Trade Show Lab Activity 8 Why should your business attend an industry trade show? Exhibiting at a trade show offers you one of the best ways to get in front of a lot of customers and prospects in a relatively short amount of time. Trade shows give you the opportunity to not only show your product or describe your service, but also create that all important first impression. A typical national trade show, with 10,000 attendees and 1,000 exhibitors, you can realistically have 200 visitors per day. If you were making sales calls, you could not even approach that number. Granted, you don't always have the opportunity to go into as much detail in your presentation as you would like, but it opens the door for future communications -- a door that sometimes is very difficult to get your foot into. So for most companies, trade shows are worth the effort. In fact, before you decide to nix a show your company has attended for years, think about what that might say to your current customers who expect to see you there. Your competition will use your absence to their advantage. This doesn't mean you can't ever stop attending a show, but just be sure you think about whom you see there and what your company's absence may lead them to believe. In this lab activity, you will develop a trade show booth for your added- value product. Before jumping into the assignment there are few goals you should set for your business. 1. Why are you exhibiting? 2. Are you trying to extend your relationship with existing customers? 3. Introducing a new product? 4. Positioning your company within the market? 5. Generating qualified leads for new sales? 6. Countering a competitor's claim?Trade Show Lab Activity 8 8. What is the message you want to convey? 9. What do you want to get out of the show? 10. Do you want to bring home leads, sell your product/service, or create/improve/build upon your company image? You need specific, measurable goals if you want your trade show activities to succeed. Designing and Your Booth There are many things to take into consideration when purchasing and designing your booth. These include the size and type of booth; that is, do you need a floor model or tabletop model? In addition, if you need a floor model, does it need to be a large custom booth to communicate the right corporate image, or will a smaller, more versatile floor model work? There is a huge variety of configurations for booths. You can have a large custom booth built that will require multiple booth spaces and a crew of workers to assemble, or you can opt for a smaller, 10-foot by 10-foot size that can be easily shipped and assembled and disassembled by your booth staffers. Often, these smaller, modular versions can be broken down and used as two tabletop booths as well. Here are some illustrations of the different types of booths available. Table Top Display 10' Pop Up Model 20' by 20' custom islandWhen designing a booth consider a few items. What are your functional needs for the booth? Do you need seating so you can sit and discuss at length with prospects the great benefits of your services or products? If your product or service is more complicated or technical, this functionality might work well for you. Do you need shelving for books or product displays, video capability, or storage? Do you need the booth to be easily assembled, disassembled and packed? Trade Show Lab Activity 8 Do you need to be able to reconfigure it for different shows or other uses? . What kind of traffic flow do you need through your booth? Century What are your aesthetic needs?What are your aesthetic needs? Do you need a display with movement to illustrate your product? . Does it need to be backlit to illustrate the detail of your product? Does your corporate image necessitate a certain "look" that would require curves, sharp/crisp lines, or colors? What are your marketing needs? What is the message you need to communicate? . Do you have strong name/logo recognition already? . Are you a start-up trying to make a name for yourself? What is your booth budget? Booth prices vary greatly depending on the size and format. Figure $1,000 (more or less) for a tabletop (graphics make a big difference in pricing); around the $5,000-to- $15,000 range for a 10-foot (3-meter) portable with graphics; and for large 20x20- foot, 20x30-foot or 30x30-foot custom booths, the sky is the limit. (The rule of thumb is $92 to $120 per square foot depending on the design.) Graphics - Less is MoreTrade Show Lab Activity 8 How do you get your exhibit booth to communicate who you are, what you do, and what your product or service is -- all in three seconds? Sounds impossible, but it isn't. Think about the billboards that you pass on the highway. They have the exact same job. They have to tell you who the company is and what it's selling as you zoom past at 55+ miles per hour. Some work and some don't. The key is usually in the graphics. Graphics can communicate a whole host of impressions at a single glance. Think about the Chick-fil-a billboard with the cows painting the "Eat More Chick'n" sign. It's quick, and to the point. Think of your booth in the same way. Trade show attendees are strolling down the aisle looking at hundreds of booths, and unless you've pulled them to your booth with a pre-show promotion, you have to very quickly make them notice you and want to walk over to your booth. To make your booth graphics have impact and work for you rather than against you, remember: Focus on your product's or service's "benefits" rather than "services." Use text very sparingly. You want your booth to look more like a billboard than a brochure. Make sure there is a single focal point. Find the essence of your business and make sure everything revolves around that central idea. Make sure your name and your positioning statement are very prominent in the design. Remember, if you're a new company, you have to create an impression, and if you're an existing company you have to maintain and build on that impression.The trends these days in booth graphics are large visual backdrops with only the most concise, key text statements to communicate a message or theme. For example, a company that manufactures scissors or chain saws could use a single, larger-than-life photograph of its product as the background for the booth. The message is immediately obvious, as opposed to the booth that posts several small photos of its products with descriptive text along side them that can only be read at a distance of 2 feet (0.6 m). Trade Show Lab Activity 8 Now, if your company is a service-oriented company, you may have more difficulty posting a single image, but think hard about it. You can usually come up with an image or simple montage that can communicate the essence of your business. Directions: You will create your value-added products Trade Show Booth Materials. This will include the following items. 1. The tri-fold brochure for your product or service (A physical brochure for each student in class must be printed out) 2. A design for company polo/ button up shirt 3. A business card for your product with your contact information, logo, etc. (You should have enough printed out for everyone in the class to trade with each other.)4. You will create a table cover and 10- foot by 10-foot backdrop to be used at an industry trade show. The sky is the limit on designing the backdrop. 5. You will design a promotional item as a "giveaway" to attendees. 5. The tradeshow backdrops and table covers can be created either using butcher paper or poster paper. They can be designed and shared via power point presentation, or other multimedia presentation manner. 6. You will need to include a BUDGET of Estimated Costs for the Trade Show Display and other materials. The web sites provided below will have price ranges to review. Before jumping into the assignment there are few goals you should set for your business. Answer the following questions as you give your presentation. (The questions can be individual slides in the presentation) 1. Why are you exhibiting? 2. Are you trying to extend your relationship with existing customers? 3. Introducing a new product? 4. Positioning your company within the market?Trade Show Lab Activity 8 5. Generating qualified leads for new sales? 6. Countering a competitor's claim? 7. Who is your target audience? 8. What is the message you want to convey? 9. What do you want to get out of the show? 10. Do you want to bring home leads, sell your product/service, or create/improve/build upon your company image? You need specific, measurable goals if you want your trade show activities to succeed Once you've answered these questions, you should have a better idea of the type of booth you need, but the trickiest part of all is determining how the booth will look Here are some links that can help you find ideas for trade show booth design. http://www.trade-show-advisor.com/trade-show-booth-ideas.html http://www.tradeshowattractions.com/ https://www.vecteezy.com/free-vector/polo-shirt-templates http://www.logosoftwear.com/custom-made/polo/category.php https://www.customink.com/lab?ref=nav_v2PLAN YOUR TRADESHOW BOOTH FOR THE 2023 INTERNATIONAL AG EXPO IN TULARE. 1. Why are you exhibiting? 2. Are you trying to extend your relationship with existing customers? 3. Introducing a new product? 4. Positioning your company within the market? 5. Generating qualied leads for new sales? 6. Countering a competitor's claim? 7. 7. Who is your target audience