Outdoor events have potential to bring in a large number of new clients while your are having a great time outdoors! Its critical to make sure you are maximizing ROI to make sure you can continue to work outside in the summer! Are you having a hard time getting people to stop at your booth? Are they asking “what do to do?” If this is the case, your design strategy may need work. Cluttered, confusing, or unappealing designs not only reduce traffic, but can actually repel attendees. After years in the industry we have seen a wide variety of designs and know which designs are effective. Let’s go over some graphic design tips for outdoor events before you design your outdoor event products!
Outdoor Event Design Tips – Less is More
Just like trade show graphic design, the key rule for effective graphic design for outdoor displays is “less is more.” An event graphic is essentially a mini billboard that needs to grab attention, portray your product or service, and explain why someone needs it all in less that 3 seconds. Typically this means displaying a logo, brief tagline, and brief call to action. So the first step is to make sure your logo, tag lines, and marketing messages are dialed. Once your messaging is dialed now its time to design graphics. We will cover this in the next section, but the overall booth layout does determine the booth design. Its important to make sure all graphic displays work cohesively together to portray your brand image.
The example here shows a very simple tent design for our company. The top part of the canopy is hard to see and read, but is a great place for a large logo. Even if your brand recognition is low, this is a great way to make your booth look great, and increase brand recognition. Using the valance for a tag line, or product description is a great way to draw in customers. Also shown is a simple banner stand graphic that will go with our tent. Because we already show our tag line, we will use the banner stand to display different categories of products we sell to further explain our company’s offerings. Keep this clean and simple too, highly detailed info can stay on the brochure or sales sheets.
Keep It Simple
Another design shown for an A-frame board shows a call to action message to get customers to stop by. Depending on your strategy, this can include handing out free giveaways, coupons, and/or demos of the product. Some exhibitors hand out free water, candy and snacks as a great way to get traffic. We have now covered some simple examples of how to display your logo, tag line, and call to action briefly and cohesively. Depending on your booth layout use this same strategy to clearly represent your messaging!
Welcoming and Engaging Booth Layout
Now that we know how to effectively design graphics, its time to consider the overall booth layout in relation to the design approach. What marketing materials will be available at your booth space? The amount of design space and layout directly relates to the overall design strategy. If I was using a pop up tent with a custom printed canopy, printed backwall, custom table throw, flag and A-frame sign, my design approach is completely different compared to someone using only a pop up tent, or outdoor billboard. If you only have one graphic display, do not overcrowd due to the limited space! Instead choose the single most important marketing message and make that the center of attention. However, if your brand recognition is low, consider sizing down the logo to dedicate more room to a call to action or tag line.
Be Different
Once attendees start to visit your booth, it’s important for the booth space to flow so its welcoming and engaging. This can include product demos that customers can touch and use, free giveaway items, free water and food, a place to sit, and/or brochures and sales sheets. A great solution is a tent full wall and half wall with custom printing. The full wall can be designed to showcase products, or product details that can act as a presentation screen. Half walls are great to define the booth space to help direct traffic flow.
It’s key to think of some element of your booth that is different from competitors, while also meeting the needs of the attendees. If its 100 degrees out, make sure you have ice cold water and everyone will be at your booth. Maybe your experiencing a rainy spring day, bring branded umbrellas to giveaway. Not only will your booth space see a ton of traffic, but your brand will be displayed all over the event!
Converting Traffic into Sales and Leads
Now that you have designed a very effective outdoor booth space with our graphic design tips for outdoor events, it’s time to deal with the problem of handling all the leads and new customers! It is a great problem to have, but the show is a waste of time without proper management of your leads. There are programs available to help with lead management from shows and your entire client base. This great article from PC Magazine discusses all the different CRM and Lead Management tools they tested with great analysis on each one.
However, your company may have a smaller client base so paid management tools may not be the best option. In some scenarios it might be best to go old school with a pen and paper. Personally contact each lead and make notes of the conversation. Place those notes into a word document and follow up with an email that includes something unique and personal from the initial conversation. Continue making notes on physical and electronic paper as you continue your lead follow up. If you don’t have an email list make sure to get that done asap! A program such as Mail Chimp or Constant Contact are great tools for sending out marketing emails. The new leads can plug directly into these programs so they get updates on new products and services. If they are not interested, they can simply unsubscribe!
Outdoor Event Products for sale!
Thank you for reading our graphic design tips for outdoor events! If you have any additional questions about design services or portable display products please reach out to our talented and experienced staff! Creative Imaging Displays sells the most popular, quality outdoor marketing displays with great customer support. Our company has been in operation since 2009 so we have over 14 years of experience in this industry! We are also a leading supplier of portable trade show displays, trade show flooring, and trade show accessories. Contact us today for more info!
