Trade shows are a great marketing strategy for engaging an audience. Any business that’s serious about increasing its ROI will want an outstanding exhibit to make its presence felt in the marketing field. For this, you need visibly appealing booths with exclusive graphics, that can keep up with the latest design trends.
Here are the top trends set to become popular in 2019.
Multisensory & Emotional Engagement
Increasing the sensory qualities of your custom exhibit not only will help your trade show booth stand out but give your audience a chance to have some fun too. Engaging your audience isn’t just limited to sights and sounds only. Approach the whole five senses to provide relief from the monotonous presentations with the help of elements,such as lighting design, touch panel interfaces, gamification, interactive displays and more.
- Scent Marketing
Don’t ignore the advantage that scent marketing has over your audience. The human nose consists of a hundred more receptors than there are in the eyes and ears, making scent a very powerful marketing tool. Use attractive scents to make your booth noticeable to visitors passing by your booth.
- Gamification
Incorporate “throwback” games like Plinko, or sounds from a click-a-prize wheel, to get the attention from the audience and evoke nostalgia. These games are perfect icebreakers that you need to include on the show floor in 2019. Appeal to the inner child of your audience with these captivating and entertaining games without any need for tech support, therefore keeping the budget affordable.
How can this help with your business? Well, try to give a unique twist to these nostalgic engagements by inserting your product, or an educational message into them.
- Selfie- Space
The selfie craze isn’t going away anytime soon.Draw traffic in your direction with a “selfie-space” for the attendees. This opportunity will provide them to post something fun and will give you brand added exposure.
Customer-Oriented Design
Does your exhibit booth consist of engaging interactives that enhance the overall experience of the visitors? This is a very crucial factor to consider when you have less than three seconds to create an impression. But you need something more than just flashy designs to appeal to the potential client’s imagination. When designing a trade show space, you need to understand your goals to make all the elements work together. Use unique signage, new fabrics and texturized graphics when installing exhibit displays and don’t hesitate to mix colours to make the experience more unique. The increasing trend of upgrading trade shows with the latest technologies will continue in the current year, according to the Industry and Market Research in Canada.
Data and Analytics
The process of gathering and analyzing data on your booth attendees isn’t anything new. In fact, a report published by the Centre for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) shows that 68% of marketers have already been using big data or had plans to use them since 2015, but in 2019 this will open new horizons.
Not only can you understand behaviours better, but you’ll also be able to drive an engagement that’s deeper and design an experience that’s more meaningful to your customers. You will get information on which of your targeted audience was absent or didn’t engage with the booth and then strategize a plan to grow their interest through a different show, and a new venue. After all, you need to justify your spending on these trade shows and track your ROI. According to the Centre,
“This year the main focus will be on the value of deeper data gathering, like information on the number of visitors, peak traffic hours, demographics of the attendees, the questions they ask, what they know about your product and what alternatives to it interest them. Just don’t grill your visitors with a list of questions like these. Instead, use a simple tool for collecting data that will make things easier for your booth staff as well.”
Virtual Reality
The list is incomplete without a mention of this technology trend, especially when the latest buzz in the trade-show world is VR or virtual reality. VR is known to draw in more attendees, and its dynamic, brand-oriented presentation is guaranteed to be appealing to the audience. Available VR platforms include Google Cardboard, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR and Sony PlayStation VR.
There are ways you can tie the VR app into your marketing campaign to get people interested and informed through the best virtual experience ever:
- Show the interactions with people in your booth online.
- Implement VR gamification to engage the attendees.
- Stream the VR feed on a video wall.
- Organize 360° virtual meetings to engage remote audiences.
All the trends mentioned in this list showcase the exciting opportunities that await the trade show scene. But along with this, always have strong fundamentals upon which you build your success. If all these trade show design trends seem too overwhelming for you, then you can contact a professional exhibit design service that specializes in building result-oriented exhibits.
