Hit a High Note at Your Trade Show with a Hanging Display!

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Ted Ridgway

One of the biggest challenges at a trade show is getting noticed. Even big companies with big booths struggle to be visible, and the problem is worse if you’re a small company. The crowds, the other trade show booths – all of the commotion can make your trade show booth hard to find.

One way to make your display easier to find is to use a hanging trade show display, or a hanging sign. You’ve probably noticed these from afar at trade shows – and that’s the point. Hanging trade show displays can make it easy to spot your trade show booth and “navigate” to it from across a crowded trade show floor. It’s like a huge “Here We Are” sign that attendees can see and use to find your booth instead of trying to find your booth number, aisle, etc.

There are several options for hanging displays. The most basic and cost effective is the vinyl gravity tension sign. You will find this version of hanging sign in squares, rectangles and triangles. It’s basic construction – multiple printed banners made vinyl in a geometric shape. The “gravity” provides the tension to keep the banners tight. This is the most cost effective hanging sign solution – that’s it’s main benefit. It is a bit heavier, and vinyl can be tricky to roll and ship. But vinyl gravity tension hanging signs are popular.

The other common type is the tension fabric hanging display is a tension fabric version, where the graphic panels are printed on fabric “zipped” around a lightweight frame “pillowcase” style. The combination of fabric graphics and tension frame make this a very sophisticated looking display. And because the frame is closed (ie, continuous), you will get better shapes – like circles – and you can use a fabric bottom of the display to print on also. The tension fabric looks nicer and is lighter than the basic gravity tension vinyl display. But this comes at a price – the tension fabric display can cost 50% more than a basic vinyl hanging display.

Depending on how sophisticated you want to make it, you can include a motor and lighting to attract even more attention to your hanging sign. But do be mindful – you will have to hire riggers to install and remove your sign, so plan to spend some money to get this visibility. But if your company can afford it, it may be the most cost effective way to get visibility at your next trade show.

Impact Displays has trade show displays, graphics and accessories for companies in all price ranges. Contact through our web page or give us a call at 877-217-2681 and let’s get started on your trade show display.

Boost Trade Show Returns by Coordinating Your Marketing and Sales Efforts

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Ted Ridgway

In most businesses today, marketing and sales butt heads more often than work together. There are a number of ways to alleviate this problem during an event. Following is a list of suggestions that could help before, during, and after an event to help your sales and marketing staff work as one.

3 Months Before:

Set and communicate show goals, such as number of leads, dollar amount of sales revenue to generate, and a number of new product introductions.

Have the sales team communicate to the marketing team what information they need gathered and recorded on the lead cards to make post show follow up more effective.

Have both teams work as one to set in-booth appointments before the event. This way if an appointment does not show on time, there will be an informed staff member to help.

Train both sales and marketing how to work a trade show booth, so they are less nervous and instead of turning on each other at times of crisis, will turn to each other for any assistance needed.

Immediately before:

Have each booth staff member introduce themselves and verbalize their personal event goals. This is twofold in making staff accountable and letting all staff know that event success is dependent upon all.

Make sure the entire staff knows that it’s okay to ask each other for help with questions they don’t know the answer to.

Require the booth staff to take specific notes regarding visitor’s questions, interests, and follow up. The sales team will require this information for proper follow-up after the event.

During:

Make sure there is an equal balance of sales and marketing staff at all times during the event. This will ensure complete coverage during the event.

Recognize the staff member the gets the great lead or leads. This can be done during the show, or each evening during a social event. Recognition is a great incentive for the hardworking staff member.

Hold sales and marketing booth staffers equally accountable during show hours. This is a team effort and staff must give 100% at all times.

After:

Treat the team as a team when you announce the event results. If the event goals are achieved, congratulate the team as a whole. If the results fall short of the goals, try not to point out any one team member as the guilty party.

Let the team members know the booth visitor comments, especially if they are complimentary. Negative critique can also be helpful, but positive critique is the glue that forms the team.

You may not need to apply every one of these tactics, but if you employ even 3 or 4, you may find that the gap between your sales and marketing groups gets smaller, while the results get bigger.

Give Impact Displays a call at 877.217.2681 and discuss your event requirements with one of our display specialist. We can help you make the most out of your event.

Hanging Displays – Increases visibility towards your trade show booth

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Ted Ridgway

The hanging displays are the trade show displays that hang over the top of the exhibit booth. These can also be hung from a ceiling or rafters as they work best in trade show scenarios that take place in indoors. Some of these signs have options like motors to turn them and bottom panels, so you can print your company’s logo on the bottom.

The key advantage of the hanging display is that your trade show booth can attract attention from anywhere on the exhibit floor as it has been hang over the top of the exhibit booth. The right hanging displays can really attract attention to your booth and get your name out there.

There are different types of hanging signs for your trade show exhibits, each with different styles and shapes. If you want to showcase high-tech electronics, then a hanging sign will really help onlookers to get an idea of what your display is about. The circular ring shape hanging signs are a great way to increase the visibility of your display. Hanging signs can be classified into two main categories: a standard circular ring design and a tapered circle design.

The circular ring hanging display features along with your logo on the outer edge. This is the most sophisticated of all the hanging signs as it eliminates the spaces and the corners of the sign and has a “continuous” look. The tapered circle is small at the bottom, but gradually becomes larger at the top. Hanging signs are generally made up of aluminum tubing and hence it is durable. The fabric covering along with this will tend to increase the visibility.

These Hanging displays can also be square or triangular shape, both of which feature a tapered shape. When selecting a design for your trade show display, consider your product’s audience. Competition at trade shows is fierce, so you need to take a multifaceted approach to make your display to attract more towards the audience.

Use Hanging Displays for an Improved Trade Show Experience

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Ted Ridgway

Hanging displays have been used at many retail stores in order to promote products and improve the shopping experience without taking up valuable floor or shelf space.

Impact displays offer a wide range of hanging poster frames, hanging mobile displays, cords and ceiling display connectors. Our banner hangers can also run according to your specification.

Our poster frames helps in displaying posters, pictures, signs and it’s available in all size frames. Our hanging hardware and accessories will also be impressive. It includes cable, hooks, clips for T-bar, exposed ceilings, and other accessories which are used to install hanging displays.

Impact has many excellent choices for hanging signs. Gravity tension vinyl is a vinyl graphic that is suspended from a lightweight aluminum frame. The hanging display graphic remains tight due to gravity.

The tension fabric hanging sign is a double sided fabric enclosure. The fabric graphic surrounds the frame, which holds it tight. It eliminates the space and the corners of the sign and has a “continuous” look.

Gravity Tension Vinyl Graphics Hanging Displays

Gravity Tension Graphic Display

Gravity Tension Graphic Display Hanging Displays are a great way to create a presence and make your company stand out in a crowd. Your customers can find who and where you are from using these displays. Get a hanging display and no-one will miss your trade show booth.

Tension Fabric Hanging Displays

Tension Graphic display

Impact Displays offers tension fabric hanging displays for trade shows so your company will get noticed and attract attention. Hanging displays are a great way to bring visitors to your booth and a tension fabric hanging sign is the highest quality way to go. Tension fabric displays are lightweight and portable, and the tension graphic looks clean and tight – custom fitted for a distinctive and professional look. And with fabric graphics, you will get deep color saturation and rich vibrant images.

Impact Displays offers two versions of tension fabric hanging signs. Our economy model is available in basic shapes, configurations and sizes and will suit most companies that are doing a basic hanging display. Our premium fabric display allows a greater range of shapes and sizes, as well accessories like motorized mounts (to rotate the display), bottom-side printed graphics and other features not found on our economy version.

Stand Out in Crowd with Hanging Displays

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Ted Ridgway

Any Business who promote their products should concentrate on trade show exhibits and when exhibiting your product in trade shows, you need to create a good impression and it should create a lasting impact on the minds of audience. For regular participants in trade shows, a query arise that is, we have tried up different types of displays and still what to use and make the booth attractive. Of course it is a good doubt and I agree with it, but remember one thing trade shows are concerned with creativity and how creatively you think, more the booth looks attractive.

Hang over some displays in your booth such that it looks so stylish and at the same time it should display your product well. Hanging displays are the great way to create a good presence and it is also one of the trade show display that hangs over your booth. Benefit of using hanging trade show display is that it can attract the audience anywhere on the exhibit floor and it creates more visibility and can be easily seen from long distances.

These displays remains tight by gravity and the graphic are printed on fabric so that it is easier to store and more finished in appearance. You can print your company logo easily over this display and also can print text message with ease. You can quickly assemble it and it is available in different styles and sizes and suits to your requirements even in price.

QR Codes Can Enhance Your Trade Show Graphics

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Ted Ridgway

Lately a lot of companies have begun using “Quick Response” Codes – or QR Codes in the jargon – as an added way of offering information to prospective customers and getting information back from customers and prospects. And since QR Codes are the kind of thing that the internet is uniquely scaled for, it’s a great tool for small businesses to incorporate into their messaging on trade show displays and a lot of other marketing media and collateral. Here are the basics and some information on where your company can find out more if it wants to use QR codes to deliver information to customers at a trade show.

First, what is this funky little symbol, the QR code? A good analog might be a turbo-charged bar code. Like a bar code, it’s a binary coded image that connects (or is related to) some other and non-obvious information. Here is a picture of a QR code and some basic information courtesy of Wikipedia. So when a bar code gets scanned, it identifies the item and often the retail price. But when a QR code gets scanned by a mobile phone on your company’s pop up graphics, it will connect to a web page – what it does from there is up to you. More and more people have scanner apps on their mobile phones so that these can read a QR Code. But it’s an easy way to get engagement from your audience at a trade show that is persistent and this engagement can lead to a sale.

Here are some practical trade show applications for QR codes – again, these aren’t limited to trade show marketing messages. Assume for this example that your company has 3 banner stands and that they each showcase a different new product your company has introduced. There’s a lot to say about these new products but you (being smart about your trade show graphics) know that you’ll lose your audience if you put too much text on the banner stand. And you don’t want to print a lot of brochures – they’re expensive and people just throw them out. If you put a QR code on each banner stand, when a visitor scans it he or she can be taken to the product page on your website. Or perhaps to a sign up page for a discount coupon for that product. Regardless, the point is that you have an opportunity to create an engagement with the audience – studies have shown that getting your audience to take action will have a higher probability of a sale.

Another example – put a QR code on your hanging sign or your large modular display. In this case, since there’s not a specific product that’s being promoted, you may want to take them to an email list sign up page or an information request page. But once again you’ve created an action by your trade show audience that will increase the likelihood of a sale.

The best thing about a QR code is that they are relatively unobtrusive and they can be scanned at a great distance – 30 feet or more. They can enhance your graphics by allowing your company to include a lot more information on a small trade show display than you would otherwise be able to. And they create audience engagement by getting your visitors to take action. Best of all, a QR code is simple to create and it can be printed by most inkjet, flatbed or fabric printing techniques. So your current trade show graphics company can include it in your artwork and have it printed with your graphics. Now, your own company (or your company’s design firm) will have to do some additional work – build a landing page, for example, or an email registration page – so that your visitor will have something to do when their browser takes them to the web. But this is pretty easy to do – another area where the internet has leveled the playing field.

For your next trade show, consider putting a QR code on your company’s pop up display graphics, banner stand or fabric display. It’s a great way to add a new customer dimension and stand out in a crowd.

Impact Displays offers a full range of trade show displays and trade show graphics as well as tips to make your next trade show a success. Impact Displays is located at 1934 Junction Avenue in San Jose and can be reached by clicking here, by calling 877-217-6850 or by emailing info@impact-displays.com.

How Hanging Signs Increase Visibility at Trade Shows

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Ted Ridgway

For companies attending trade shows in a medium size (20 x 20) trade show booth or larger, you have options for increasing your company’s visibility. In a smaller booth, it’s simply not possible to do much that’s differentiated to get the attention of trade show attendees. But with a larger booth space, your company can use the enhanced height allowances in the booth itself to create signage that is high above the trade show floor and gets attention. And, because larger booths often justify this expense, your company can also consider a hanging sign. Both of these options are good for attracting attention and getting visitors to your booth.

Larger booth spaces at trade shows often have increased height allowances – typically 14′-20′ depending on the venue. To be sure, check with the show organizer to find out what you are allowed to do in your booth. But unlike smaller booths, you can build a taller display and attach signage – giving your company a unique advantage for capturing audience attention and getting visitors to your booth.

Generally, a trade show display that will accommodate a tall sign must be considered well in advance of the show, since some elements of the design will be specific to the signage requirements. And since it’s necessary to design the display to meet these requirements, you will want to consider other design factors to make sure the display has everything you need (monitors, shelves, lighting). The best display for a tall sign structure is a truss display. Truss is very stable at heights up to 20′, depending on the design. And a truss can accommodate fabric, laminated, vinyl or rigid graphics, making it versatile and efficient. Typically, a truss will be designed as a perimeter or an island to support a tall sign in the center or on the booth perimeter. And with a large (50 sq ft or greater) sign, you are sure to attract visitors to your booth. You can also use modular extrusion displays for tall displays. Although these displays are convenient and lightweight, they will usually need special support if they are built to be greater than 12′ tall. So think carefully about the special design considerations if you want to use an extrusion system, and make sure your supplier knows what you have in mind.

Another way to “get above” the trade show crowd and attract attention is to use a hanging sign that – quite literally – hangs from the ceiling of the event hall. These signs are typically made of a lightweight tubular aluminum frame and have either a fabric or a vinyl graphic that attaches to the frame. The advantage of a hanging sign is that it can be placed even higher than floor standing sign attached to your display. It will be suspended high over all the other displays and signage and will be easy to see. Few companies go to this trouble, and the ones that do are rewarded with a relatively unique marketing advantage during the trade show. Keep in mind – hanging signs require the assistance of the trade show services staff to elevate and secure your sign. So you need to get an assessment of these costs if they might influence whether you use a hanging sign or a display mounted sign.

There are other ways to attract attention and to “get vertical” at trade shows – flags and banners can be used. But none are as effective as tall signage or hanging signs. If you have a trade show booth that’s 20 x 20 or larger, you might consider a hanging sign to give you an advantage at your next expo.

Impact Displays offers a range of trade show displays and graphics, including hanging displays and signs. Impact Displays is located at 1934 Junction Ave in San Jose CA. Impact Displays can be reached by clicking here, by calling 877-217-2681 or by emailing info@impact-displays.com.