Exhibitions and Trade Shows – Cut the Ego and Boost ROI

I’m hear to convince you, again, that pull up banners are the solution to all your trade show woes. Surprising isn’t it, some one promoting pull up banners on a blog named the Pull Up Banner Display Blog – the world is a crazy place. Anyway… have a read of this serious piece of objective journalism that I’ve put together for all you pull-up-banner-curious individuals before you disregard them as a possible solution for your next trade show.

Who's making the money?

Every day across the globe thousands, maybe even millions, of professional men and women travel to exhibitions and tradeshows, marketing their products and services to just about anyone who’ll listen. Staying in five star hotels, breakfast buffets and drinking in airport bars, it’s a dirty job, and sometimes I think that the ultimate aim of effectively marketing the company’s product and services gets lost amidst drive to be bigger and better than the next guy.

Don’t get me wrong some of my best clients have come from trade show leads, I just question the need for big flashy display stands –  the type that are manned by five bored looking guys or girls, because the scale of the stand has actually put people off approaching.

Developing those big display stands is a huge job that requires hours of thought, professional help and some serious investment. Even if you do have the budget to develop, transport and set up a custom designed trade show display, the expense and hours involved can seriously diminish your return on investment and necessitate long hours away from you daily business duties. Sometimes all this effort is justified, but by my observation, most often it ain’t. And I can’t help but thinking that a lot of these stands are more about the company’s, or marketing manager’s ego, than actually generating leads and sales.

 See... exhibition designers will send you broke

Obviously, I’m here to extol the virtues of pull up banners and to be frank, I may be a little bias, but I have used them myself to great effect in the past. And I’m not proposing they are the solution to every exhibitors needs, but they should always be an option. With a little creativity and some quality graphics they can have fantastic impact and minimise expenditure – not to mention headaches!

 Simple by quality graphics make all the difference

Now for the bit where I hit you with some real spiel: Pull-up banners, roll-up banners, pop-up banners, retractables – whatever you want to call them, they’re a travelling exhibitor's best friend. A pull-up has a banner that is usually about 2 metres tall, in widths ranging from 800mm to 2.4 metres and by creatively combining a couple of different sized banners on your exhibition stand you can still achieve a unique, professional presentation with real advertising impact!

 For this one they've gone to a little extra work but a similar effect could be created with pull ups

The banners are spring loaded and retract into a compact aluminium housing that serves at the banner stand base and since they weigh just a few kilos and are supplied with carrying cases with shoulder straps on person can easily carry up to four or five units. So whether it’s New York, London, Beijing or just the other side of town, they’ll keep your overheads, and headaches, to a minimum.

But the real winning feature is bang for your buck! They won’t break the bank and when compared to those big corporate exhibition stands, the return on investment often puts them to shame!

Yep, for trade shows pull up banners are where it’s at – in my humble opinion at least. But as your next trade show or exhibition approaches, stand back and make an honest assessment, is that big flashy stand all about ego? Or would you be better severed focusing on that other three letter word – ROI?