8 Content Ideas for the Screens in Your Trade Show Booth

February 17, 2017

Samuel J. Smith

Samuel J. Smith, the founder of SocialPoint, is a thought leader, researcher, speaker and award winning innovator on event technology.

If you are like most exhibitors, you have screens, monitors and tablets in your booth … but you aren’t really sure how to best use this powerful digital tech to create more impact.

According to a 2015 white paper Tech for Trade Show Exhibitors from Skyline Exhibits and Access Intelligence, most exhibitors are still putting PowerPoint slides or their own websites on the screen.  

That’s probably because they don’t know how easy it is to create content that will go beyond websites and PowerPoint and generate more leads and sales.

So here are 8 better ways that you can use your screens to draw people into the booth and engage them once they are there:

1.     Video

Video tells a story quickly and with visual impact.  You can have short, splashy videos that get people to stop, and more meaty (but still short) videos you use to demo products or tell client stories when talking to attendees.

2.     Custom App

You can tell your story with a custom build presentation that allows for big visuals and intuitive navigation with apps that let you go beyond PowerPoint, and show visuals in a bigger and faster way than your website.

3.     Games & Contests

Games and contests are a great way to draw people into the booth. These games allow you to break the ice with prospects before you start talking to them about your products and services.  And with the games set up on multiple tablets, you get more and more people into your booth, as a crowd draws a crowd.

4.     Leaderboard

Everyone wants to see their name in lights. Everyone.  When you put the best scoring attendees’ names on a game leaderboards, it drives the competitive spirit of attendees so they want to play your game.  The result?  They come into your booth, play, and deepen their relationship with you.  Some even come back again and again.

5.     Touch Screen Voting

You can feature the best social media images and comments that are on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram about the trade show on a touch screen in your booth, and let attendees vote for their favorites.  It’s a visual feast of people and ideas they care about that pulls them in, plus it starts a conversation and creates engagement.

6.     Social Media Wall

Even if attendees don’t vote on their favorite social media of the show, just seeing the most popular images and messages in a big, colorful, constantly moving format pulls them into your trade show booth.  And it makes your company look more tech savvy.

7.     Virtual Prize Wheel

Virtual prize wheels on digital screens are very popular for many reasons:  People like to get gifts, they like to play games, and they are attracted to movement and excitement.   You can offer several different prizes to give people more reasons to play. Best of all? You capture their lead contact data when they start the game.  Talk about win/win!

8.     Demo

For many companies, their products include software and applications that can be demoed on your digital screens.  Guided tours of your product show attendees you can do exactly what you said you can do.  Just consider going with larger screens, so when you demo for one person, more people can see the demo, too.

No matter which of these 8 you choose, we always recommend that our clients make sure that content is BIG and bold.  Stop putting your website (or a PPT presentation) on the screens.  Striking visuals – such as our leaderboard graphics – can pull traffic into your booth from the aisles.  Also, resist the urge to put anything that you can’t read from 10 feet away. People in the aisles can’t see all of that small copy.

Use these digital content ideas to make sure you get the most of the screens in your booth!

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