Trade Show Marketing Blog

• Display Type: XRline
• Booth Size: 10′ x 20′ (also converts to 10′ x 10′)
• Special Accommodations: Monitor mounts, back wall literature holders, locking counter.
• Price Range: $10,000 - $20,000
• Turnaround Time: 5 business days
• Setup Time: 1 - 2 hours

• Display Type: XRline
• Booth Size: 10′ x 20′ (also converts to 10′ x 10′)
• Special Accommodations: Two 50″ plasma monitors, back wall literature holders, large storage space.
• Price Range: $10,000 - $20,000
• Turnaround Time: 5 business days
• Setup Time: 1 - 2 hours

Popup displays are the most popular portable trade show displays on the market today. Since their invention over 30 years ago, exhibitors have found that these exhibits reduce the overall cost associated with exhibiting, but do not require that they sacrifice a professional look and feel. Full graphic popup displays dominate the trade show landscape, reigning as the enduring and undisputed king of portable trade show booths. If you have ever attended or exhibited at a trade show, you probably understand how popup displays work, but this article will answer some common questions about the structure and the graphics of the popup exhibits from MODdisplays.

Why are your popup displays so much cheaper than those sold by other exhibit houses?

This question has two answers:

1- We don’t believe our customers should have to pay for our mistakes. Graphic houses across the country charge outrageous prices for popup display graphics because they need to cover the cost of all the panels that they printed or produced incorrectly. Small printing operations with inexperienced equipment operators make tons of mistakes, and they will often need to reprint your graphics 2 or 3 times before they get it right. Unfortunately, the customer usually eats the cost of those reprints, even though they had nothing to do with the mistake.

2- MODdisplays consciously chooses to make less money per exhibit in order to keep costs down for our network of clients. In order to make any money at all, MODdisplays needs to sell exhibits for more than it costs us to produce them. Many of our competitors will charge their clients  $400 or $500 for a popup display graphic panel when it costs them almost nothing to produce. This is highway robbery, plain and simple. In the 1990’s, popup display graphics legitimately cost much more than they do now, but with new advances in printing technology there is no excuse to charge so much for popup display graphics.

How long will it take me to set up my popup display?

No popup display should ever take more than 30 minutes to set up, even the first time. With practice, you should be able to set up an entire 10ft popup unit in less than 10 minutes. Exhibitors love the quick set up because it allows them to mingle on the show floor with other exhibitors and attendees instead of wasting valuable time setting up their exhibit.

What kind of graphics are used with my popup display?

Popup display graphics are printed on high quality photographic paper, and then thermally laminated. The inkjet printers that produce our popup display graphics are capable of printing at over 1200 DPI, which will result in extremely high quality output. Laminating your graphic panels protects them from scratches or damage during shipping, and helps them to keep their shape even when they are applied to your popup display frame.

What are “magnetic channel bars” and how are they used in the context of my popup display?

Magnetic channel bars attach to the frame of your popup display in order to hold your popup display graphics. You should never buy a popup display that does not offer a direct magnet-to-magnet connection, as magnet-to-metal exhibits will cause your booth graphics to have alignment issues. Our channel bars attach to our popup frame magnetically, which means they can be attached to your exhibit much more quickly than those that need to “snap” into place.

How will my popup display ship?

Your entire exhibit will ship in a durable, rugged shipping case that is specifically designed for popup displays. One compartment within the case is designed to hold the graphics, while the other compartment will hold your hardware. The lights for your popup fit neatly into the lid, which leaves you with plenty of extra room to store literature and other accessories within your case.

Despite what industry professionals would have you believe, trade show marketing is not rocket science. If you apply common sense to your exhibiting program, you can avoid some common mistakes and pitfalls that plague exhibitors and cost companies money. If you are looking to improve the return on your investment at your next event, you can start by avoiding the following mistakes:

Mistake #1 - Failing to follow up with potential clients after the event.

According to the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, almost 90% of the leads generated at trade shows are never followed up. This number is absolutely astounding when you consider the massive revenue that trade shows generate. You can immediately multiply the results of your marketing efforts by 9 simply by following up with potential clients after the show. For this reason, failing to follow up with clients is the single biggest and most common mistake in trade show marketing.

Mistake #2 - Failure to differentiate your products and services from those of your competitors.

It’s important for your company to stand out and make a memorable impact upon visitors and attendees. Unwilling to take a risk, many companies simply blend into the background and make no effort to positively impact attendees. This is a huge mistake. Before you can differentiate yourself from your competition, you need to understand what makes your company special. What makes your customers purchase from you instead of your competitors? Where exactly does your company fit into the market? What advantages do you have over your competition? If you can answer these questions, you already have all the tools you’ll need to set yourself apart at your next event.

Mistake #3 - Failure to offer incentives to lure potential clients to your trade show booth.

Trade shows are entirely different today than they were 10 years ago. Although you are likely to get some serious foot traffic even without incentives, every visitor counts. Incentives are a great way to garner extra foot traffic without much additional cost. High quality trade show giveaways and other trade show attractions will bring visitors into your exhibit space, but you need to be careful to avoid gimmicky or deceptive incentives, or you may ruin your marketing efforts.

Mistake #4 -Failure to choose the best possible trade show to exhibit at.

If you exhibit at a trade show and you generate very little interest in your products and/or services, chances are good that you chose your event poorly. The ideal place to exhibit is an event that is swarming with people from your target market and free of your competitors. Successful trade show marketing specialists look for these types of events by thinking creatively about their target market and the best way to reach them.

Mistake #5 - Failure to design a high-impact trade show display.

Designing trade show display graphics can be a daunting task, even for an experienced and qualified graphic designer. You only have a few seconds to grab the attention of passing visitors and attendees, and a properly designed trade show exhibit can make a huge impact on potential clients. Your trade show display should serve as a jumping off point for your booth staffers to begin the discussion about your products/services and what makes you different from your competitors. If your exhibit does not stand out in the fast-paced trade show environment, you may be sacrificing valuable foot traffic and losing touch with potential customers.

Every exhibitor wants to maximize the return on their investment, and many exhibitors cut costs by carefully analyzing their trade show budget and removing unneeded expenses. You should never make a budget cut that will be detract from the overall quality of your marketing program, but there are many ways to reduce your expenses in ways that are largely invisible to visitors and attendees to your trade show booth. No matter how you choose to cut your budget, it’s important to keep the return on your investment in mind as the overall goal of your campaign. That being said, here are a few discrete ways you can reduce your costs:

• Take time to figure our exactly how much space you actually need before you register your space. It’s always better to exhibit in a small space that you can properly outfit and staff than to exhibit in a large space that you are unable to properly outfit and staff. Booth registration fees often represent over half of exhibiting expenses, so choosing your space wisely can save your company a lot of money.
• Keep your eyes open for discounts on show services. Electricity, water, and internet services are not free when you exhibit at a trade show, and you can often save over 50% by signing up for these services early (usually up to 30 days in advance).
• Order promotional products and trade show giveaways in bulk. Most companies use promotional items in a number of different contexts (not just trade shows), and ordering in bulk can earn deep discounts for your company.
• Avoid companies that charge rush charges for printing and exhibit services, as this can drastically cut into your trade show budget if you’re crunched for time. At MODdisplays, our model is simple: If we can possibly get it done for you, we will. We never charge rush charges no matter how tight your deadline.
• Review your invoices after the show is finished. It would not be unusual for event planners to confuse your service orders with those of a neighboring booth and charge you an exorbitant amount. By simply reviewing your invoices, you may catch a number of errors and save your company hundreds of dollars.

When you are able to keep your exhibiting expenses low, you gain an advantage over your competitors that will help you to make a bigger impact at your show. MODdisplays understands the needs of exhibitors, and we work diligently to stay within the tight budgets they have. If you have any questions, please give us a call at 877.663.3976 or email sales@moddisplays.com.

In keeping with our effort to be the only company in the online marketplace that offers a complete line of accessories for all of our trade show displays, our web development team has recently added Xpressions Accessories to our website. Whether you’re looking to purchase graphics for your Xpressions display, lighting, stabilizing feet, or shipping cases, our accessories section has everything you need to make your system stand out from the crowd.

What you see is what you get when you make a purchase from MODdisplays. There are no hidden fees, setup fees, or rush charges, and we never double-ship your exhibit. We offer high-quality displays at the lowest prices in the industry, and we offer a wide variety of accessories for every trade show display we sell.

Alumalite displays are one of the most popular exhibits on the market today, and MODdisplays offers the widest range of stocked accessories for this system. The structure of Alumalite displays is made from lightweight, durable, and versatile aluminum extrusions, which allows you to add accessories even after the display has been set up. It is now possible to purchase many Alumalite accessories a la carte from our online store. Here are just a few examples of the Alumalite accessories you can purchase:

• Alumalite monitor mount - Holds monitors between 19″ a 21″.
• Replacement Alumalite inkjet graphic - High quality graphic fitted with magnets and ready to hang on your Alumalite booth.
• Free Standing Counter and Fixed Counter
• Round Product Shelf

If you have any questions or need help with ordering your Alumalite accessories, give us a call at 877.663.3976 or email sales@moddisplays.com.

The trade show marketing professionals at MODdisplays have years of experience with the design and development of trade show displays, and are intimately familiar with exhibiting strategy and best practices. In order to share our experience with our clients, we have begun to write trade show articles and post them directly to our website. The topics of these articles vary widely, but the overall goal of this new section of our website is to help our clients be better informed about the way trade shows work.

There are a number of articles already posted to this section of our website, and we have committed to adding more articles every day for the benefit of our clients and potential clients.

According to Cahners Advertising Research Reports, business to business marketing efforts are primarily focused on trade publications and trade shows. At MODdisplays, we believe that trade shows are a valuable resource for businesses, and the continued growth of the trade show industry is great news for us. Take a quick look at the way B2B marketers spend their money:

•    Trade magazines 23%
•    Trade Shows 18%
•    Direct Mail 10%
•    Promotion/Market Support 9%
•    Dealer/Distributor Materials 5%
•    General magazine advertising 6%
•    Internet/electronic media 9%
•    Directories 5%
•    Telemarketing/Telecommunications 3%
•    Publicity/Public Relations 7%
•    Market Research 4%
•    Other 1%

The most important element of your trade show exhibit is the graphics. Well-designed graphics should contain your company’s logo, positioning statement, and memorable imagery that grabs the attention of visitors and attendees. Large format printing is the process by which your design files are transformed into the huge graphics that should be the focal point of your booth. Given the enormous scale of typical trade show display graphics, it’s obvious that producing these graphics requires expensive equipment and experienced professionals.

Two types of large format prints dominate the trade show landscape, and those are thermally laminated inkjet graphics and dye sublimated fabric graphics. Both of these processes have seen numerous advancements over the past five to ten years resulting in much higher print quality, longer lasting prints, and quicker turnaround times. Quality varies greatly in the world of large format printing, but MODdisplays graphics specialists understand what materials and procedures result in the best output, and we choose our vendors accordingly.

Inkjet Graphics

Inkjet graphics are the standard for graphic popup displays and detachable graphics. Inkjet print heads use tiny nozzles to squirt ink onto the paper. These nozzles are thinner than a human hair, allowing the printer to make very small dots that eventually come together as a large image. Printers with smaller, more precise nozzles are able to print at a higher DPI rating (dots-per-inch), which means the image will be more crisp and clear. Many inkjet printers are capable of printing at well over 1200 DPI, although it is often pointed out that the human eye cannot tell the difference between 500 and 600 DPI.

Inkjet graphics are often less expensive than dye sublimated fabric graphics, but this has little to do with the actual quality of the prints (although dye sublimated fabric graphics are capable of a much higher print quality than inkjet printers). Large format inkjet printers are extremely inexpensive, easy to use, and capable of producing high-quality prints, which means that there are literally thousands of small printing operations out there. This is simultaneously a benefit and drawback to consumers. More printing companies obviously means more competition and lower prices, but it also means that there are many unqualified printing companies out there with inexperienced technicians and outdated machines. Because the quality of the paper and ink varies greatly, it can be hard to tell if you’re purchasing a quality product or if the printing company is cutting corners to save money.

For most trade show applications, inkjet prints need to be finished. This is usually accomplished with a thermal laminate, but pressure sensitive laminates are also popular among bargain basement printing companies. Thermal laminates are typically scratch-resistant, and they make your graphics more rigid and durable. For popup displays, your thermally laminated inkjet graphics will need to be finished with hangers, kickers, and magnetic strips so that the graphics can hang from the frame of your exhibit.

Dye Sublimated Fabric Graphics

Dye sublimation is a process by which your image is essentially burned into a durable, washable fabric. Your image is initially printed on a coated transfer paper as a mirror image of your final graphic, and is then transferred to the fabric using a heat press with rollers that operate between 300 and 450 degrees. When passing through the rollers, the ink is heated until it “sublimates” (changes from a solid to a gaseous state without passing through the liquid state). The gas then permeates the fibers of the fabric and solidifies, which permanently dyes the fabric. Because the fabric is permanently dyed, dye sublimated fabric is machine washable.

Dye sublimated fabric graphics can be produced at a much higher quality than inkjet graphics for two reasons. First, inkjet inks are not capable of changing colors. By changing the temperature of the heating elements in the print heads, dye sub printers are able to vary the shade of the colored panels. Inkjet printers simply place dots on paper, so dithering must be used to create the appearance of solid colors. Secondly, inkjet ink is completely opaque, which means that dots cannot be laid over top of one another. Dye sub ink is transparent, which means that colors can be placed on top of one another to create true solid color gradients.

Despite these advantages, there are a few disadvantages associated with dye sublimation printers. First, dye sub printers cannot achieve true black. Inkjet printers are able to print a rich, glossy black color, while dye sub printers cannot. Also, dye sublimation printing companies invest huge amounts of money to be able to print dye sublimated fabric. It may cost upwards of $200,000 to outfit a space with the equipment needed to create high-quality dye sublimated fabric graphics.

Large format printing is an ever-changing field with many variables. It can be difficult to know exactly what type of graphic you’re purchasing without examining a sample of the graphic in person. At MODdisplays, we stake our reputation on our top quality trade show graphics produced by the best graphic houses in the country. We constantly receive compliments on our graphics packages as well as our graphic design department, and we intend to maintain our reputation as an industry leading provider of large format graphics.