Effective Product Display – Telling a Story with Use Cases
Trade shows represent a great solution for increasing your exposure, expanding brand awareness and getting some valuable leads. There are many ways to leverage trade shows, but in this blog we will focus on just one important aspect of trade show marketing – creating an effective product display by telling a story with use cases or what’s often described as customer case studies.
We’ve all heard about the power of storytelling. It’s one of the most impactful marketing techniques in the book. The reason telling a story with use cases is so powerful is because your prospects would rather hear about how great you are from an objective third party experience—an actual customer who has used your product or service. This kind of story is invaluable – as it’s much more believable to hear how your peers are benefitting, without the marketing hype. Here are some best practices for use cases at your next event:
- One story does not fit all
Be discerning about what stories you share. It helps to have at least 4-5 different customer stories and use cases to share with trade show visitors. If you can pull from a few, it will be easier to choose one that closely fits the industry or need of the potential customer. As an example, a university contact would relate to your product best if they could hear about another educational institution using your product to streamline processes, increase the efficiency of admissions, and pave the way for more grant funding. The key message you want to deliver is how their competitors are benefiting from YOUR product or service.
- Invite a customer to work your booth
Inviting a happy customer to attend your event and work your booth can be a very wise call for a very low investment. Nothing is quite as powerful as having a customer tell his or her story and success with your company. They have nothing to sell – but rather are excited to share their experiences and journey. So, not only do visitors enjoy speaking to a real customer, this often results in a great way to sell the benefits to doing business with you.
- Different strokes for different folks
Think about the various ways in which you can share use cases at a tradeshow using the five senses – so there’s something for everyone. Perhaps a visual person would prefer a looped video presentation including customer stories. Or if your booth display is set up for it – perhaps group presentations would be in order for larger crowds, or even a demonstration area where someone can touch or experience the product first hand.
- Update your booth for story-telling
Having ample space for engagement is key here (remember the five senses). Multiple touch points for sharing stories and for visitor conversations. Getting visitors into your booth is half the struggle – so perhaps your booth can use an update to include multimedia and new technologies to pull the customers into the booth. Once you have them, you can wow them with your stories.
- Create an opportunity for follow-up
Sharing customer use cases represents a painless way to sell – and if well-orchestrated, should serve as one of the best-selling tools at your disposal. After the event, follow up with a link to the customer use case that you have on your website. This gives them another opportunity to learn more, and gives you an opportunity to suggest next steps.
When you’re creating a new exhibit, it’s good to think about the ways your company tells stories and shares the successes of your customers. A full service exhibit company can help you create the display that will lend itself to your branding– and design areas to enable some great storytelling.
If you are interested in improving your booth to accommodate vital information sharing, call us and we will show you how we can help. Contact exhibiTeam today.
