If your marketing budget is very tight, or needs to be stretched in the current economic climate, use pop up stands instead of custom made or bespoke trade stands, they are far cheaper and can be reused many times. They are also lightweight and portable and can be used in conjunction with roller banner stands to make a visually appealing stand in many different configurations depending on the shape and size of the stand space you have been allocated. Here are some suggestions to help your budget go further.

Consider Sharing a Stand
If your company belongs to a trade association, or is a supplier to a group, perhaps a chain of hotels or restaurants for example, or is part of a larger group of companies, taking a shared stand is well worth considering. If you use pop up stands, it is easy to merge two or more stands from different companies or parts of a group to form a cohesive unit. Roller banner stands can be used betwee two pop up displays to bring everything together.

You will find that there are quite a few advantages to stand sharing:
• A pooled budget will allow you to take a larger stand space and with a bigger stand, your presence will have more impact.
• Visitors will be more attracted to the wider offering presented by the different aspects of grouped businesses.
• A prospect who turns out not to be quite suited to your product or service may benefit from the product or service offered by your colleagues on the stand and vice-versa, thus you can introduce prospects to each other and gain business.
• There is an economy of scale because overheads can be shared.
• If your company is coordinating everything, you will be able to oncost the different elements of the costs involved to your fellow exhibitors on the stand and thus get your company’s presence at the trade show at much reduced costs.
• If you do not have much experience of exhibiting at trade shows, sharing worth more experienced colleagues will greatly benefit you.

Stand Size.
The amount of money you have available with inevitably determine the size of stand space you are able to afford but if you follow these simple rules, you can make a big impact, even with a small stand:
• Make sure your stand has good visibility to visitors approaching from all directions.
• If you have your stand on a corner, you are able to have two open sides and this is ideal as you will entice visitors onto your stand and those ‘cutting the corner’ by walking across your stand may turn into customers!
• Choose a stand in a wide corridor (not all tradeshow walkways are the same width). If the corridor is wide, people will more readily stop to look as there is an inherent desire not to get in other people’s way and create bottlenecks which can happen in a narrow walkway.

After Booking.
To reduce your costs further, make sure you book your hotel accommodation and any associated costs at the same time as booking the stand because the closer the time to the exhibition, the higher prices will rise – especially in high-demand hotels close to the venue. Booking early will also avoid problems when there are no rooms available with the associated headache of needing to transport staff to and from the trade show from hotels much further away which will also add to costs.
Ensure that if you need extra graphic panels for your pop up stands or roller banner stands that you order them in good time. It is cheaper than having to order a rapid turnaround print job at the last minute.

Other Articles You Might Find Helpful:

1. Trade Show Exhibiting During Challenging Economic Times