Depending upon your particular perspective, conferences can be a necessary evil or a welcome opportunity for networking and business development. Regardless of how you view them, if you exhibit at any conferences at all, you’ve grappled with booth design, how many brochures to take, which stress squeeze-balls to give away…etc.
All serious make or break decisions…right? Truthfully, for services organizations how much you say can detract from what you say with your booth.
I once worked with a client on “developing a conference experience,” not just a booth. Our strategy included everything from what to take, how to set it up, how many stools to put in the booth…the whole nine yards.
The main problem we kept running into was the booth content. They couldn’t imagine having less than a hundred words on their booth. Their concern was that anything less couldn’t communicate what they did in a unique, yet quickly understandable way.
So what was the solution? They were right. A booth backdrop can’t communicate everything that your firm does and it isn’t supposed to. It is only a backdrop after all. Booths with too many words either distract or blend in with the busy conference surroundings.
The strongest booths are designed (and written) to attract attention and make people want to say “so, tell me what type of work your firm does.” That’s the best intro you could ask for.