Case Study: Benold Financial Planning Tradeshow

How do you brand your business for a trade show?

For many businesses owners that can be an arduous question to answer. Don’t worry, we have you covered. We’ll walk you through an assortment of items and tips that can make all the difference.

If you’ve ever rented a booth, you know the competition can be fierce. It’s a challenge to draw people to your booth when you’re just one in a row of many. That’s where a graphic design agency (like Twingenuity Graphics) comes in. Professionally designed booth signage is one of the best ways to stand out and draw attention to you.

We recently partnered with Benold Financial Planning (a Texas financial advising company) to prepare their booth for the Texas Academy of Family Physicians Annual Conference. We provided Benold FP with a booth branded to their classic, timeless style and showcasing beautiful Texan landscape photos. Every item uses their colors and logo for a professionally branded booth.

Here are the print items we created to help Benold’s booth turn heads and spark conversations. Now you can too!

Standing Banner

Amplify your message and announce your presence during the show with a pull up (retractable) banner. The best way to cut through the noise is to provide clear, to-the-point information that’s easy to read at a glance. Plus, banners can be seen from a distance to draw interested people to your booth. Large, bold fonts combined with high contrast colors and engaging photos is the perfect recipe for high-quality pull up banner.

BENOLD: For Benold’s banner design we have the logo top and center, accompanied by a large headline. Underneath is a list of services laid out in a very clear and easy to scan layout.

Hanging Banner

The right banner can make all of the difference. Large hanging banners should be designed like a flag, clean and simple to make your presence known and draw attendees in. Your name and/or logo should suffice. Once people are at your booth, you can let your posters and other materials do the talking.

BENOLD: Following our own advice, it’s a simple design with a Texas Landscape faded into the background with the logo taking center stage.

Signs / Posters

If banners help get you noticed, then posters help to draw people in. Turn walls or empty space into opportunities with bold and branded posters. Eye-catching posters are great conversation starters for you to connect with attendees. Remember, to keep font size large enough to be read from a distance.

BENOLD: The poster asked thought provoking questions to help spark conversations with attendees. We also made the poster size and text large enough to be read clearly and easily from a distance. Same fonts, colors and style was used to maintain brand consistency.

Tablecloths and Table Banners

Many booth vendors will provide a table, but companies are expected to bring their own tablecloths. Dress up your tables with a professional look by getting your logo printed on a tablecloth or table runner. And using a tablecloth in one of your brand’s colors is the cherry on top.

Well-Designed Takeaways

Your booth is only the beginning. Takeaways like brochures, flyers and business cards can be an effective way to help attendees remember you and direct them to your website. While the booth signage should be short and concise, these items can be more in-depth. For instance a brochure or flyer can tell a more complete story about your company and what it can do.

BENOLD: In the case of our client, we created a tri-fold brochure and magnetic 2020 calendar.

• The brochure tells attendees their story, company’s values, services and contact information. Stunning Texan imagery makes it engaging, which is a nice change of pace compared to the same cliche money graphics that runs amok in the financial industry.
• The magnetic calendar was a nice and usable giveaway to help guests organize the new year, while keeping Benold top of mind.

Don’t forget!

Your booth should embody your brand; remember it often serves as the first impression a potential customer will create for your business. An amateurish display is worse than no display at all.

Here are some helpful tips to keep in mind:

1. Stay on-brand from top to bottom. When exhibiting, make sure your colors, style and messages (YOUR BRAND!) is consistent across all your design materials, from banners and images to free takeaways.
2. Put your logo on it. To be remembered, put your logo on EVERYTHING!
3. Tell people exactly what you do. The worst thing you can do is assume everyone knows who you are and what you offer. An idea is to showcase your services/products on a large banner. This way people don’t have to repeatedly ask you what you do, instead it’ll allow attendees to ask more specific questions.
4. Less is more. Resist the urge to squeeze in every last detail about your company on your signage. Instead keep it simple. If it takes attendees more than 5 seconds to read your graphic, they won’t (no one will want to read paragraphs of text). Instead keep text short and concise and use clean layouts.

You can do it!

If you’re planning your booth for an upcoming event or trade show, no need to be overwhelmed. Just make sure you’ve got these basics covered, and you’ll be well on the way to making your booth the main event.