Nimlok

Here are the main things to think about when deciding what type of booth you need:

1. 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?
   • 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?
2. 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?
3. 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?
4. 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.)

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.

Graphics

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 tennis rackets 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).

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.