Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Hi Cathy,

A few questions.

1) Who's the audience (what kinds of people or businesses)?

2) What sort of trade show?

3) What other kinds of companies are exhibiting?

Jodi

4 by 10 sounds about right for a vinyl banner. A few suggestions:

1. usually this material comes in 5' width, so you should have the fabricators sew sleeves top and bottom, and then put 10' plus wood dowels in the sleeves. You can attach the top dowel to the ceiling. The bottom dowel is for weight so the banner hangs nicely. Put in lots of grommets, they are cheap and could come in handy.

2. a rule of thumb is 7 to 12 letters so "Got IT" would more than fit. Maybe something more towards an offer or promise like "IT Info", "IT Info Here".
you will defeat the purpose if the letters are small relative to the 4 foot width.

3. Use a light vinyl color, white or yellow etc with darker contrasting copy.

4. It's sometimes difficult to produce as a double sided banner as the copy can blend through from the other side. You can always sew two banners back-to-back to solve this problem.

5. I would price this double sided banner at $850 to $1,100 plus installation to give you a ballpark budget. Full color silk screened could run several thousand dollars. you could use nylon as a lighter double sided material option.

best of luck,

Steve

Your phrases, as Phil mentioned, don't give me a clear benefit of your services. Ideally you want a unique benefit on your signage, especially if your competition will also be at the same conference.

Some ideas:
* Decrease Costs / Increase Uptime
* Reduce Your IT Support Costs
* Trim Your IT Budget

I agree with the above posts about the phrases not giving you a clear indication of the benefit of the services. However, I do think that there is a need for something catchy, especially since you are at a trade show/expo type of event.

Something catch that may work is (I'll use XYZ as the name of your company since it's not known):

XYZ Company
"Where IT happens"

or simply in bold letters: IT Happens.

It's a play on words, but definitely a conversation starter. Your brochures, and other printed materials could help explain your services.

Cathy,

I recently attended the Cisco Live (Networkers 09) in SF, CA. I work for a company that produces IT training software that your employees very well may use right now. We help people get certified. This year was my first year in attendance.

From my observations at the show, the overhead signage gets overlooked. Most folks will cover the entire floor in a grid pattern, or just wander aimlessly around trying to find the free food and beer, but they don't look up very often. I didn't. I was too busy looking at the booths around me at eye level.

We had a relatively small booth at 10x20 (not cheap, just small), and we packed that thing out. We had about 30 or 40 people pouring out into the aisles to watch our demo.

We didn't give away a whole lot of freebies. Koozies, a couple of coupons and brochures, a raffle style $50 giveaway at every demo, and everyone who watched the demo got a T shirt (and those who came running up begging for them because they "won the T shirt war" according to one, I am proud to say).

Lots of larger exhibitors were handing out expensive swag and had all kinds of seating, but they didn't get very much ROI for what they paid. Their demos were largely empty, because there was no pay off at the end. Folks took the swag and moved on.

My suggestion, scratch the overhead signage. People don't really look up much at the shows, and chances are, your sign will be obscured by many others.

I would look at your presentation. What are you going to tell people? Do you have a demo of what you do? What goodies are you giving out, and will people actually use/like them.

Basically, if there are other areas that the banner money could go towards, I would strongly consider it. Anything that focuses on keeping customers at your booth and engaged in learning about your company is better than overhead signage.

Basically, they're going to walk by your booth at some point. Keeping them there is the key.

That's all I've got.