Tips to Reduce In-Person Trade Show Graphics Costs Post-COVID-19

2020 was a year for the history books, and its wide-reaching consequences affected every corner of society—including in-person events. Any marketer will tell you that 2020 was the year of a thousand ZOOM calls—maybe even more. But, given their high-value return with face-to-face interactions with customers, in-person shows will return. However, marketing managers may be facing a depleted budget.

Reduce, Reuse, and Repurpose

Check in with your advertising team to see what marketing material they have already created and see if digital and physical graphics would be worth borrowing to enhance the experience. With so many working from home, there is an opportunity to share branded signs and banners. Your team may have commercials, video content, and other graphics that could be recycled at your booth, instead of having entirely new media produced.

Utilize Digital Graphics

With the growing popularity of ZOOM meetings and digital marketing, digital graphics are more popular than ever and is the perfect time to switch to digital graphics.

Digital graphics save money on printing and other paper marketing materials, as well as poster boards. Digitizing also allows you to use more dynamic graphics, as compared to a printed poster whose design is set in stone until you order a new one.

You may incur a fee for digital-asset creation (unless you've tapped your advertising team for any extra content), but those charges will likely be lower than the fees for a plethora of printed panels.

If you must use printed graphics, don't be afraid to shop around. Consider all local print shops and supplies before deciding on one you'd like to employ.

Make It a Team Effort

Similar to our post on saving money on exhibits for trade shows, one of the best ways to save money with graphics is to share the expenses. However, you wouldn't be sharing expenses with other businesses, you'd be sharing it with other departments in your own company that can also employ the graphics you want.

If you must create graphics, whether they're the print or digital variety, brainstorm ways that other departments at your firm can leverage your purchase and thus share the expense. Then see if you can get financial buy-in from these other users to make a collaborative purchase.

Just remember that your media-development team will need to know all of the potential uses prior to designing the project so it can build the files to meet various needs.

Leverage In-house Creative Talent

Hiring a graphic designer can cost $100+ an hour. An easy way to save money on graphic design is to utilize in-house talent. While we recognize that not every firm will have agency-quality designers, excellent artists may still exist within your ranks. These people will understand your brand more than any agency graphic designer ever could.

Takeaways

To save money on graphics for your trade show booth consider:

• Using digital graphics
• Utilizing previous graphic projects
• Sharing the cost of graphic purchases with other departments
• Hiring an in-house graphic designer

These guidelines will have you ready for a trade show in no time.