, but it will also help add to your CRM system.  

Create a downloadable ebook, video or whatever you think your customers will find useful and make it available to those who fill out a form with all of the contact information you need for your CRM. Try and make the form as simple as possible to encourage more downloads.  

Paid Ads 

You can run paid ads on a variety of social media platforms and also on search engines, so you can focus on where your audience are likely to spend the majority of their time and also depending on whether you want to be proactive or reactive with your marketing.  

Creating ads which are targeted to your audience and personalised where possible will encourage clicks through to your website or landing page. Once they’re here, you will need to convert them into a lead.  

This could be using a form, phone number or a newsletter sign-up. Once you’ve collected their details you can use these in your follow-up process, which can be altered from your exhibition process.  

Build Social Relationships 

Social media usage has skyrocketed over the past few months and this is the case for business owners as well, LinkedIn is the new networking hotspot.  

Build connections using social media and create content that these people want to share, this will increase your post reach and therefore, allow you to reach more like-minded people to build relationships with. Social media also offers the ideal chance to communicate with your existing or future customers that may be looking at your site or page, and ensure they know you are still there, working hard and looking forward to the end of the lockdown and assisting with their exhibition needs at that point.  

Once you’ve built trust and have the basis of a relationship, selling becomes a lot easier.  

If you’re working on your exhibition process during lockdown, we can help to get your stand in tip top condition, so get in touch with our team today!  

Take This Time to Prepare For Future Exhibitions

Take This Time to Prepare For Future Exhibitions

It’s a frustrating time for a lot of business owners, especially for those that had planned to attend events and tradeshows over the next few months.

Don’t forget, there is positive in all of this! You may not be able to attend your event just yet, but you do have all this time to prepare your stand, marketing and follow-up process to ensure the first event back is the best one yet.

What Can You Do?

Graphics

Could your stand’s graphics do with a redesign? It might be that you’ve introduced new services and features for what your business can offer and they’re not included in your graphics, or that you’ve rebranded. Well, now’s the perfect time to get these updated!

If you’ve updated your logo, or your unique selling point (USP), these are just two of the features that should be on display for the public to see, using an eye-catching graphic.

Whilst many employers are currently working from home, many freelancers are used to doing this anyway, so graphic designers will still be on tap to suit your design needs.

Even if you haven’t made any big changes to your business recently, it’s always important to give your graphics a freshen up so the regular faces are seeing new points about your business each time they see you.

Lead Generation

You probably already have a pretty good strategy for generating leads and acquiring interest to your stand, but there’s no harm in thinking of even more ways to do this.

Marketing trends are constantly changing, and different prospects will respond to different methods, so it’s important to try and cater for people you feel can bring the most value to your company.

What are the different lead generators you can experiment with? It may be difficult at the moment to fully test these techniques but it’s definitely something to consider for when the world goes back to somewhat normal.

  • Evaluate your exhibition team – Consider the type of event and the size of the venue. If you can, try to find out how many people are expected to attend so you can figure out the right number of staff you’ll need to man your stand. A good practice is to have some members of your team as the face of your stand, and some walking around the venue.
  • Competitions – Everyone loves a good competition to keep the energy levels high and for the chance to win something. Brainstorm the different competition ideas that best represent your business but are fun and engaging at the same time.
  • Online marketing – Blogging, paid ads and social media are all ways to showcase your presence before an event. This is your chance to really sell yourself and convince others that you have something different and better to offer.

Promotional Copy

Businesses use persuasive text across all their promotional material, even graphics for their exhibition stand.

Your text might explain all your main services and provide insight to your business, but there’s always room for improvement.

Go over the wording and brainstorm how you can phrase your text to encourage as much engagement as possible. Include questions and really paint a picture of how your business can help people.

A great practice is to ask others if they could benefit from aspects, they didn’t realise they needed.

There’s always room for improvement, and now’s a better time than any. If you’d like to create flashy new graphics that represent your business, contact our design team to find out about the graphic design software we use for exhibition stands here.

A Guide to Hosting a Virtual Event

A Guide to Hosting a Virtual Event

Times may be abnormal at the moment, but many businesses still continue to run as normally as they can. Many employers are adapting to working from home and trying to achieve the same work ethic as if they were in the office.

You can still hold meetings, catch up with colleagues and even host events, from the comfort of your own home.

Not sure how? We’ve created this guide on how to host a virtual event, so you can stay connected with businesses and achieve your business goals as normal.

What is a Virtual Event?

Whether you’re located minutes or hours away from other businesses, virtual events help bring you all together across the internet.

This can be in the form of a video conference, presentation or a live video broadcast.

It’s really easy, and as long as you’re connected to the internet, you’re all good to go!

Why Should You Try a Virtual Event?

A virtual event may seem like a lot of effort for something you’ve never tried and where you can’t get the main benefit of building relationships face-to-face, but there are actually many benefits to an online event.

By primarily relying on the internet, your marketing and set-up costs are extremely low, and in some cases, completely free.

Acquiring leads and building your customer database is just as successful online, as attendees can submit their details through the platform you use.

How to Host an Event

Step 1 – Promote your Event

The same marketing concepts apply, even for online events.

Using social media, paid advertising and email marketing to promote your event will work just as well as if it was a physical event, and sometimes, even better. Your audience can be broader in terms of location because you have no travel costs or time.

Social media use has shot up over the past few weeks and it’s easy to see why when this is the easiest way to connect, recommend and share. However, this does also mean that feeds are a lot more saturated and you’ll need to ensure your posts stand out.

Focus on how your event will not only help individuals and businesses now, but also when things return to normal.

Step 2 – Choose your Streaming Platform

In the current age of digital, there are so many platforms that offer live broadcasting and allow other attendees to join in.

Depending on your primary target audience, it’s important to determine which platform is going to acquire the most leads and interest.

Here are some of the main broadcasting platforms you can use:

  • Facebook Live Broadcast – If social media users are your main target, this could be perfect for you. Followers of your brand and, when marketed in the right way, members of the public, can tune into your event too. Attendees can engage with you in the comments and react to your content. A key benefit of using Facebook is that your live stream is saved as a video post, so people can watch it whenever it’s convenient for them.
  • Microsoft Teams – This platform is great for slightly smaller events and allows multiple users to be shown on screen, which is great when hosting an event with other members of your team. Viewers can engage and share their contact information using the chat feature.
  • Instagram TV (IGTV) – This is not only ideal for the event itself but also for promoting the event and uploading teasers, during the run-up to your event. You can upload content of up to 60 minutes long, but this is better for short and snappy broadcasts.
  • Work Cast – Ideal for open days and exhibitions, this software steers away from social media and broadcasts your event to over 1 million viewers, spanning across 20 countries. If you’re looking to host a large scale event, this could be for you.

Step 3 – What to Include During your Event?

You want your virtual event to be just as engaging as the standard. To encourage the most engagement from your viewers it’s important to structure your event correctly.

Writing a script could bring the structure you need to keep the broadcast running smoothly and stay on topic. For some, this is too structured, and people prefer to lead the way through improvise, but this is a matter of preference.

Question and answer sessions are great for creating conversation with your viewers and also makes them feel as informed as if they were there with you.

Including giveaways and competitions are both great ways to keep spirits high and finish the event off with a buzz. Relate these to your services as much as possible but also make them appealing to your audience.

Virtual events can be just as successful as a standard exhibition, so why not try one of your own? If you’re looking to continue acquiring business leads through this period of isolation, why not host your very own virtual event.

For more information on the services we offer that could help with your event, contact our team at 200m2 here.