Trade Show PR
Updated: Sep 16
No matter what industry you’re in, having a presence at trade shows is one of the most important ways to announce your brand and showcase your product offering.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the premier event for the entire technology ecosystem. Naturally, one of the best ways to promote your brand is by exhibiting at this event (and similar trade shows) in order to promote your business to the consumer electronics industry.
However, being an exhibitor doesn’t guarantee people will come along and see your trade show booth. You need to focus on trade show PR, so a swarm of people gather around and you create a huge crowd. With more eyes on your booth, you can market your business and potentially see benefits like improved lead generation.
With that in mind, here’s how you can promote your trade show booth at any upcoming business event:
Design an engaging booth
Your booth needs to draw eyes and encourage people to wander over. It starts with the design - ensure you have a professional exhibition stand that’s colorful, matches your brand ethos, and stands out from the crowd. There are lots of providers of bespoke exhibition stands out there, so do some research to find one that can help you put yours together.
A few tips to make your booth jump out from the rest include:
● Add some interactive elements for people to play around with
● Incorporate good lighting to draw people’s attention
● Use eye-catching colors that don’t blend into the surroundings
Run a pre-show publicity campaign
It’s easier to generate hype around your trade show booth if people are aware of it before the event begins. The idea is for people to enter the trade show and immediately go toward your booth.
This is possible if you market it before the show begins.
Take to social media to promote your booth and explain to people what you’re offering. One genius idea is to run a social media competition. Post on social media that the first 100 people at your booth will get a free gift. Immediately, you’ll see people flooding it when the event doors open. Be sure you offer a good free gift too - like a discount on your products or something exclusive they can only get at your booth.
It’s also a good idea to run email marketing campaigns, alerting everyone on your mailing list of your booth. Again, it builds hype and creates attention before the event begins. When people attend the event, they already have your booth in mind.
Use clever signage
Another trick to gaining trade show publicity is to think about the exhibition room as a whole. Your booth is one of many in a relatively large area. It can be hard for people to figure out where your booth is amongst all the others. So, incorporating clever signage can help. Use signs around the venue to direct people to your booth.
One way of doing this is by hiring event staff to stand around the arena/conference center with arrows directing people to your trade show booth. To take things to another level, give your staff special bands or cards they can hand out to people. These bands/cards can allow individuals to pick up a free goody bag from your booth. It encourages them to follow the signs and pay you a visit.
Overall, good trade show PR comes in three ways. Firstly, you need good pre-show marketing to build hype and get people to go directly to your booth. Secondly, you need to give people a reason to visit your booth, which is where competitions on social media or free goody bags come in handy. Finally, your booth must be brilliantly designed so it stands out and keeps audiences around for longer.
Once you generate a large crowd, other people will likely come over to see what all the fuss is about. So, it’s not all about getting people to your booth - you need to make them stick around too!
If you're in the process of preparing for a trade show like CES, please contact Foster PR for assistance.