Let’s start with the question, “What are good memorable trade show displays?” Good memorable trade show displays are those displays that get people saying things like, “Did you see the trade show display for the ACME Fake Vomit Company?” Specifically, if people remember a particular trade show display AND they remember what company it was for AND also they can tell you what the company does and why they would be interested in the company or may choose to use the company, then said company has a good memorable trade show display. The key is that people need to remember the company, what it does, and why they would chose to do business with the company.

On the other hand, if someone says, “Wow, did you see the trade show display booth with the ten-layer velvet chocolate cake with pink champagne shooting out the top?”, and then you ask them what company had that trade show display and they say, “I don’t know, but the cake was delicious…” then that, my friend, is the definition of a bad memorable trade show display. Put another way, you need your trade show display to be remembered for the right reasons!

I think I can make my point the best (at least to myself) by bringing in the sock-puppet monkey. During the last Superbowl, a car company ran what I call the “sock-puppet monkey car commercial”.

Sock Monkey SuperBowl TV Commercial

The funny thing was that after the game when we were talking about which commercials we thought were the best (and most memorable), everyone remembered the sock monkey commercial (the music rocks). But when we tried to come up with the name of the company that it was for… no one could. Most of us assumed it was for a car company, but that’s about as far as we got. The current hip term that comes to mind to me is… epic fail.

Now you may be thinking that people will see the TV commercial over and over and over again, and eventually the name of the car company will stick (which I am told is a common TV commercial tactic). But people won’t see your trade show display over and over again… they will most likely see it once. And as far as the sock-puppet monkey car commercial goes, I asked my wife yesterday (who has probably seen the TV commercial at least a dozen times) which car company it was for. She said she really wasn’t sure, but then guessed the right company, but then changed her mind and went with a different car company… which makes me wonder, does the commercial really work for the car company that isn’t even in it?

But enough about retro toys and thumping music… it’s great to have a memorable trade show display, but only if it is the right kind of memorable trade show display… otherwise you might end up helping your competitor more than yourself! Make sure trade show attendees remember who you are, what you do, and how you can help them!

So if you’re going to spend your hard earned marketing budget dollars at a trade show, you want to make sure you pick up enough trade show leads and/or make enough trade show sales to recoup your expenses and actually make money. But if you make the mistake of using a cheap trade show display, and your trade show image is unprofessional (and cheap) there is a good chance that your potential trade show traffic will be turned off and will just pass your trade show booth by. My advice is to you is that you spend the money necessary to have a professional trade show display with a smart trade show design that draws a crowd. Don’t skimp on your trade show image… first impressions are often the only impression, especially if the first impression is that you are cheap.

Now the above said, sometimes “cheap” trade show displays can actually end up being the hit of the show.

The trade show display above obviously didn’t cost a lot of money, yet makes a very clear point, and is effective. So sometimes if you are clever enough, you can actually make “cheap” work to your advantage. But for most of us, it is better to spend the money to get the job done right. You don’t have to spend a fortune, and you don’t need to overpay or spend money on useless features, but make sure you get a professional trade show display that will get you enough trade show traffic and trade show business to justify your exhibiting efforts and make your company a trade show success.

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Trade Show Guru random thought of the day:
Avoid trade show bananas and achieve trade show nirvana.

“Secret #1″: Your booth has catch people’s attention when they are passing by your booth space. Understand that your trade show booth is just one of many. Your design must distinguish your booth from all the other trade show booths. If you don’t get their attention, people will just keep going to see the next “interesting” booth. One time-tested way of “getting noticed” is to have a catchy tagline with a captivating background image.

“Secret #2″: You must clearly say who your are, and you must explain what you do. Use big letters for your company name and put it at the top. Then explain what your company does in one or two easy to understand sentences. If people can’t look at your display and immediately know who you are and what you do, you need to start your design over.

“Secret #3″: Your design must tell people WWIFT (what’s in it for them). This is the most important part of an effective design. People are interested in how you can help them – that is why they will stop and talk. For instance, if you are a financial services company, tell them how much money you can make them. No matter what, you must tell people how you will help them.

To conclude, designing effective trade show booth displays involves creating a design that covers the three “secrets” above. Your design must stand out from the crowd and get noticed. Your design must say who you are and what you do. And lastly, your design must say how you can help people. To be a successful trade show marketer, make sure your trade show booth display design accomplishes these three “secrets”. May your next trade show be a huge success, and may you end up with more trade show booth traffic than you know what to do with!

In my opinion, there is a lot of “green washing” going on. Greenwashing is similar to white-washing, and means claiming something is green (i.e. environmental and/or eco-friendly) when really it isn’t. Will Taft over at the Healthy Living blog wrote an excellent post on the greenwashing of garbage bags. In his post, Will looks at “green” garbage bags with “1/3 recycled plastic”. At first glance, the “green” garbage bags sound great. But on closer examination, Will discovers that recyled plastic is not as strong as virgin plastic, so one needs to actually use more virgin plastic to make the garbage bags strong enough. A “green” garbage bag that uses 1/3 recycled plastic actually uses TWICE as much plastic overall to get the same strength. So when you use the “green garbage bag” you are using more virgin plastic plus the recycled plastic and end up sending twice as much plastic to the landfill. To put it more simply, three “regular” regular garbage bags use one ounce of (virgin) plastic. Three “green” garbage bags use TWO ounces of plastic (1.33 ounces of virgin plastic and .66 ounces of recycled plastic). Crazy!

But back to “green” trade show displays. From what I am seeing, some trade show display companies are incorporating a bit of bamboo into their displays and are christening them green trade show displays. I don’t agree. To determine if a product is really green or eco-friendly, one needs to look at the overall big picture. And the big picture with portable trade show displays is that they get shipped around a lot. To my mind, it’s how portable the display is that makes it green or not green, and how it is shipped. Because many displays are shipped via overnight air service (at least in my experience), a trade show display that weights twice as much will cost twice as much to ship and will burn twice as much fuel (think air pollution and global warming). The weight of the trade show display in large part determines its carbon footprint. And from what I have seen of these supposedly “green” trade show displays, they tend to be some of the heaviest trade show displays out there.

How one uses their trade show display can strongly influence how “green” it is, regardless of whether or not it is made out of bamboo, Tibetan yak hair, or good old fashioned aluminum and plastic. If one plans ahead (i.e. practices proper trade show planning), then one will have time to ship their display via GROUND instead of AIR, which saves the company money and burns a lot less fuel. As is often the case, being green is in our own hands and is determined by what we do.

To think further, and outside the box, and to be a trade show heretic, one can have an even greener trade show display by marketing online instead of at a trade show (i.e. not having a trade show display at all). I think some companies should consider whether or not they should even exhibit at a trade show (though I am a huge fan of face to face marketing). By marketing online instead of exhibiting at a trade show, one saves a lot of fuel that is spent transporting the display and the people to and from the show. So perhaps the greenest trade show displays are those that don’t exist. How’s that for some trade show zen?

But to keep from getting fired, I should mention that if one is looking for a real actual trade show display and wants to be green like Kermit, then one should consider portability and weight first. One should also get a trade show display that is built to last and that can have its graphics easily updated so that you don’t need to replace your display every year or two and send the old one to join the garbage bags at the land fill. A good example of just such green trade show displays are the Signature trade show displays were I work. My company doesn’t trumpet them as being green, but something tells me that some of the greenest products don’t have a big glow-in-the-dark “GREEN” sticker on them.

The top 3 trade show display design mistakes all have to do with the overall message of the design. A good trade show display design needs to have a clear, focused message. The design needs to state in no uncertain terms who the company is, what they do, what they can do for the customer, and offer some credible proof to back up their claim.

MISTAKE NUMBER ONE ~ Being too vague.
If you look at a trade show display design and you have no idea what the company does or why you should talk to them, they have blown it. While there is nothing wrong with a big captivating picture and a clearly visible company name, it that’s all there is to the design is, it is too vague. The design needs to include the message above, and cover who, what, and why.

MISTAKE NUMBER TWO ~ Being too specific.
Nearly as common as the the mistake of a design being too vague is the mistake of a design being too specific. Some people get carried away with their message and write a novel. Every word on the display design should be read and digested in under a minute, or less. People aren’t going to stop and read 1,000 words, and if you have that many words (or more), the font size is probably going to be so small that they’ll need to get within a foot of the display, blocking it from everyone else’s view.

By the way, here’s a bonus design secret: keep most if not all of your text on a trade show booth display design on the upper third of the display. This will insure it is visible over the heads of the crowd that will be at your trade show booth… the crowd you’ll have because you know about the importance of planning for a trade show, right?

MISTAKE NUMBER THREE ~ Missing the boat.
Having a short, concise message isn’t enough if the message is focused on you and your company instead of on your prospective customer. The message needs to tell the customer what’s in it for them. You need to tell them how you’ll make their lives easier, solve their problems, or save them money. Your claims need to be believable and you should offer credible testimonials to back up the claims. Your design must have a clear message, and it must be all about the customer and their needs.

So there you have three major trade show display design mistakes (and a free bonus secret!). Feel free to leave a comment below if you have another design mistake to add to the list. Perhaps we can make this a top 10 list instead of a top 3 list!

And of course if you’re looking for a trade show display, you can’t go wrong checking out the trade show displays at the company I work for. Are you still struggling to come up with the Ultimate Christmas Gift? Maybe you should consider how a nicely wrapped trade show display with a big bow on it might look under your Christmas tree? Of course, you’ll probably need a pretty big Christmas tree to fit a trade show display under it.

Movie question follow-up:
On my last post, I asked the following question: The other night we watched a movie with a turtle guru in it who said, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a Gift, which is why it is called the Present.”
Does anyone know what movie we watched? Tim guessed “Finding Nemo” and Will guessed “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – We Wish You a Turtle Christmas”. Both good guesses, but both wrong. So the question still stands. Does anyone know what the movie was?

Apparently, trade show secrets must be a hot topic. However, the trade show guru is here to tell you that there really aren’t any “secrets” to trade show success. You can spend your time searching for those secrets, just like you can search for that tradeshow special sauce, but the key to trade show success is basic marketing and hard work.

Without further ado, here are ten absolutely free trade show ”secrets” (they’re really just common sense). Start with these top ten key secrets points and save yourself $29.95.

1. Create a budget. Figure out how much it’s going to cost to exhibit at a tradeshow and determine your roi (return on investment) and see if the numbers add up and if you’ll make money (the ultimate point of most businesses).

2. Pick the right trade show. Make sure the tradeshow you’ll be attending is a target-rich prospect-rich environment. If you’re not sure who your prospect is, or what a prospect is, read basic marketing.

3. Plan for your trade show. If you’re not sure what this means, read my post trade show planning. Those that fail to plan, plan to fail.

4. Send out pre-show mailers. You can get a list of attendees from your trade show organizer. Get the list and use it. Let your prospects know you’ll be exhibiting, and give them a reason to stop by. Don’t just send out one mailer, send multiple pre-show mailers. Repetition will get your message through.

5. Consider passing out trade show giveaways (aka trade show schwag and/or trade show freebies) at your trade show booth. Make sure the trade show giveaways have your company name and contact info on them. And make sure the trade show zombies don’t get all of your trade show giveaways. Keep some cheap giveaways on hand for the trade show zombies and keep the nice trade show giveaway stuff hidden in back for your better prospects and clients.

6. Have an awesome custom trade show display with full-size custom graphics with a clear message. Your custom trade show display should stop people in their tracks when they walk by your trade show booth.

7. Take care of yourself at the trade show. Get plenty of sleep. Remember the trade show is work, not vacation. Don’t go out drinking and dancing until 2am. Save that for when you go on a real vacation. Make sure you eat a good breakfast, drink plenty of water during the day, stretch, and wear comfortable shoes. Consider getting extra padding when you rent the carpet for your trade show booth.

8. Be personable and courteous when you talk to people, but get to the point. Qualify people immediately and determine if they are a valid prospect. Do they need and want your product, and can they afford it? If they aren’t a qualified prospect, thank them, maybe give them one of your cheaper trade show giveaway pens or other cheap give-away items (maybe they’ll need something in the future, or will talk to someone who will), and then move on. There’s no point in wasting your time or their time. You’re at the trade show for business, and hopefully they are too.

9. After the show, you must follow up. Call all the prospects that you met at the show. Thank them for stopping by. Find out how you can move your business with them forward. If you can’t reach them, call again. Keep calling until you talk to them.

10. Achieve trade show zen. If you’re not sure what trade show zen is, read my post. Think ahead, plan, study the competition, remain calm, visualize your success and achieve it.

There you have it, free of charge. Ten “trade show secrets” if you want to call them that. If you want more, just keep reading the Trade Show Guru.

BTW, I want to thank Tim, the King of the Rednecks, for his glowing review of your humble trade show guru: Steve, Guru of the Trade Show. I’m impressed he found the time to write a post about little ol’ me, what with all the beer gift baskets he’s been busy making. Good Karma to you Tim, and a round of Blue Beaver beer for everyone!