Beyond the Wow Factor: Putting Interactive Tech to Work

Walk around any exhibition or tradeshow anywhere in the world today and you will likely come across a range of interactive engagements. Having an innovative way to attract and retain visitors to your stand has, in many industries, become the new “arms race” of the exhibition world.

Having an interactive element on your stand can be hugely beneficial, but it can be expensive, so it’s important that the execution is perfect. Here are a few pointers from the Iguana team, based on our extensive experience in the field.

Have a Clear Objective

I have lost count of the number of exhibitors who are keen to have an interactive element on their stand, but are not clear on why they actually want it or need it. Be clear on what you are trying to achieve. In our experience, there are three general purposes for interactive engagements:

The Attention Grabber

Designed to build a buzz, draw the crowds away from your competitors and make your stand the go-to destination in the exhibition. The attention grabber is indiscriminate — it pulls in any and all visitor types, engages them quickly and leaves a smile on their face. Often a prize or giveaway is on offer for participants. Great for brand awareness, but not a precise approach, so your target audience may get lost in the crowd.

Examples: Cyclone machines, wheel-of-fortune, arcade games, claw/grab machines, giant touchscreen “smash the wall” games, branded photo booths with instant social sharing.

The Lead Collector

The lead collector still grabs the attention of passers-by, but is a little more targeted. This allows you to engage with your visitors on a 1-2-1 basis, gauge their areas of interest and collect their details for follow-ups. Bespoke games are great for this — customised to be relevant to your brand, with integrated lead-collection functionality. The lead collector still provides an element of fun, but your visitors will take away a specific message, and your sales team will leave with clear actions to follow up on.

Examples: Bespoke video games with lead-capture screens, branded quiz or trivia terminals, RFID/badge-scan prize wheels, interactive product configurators that email a personalised spec sheet, digital “spin to win” kiosks tied into your CRM.

The Educator

When you need to take your visitor on a journey of exploration, this is the way forward. Specifically, this is where you need your prospects to leave your stand with knowledge of your products, your service(s) or your brand and its values. Innovative tech is great for this — large-format projections, augmented reality, object recognition. Get your visitors engaged, and get them educated in the process.

Examples: Augmented reality product demos, interactive touchscreen “explore the product” walls, projection-mapped case studies, object-recognition displays, virtual showroom tours on large-format screens, live data dashboards showing your product or solution in action.

Content is King

Want to have a 6m x 4m LED video wall on your stand? Great! What are you going to show on it? Having relevant and engaging content is absolutely key. A large video wall only has the “wow factor” if the content it is showing is equally eye-catching. If you run your company PowerPoint on there all day long, it’s not going to achieve anything.

You may be lucky enough to have an extensive library of creative marketing assets that are suitable. If that’s the case, take the time to think about your messaging, and be careful to select the content that is most suited to achieving your objective. This can be a case of “less is more” — don’t overload your visitors.

If you don’t have assets ready to go, be prepared to assign a reasonable proportion of your budget to content development. Take the time to craft a concise brief, explaining what you’re trying to achieve and the tone of the messaging. Your exhibition agency should be able to turn this into some eyeball-grabbing content suitable for the tech you are using on the stand.

Get Your Staff Bought It

Nothing breaks my heart more than walking past an empty stand where the sales team are sat on their phones whilst an expensive attraction sits unused and unloved. Many times have I witnessed sales people avoiding interactive technology like the plague, as they don’t know how to use it, and are unsure of what it’s trying to achieve.

Your interactive element may be the tool for engaging your visitors, but your sales team are the facilitators, and the two must work together if you’re going to achieve your objective. This is where upfront effort pays off. Take the time to explain to your team exactly what you are trying to achieve (revisit “Have a Clear Objective”!). Get them to buy in, to agree on the importance for the event and for the company. Then spend the time to train them thoroughly on its use during the show. Your agency can facilitate specific training sessions if necessary. If your team don’t buy into it, how can you expect your visitors to do so?

There are, of course, many other considerations when selecting interactive technologies for your exhibition stand. With our 30+ years of experience in the industry, why not let us guide you through the process, and ensure that you get a real return on your investment, whatever your goals are. Contact us today for a no-obligation consultation.