Increasing Sales at Retail Trade Show Events

Retail trade show events are an excellent opportunity to exhibit specifically for selling, but it takes good merchandising techniques. If your company is already selling at trade shows, you’ve probably invested time and money in your exhibit design. Hopefully this includes training your sales team. You’ve taught them to up-sell and accessorize, how to get customers to imagine how much pleasure or benefit they would gain from purchasing your products. These are all powerful, proven trade show sales techniques and nothing compares to a well-trained salesperson using them. You can further your sales team’s success by using the following retail sales tips and techniques at your next trade show event.

Help Them Picture Themselves

Presumably, you already have a strong understanding of your buyer personas and what motivates them to purchase. If you’re a clothing brand, it might be comfort, style or cachet. If you sell window replacements, your buyers are likely motivated by comfort, safety of their families, aesthetic and energy savings. Design a series of banner stands that depict people like them who are already enjoying those benefits. Each banner in the series should feature your logo for consistency, but each should show different people enjoying themselves because they own your product. Think relaxed couples wearing your clothes on a sleigh ride, or a family sipping cocoa and enjoying a board game in their snug home fitted with your windows.

Make It Obvious

Some products require explanation, which is accomplished most effectively with pictures. What is this thing and what does it do? Why is it different from other products or brands? Depict the answers to these questions in a series of banners and your customers will take it all in with a glance. They’re more likely to be receptive to your sales team when they have a basic understanding of your product.

Let Them See The Fries

Retail trade show events offer the opportunity to help customers see how your products work together, which makes them more likely to buy when your sales team offers the fries. One effective way to do this is using selective color photography on a series of banners. Each should feature your logo in its usual colors to promote brand recognition, but make the images black-and-white, except for your products. The graphic should provide the background information (this couple is enjoying a perfect autumn hayride), while the color portions highlight the products themselves. For example: “Oh, they’re not only wearing the shirts I can see on the rack over here, but also these soft, warm hats and finger-less gloves. Where are those?” Clearly, these people are enjoying themselves more because they also have the hats and gloves. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the power of smart banner design for retail sales.