10 booth dos and don’ts – examples from Hong Kong MegaShow

We were at Hong Kong MegaShow last week and took some pictures to share trade show booths good practice with you. Ready?

Good practice – Don’t

There are things you CANNOT do in your booth. At least, not if you are looking for business. Here are a few examples taken at the Hong Kong MegaShow.

Play with your phones

It may sound obvious to some, but you cannot imagine how many booth staff are playing with their phones.
Visitors and buyers will not enter your booth if they feel they are disturbing you. Playing with your phone is a strong signal and it says “don’t disturb”. You may want to avoid it.
The same applies to eating and chit-chatting with colleagues!

Have narrow doors

This one is really a shame.
This booth is very well located, near the entrance, and has a prime position since it has three open sides. Furthermore, the design is nice and the whole place is clean, neat and organized.
Unfortunately, it is quite a waste of potential to touch three aisles and close your booth everywhere!
With such narrow doors, the booth sends a signal of “private space – do not disturb”.

For sure, having the staff chit-chatting in the background doesn’t help either.

Guard the door

Same comment as above, do not waste your great potential by closing every entrance.
And if you do, make sure no-one is “guarding” the door like a bouncer or no stools are blocking the way.
You are looking for business, you need to attract people to your booth, not filter them.

Have an empty booth

You may not have many products to display.
You may not even have any product at all and offer only services.
Even then, your booth should look welcoming: add decorations, posters, duplicate products on the shelves, etc.
An empty booth is also a negative sign: at best it shows you don’t care, at worst it shows you have no business.

In this specific case, the booth had simply not received the samples yet.
Such things (unfortunately) happen: delivery issues, goods blocked at the custom, etc.
But everything can be avoided if you plan early enough!

Look angry

There are three important mistakes with this booth.

The first and most obvious one is the person crossing her arms and looking angry.
No-one will come talk with you if you send such signals. Look happy, smile, look people in the eye and greet everyone.
The second error is about sitting on a chair – your job as booth staff is to invite people to your booth and show them what you have to offer. Sitting on your chair sends, once again, the wrong signal.
The third mistake is the place the person is sitting: in between two booths. Does she work for the right one? The left one?
People won’t talk to you if they can’t identify the brand you represent.

Quite a shame once again because the booth is very well built!

Scare people

Why do you go to a trade show?
To display your products and get new business.

Yet, some booths get instantly scared when you take photos and run after you crying “no photo, no photo!”

You need to realize that everything you display could end up being copied. If your product is easy to copy and you have no additional value, then your biggest problem isn’t people taking photos.

Moreover, you need to accept that if someone really wants to copy your product, there is very little you can do about it.

What if your biggest potential customer was to visit your booth and got scared by you waving at him? Wouldn’t it be a shame to scare him and lose this opportunity?

If you go to a trade show, be transparent, polite and welcome people. If you want to keep your products secret, don’t bother investing in trade shows.

Good practice – Do

But the Hong Kong MegaShow also hosted excellent examples of good booth practice. Let’s see what could be a source of inspiration!

Attract the crowd

It is always easier when you have cool products, but it can work with anything if you show some creativity.

This booth attracted tons of people taking pictures and sharing them on Social Media.
They put their most creative products outside the booth and invite people to take photos.

If you want to drive the crowd, don’t force people to go all the way to the back of your booth to find out what you have to offer, put your most creative work in front and let people interact with it.

Create a good flow

This booth also has a good traffic because of the flow it creates. The entrance isn’t blocked and there is a path for people to enter, view all the products, then leave the booth. That way it encourages visitors to go through the booth instead of passing by.
The furniture in the middle serves as both a reception desk and a discussion table.

Display your products well

A good booth should replicate a real environment. In this case, the bags are displayed the way it could be in a store. There is sufficient lighting to show the best aspect of the products and there are neither empty spaces nor too much merchandise.

Capture leads

Discussing with visitors & buyers, meeting new people, discussing orders, all this is great and necessary.

But it is equally important to capture leads efficiently. If you want to get business, you will need to follow-up quickly. Having the right equipment will help you catch business you may lose to other exhibitors otherwise. This booth is using myfairtool for capturing leads easily and sending instant follow-up emails.

 

Did it help you? Share your tips and ideas with us!

The Exhibitor.