Looking to up your trade show game? Consider adding a trade show presentation to your toolkit. A well-crafted presentation will attract, engage, and inform your target audience. It’s an effective way to add interactive content that’s also easy to set up and use. And it can help increase your leads, add to your brand message, and jumpstart your sales.

Why Add a Presentation to Your Trade Show Booth?

Trade show video or slide presentations can benefit your booth in a number of ways:

• Providing another way to use vertical space

• Disseminating information to visitors while leaving exhibit staff free to talk to possible leads

• Helping you get noticed and remembered on the trade show floor

The Keys to a Successful Presentation

Elaine Cohen, Founder of Live Marketing in Chicago, has further insight into how effective a presentation can be. She notes 10 things that should be factored into every trade show presentation, including virtual presentations:

1. Start work at least two to three months in advance of the show – Give yourself plenty of time to make sure your trade show PowerPoint [or other presentation format] is both informative and engaging.
2. Set clear goals and measurable objectives – Decide what you want to achieve at the show and how you will measure your results.
3. Know your target audience – Match your tone, style, and content to your target demographic and psychographic profiles.
4. Make sure the presentation is properly integrated with the rest of your trade show marketing strategy – All marketing materials should have a consistent theme, message, and look.
5. Involve the right decision-makers from the start – For instance, coordinate with your marketing team to ensure consistency.
6. Remember your brand message – Use your trade show presentation to build brand recognition by highlighting what makes you different from your competitors.
7. Focus on high-level messages and solutions, when possible – Use no more than four major message points.
8. Keep it short – The ideal presentation should be between 7 and 10 minutes.
9. Amortize the presentation costs by reusing trade show presentations and other collateral materials at future shows, press conferences, and meetings.
10. Document your process, and measure the results – The data will help you refine the presentation for future uses.

Setting Up Your Presentation: Which Tool to Choose?

PowerPoint is a popular choice for trade show presentations for a few reasons:

1. It’s easy to use, both to create presentations and to set up the equipment you need to display them.
2. It’s readily available.
3. As a Microsoft product, it is fully integrated with other word processing tools.

Is it the best choice, though? While many people go with the trade show PowerPoint option, there are other ones out there. All are free or have a free subscription option. You won’t lose anything by checking them out, even if you decide to stick with what you’re used to!

Some alternatives to a trade show PowerPoint include:

Microsoft Sway: Microsoft Sway is like PowerPoint but with some major improvements—and it works online right in your browser. Sway has plenty of useful features, such as the ability to pull content from virtually anywhere, including websites and social media. With a drag-and-drop method, you can embed tweets within your slides. Sway is cloud-based and free with any Microsoft account, including Outlook.

Google Slides: This is a popular alternative to PowerPoint, in part because it’s free to use if you have a Google account. It’s cloud-based, offers real-time collaboration, and can open and export PowerPoint files. There are hundreds of template options, and it’s easy to use, making it a good option when you don’t have much time to create a new presentation.

Apple Keynote: Free for all Mac users, Apple Keynote offers a solid alternative to Microsoft products. Create interactive charts and slides with cinematic effects and animations. This platform is compatible with PowerPoint, letting you import, edit, and save PowerPoint presentations as Keynotes.

Visme: This option is cloud-based and features drag-and-drop design tools for creating presentations, infographics, product demos, and more. Plus, there are millions of free images, HD backgrounds, templates, and layout options. There’s a comprehensive free option, along with premium plans with extra features.

Slidebean: When you need to create a new presentation and have limited time, Slidebean can be a great option. This PowerPoint alternative has pitch decks that are recreations of those used by well-known startups (including Uber and AirBnB) and are available as ready-to-use templates. Just insert your own content, and you’re good to go.

Prezi: Unlike PowerPoint, Prezi allows you to make presentations with a non-linear flow. It’s also packed with well-crafted slide templates that can help you create slides and presentations more easily. But the real game-changer is the fact that you can interact on video with your presentations—in real time.

Canva: Canva is a simple, easy-to-use interface with lots of free images and design templates. With this simple browser tool, you can make gorgeous slides that are virtually guaranteed to get attention. It’s perfect when you’re looking for spectacular imagery, but you can also upload your own photos and even add animation and music.

Emaze: It’s a great all-around option for trade show presentations, with the ability to create mixed-media slides with audio and video content as well as images. Even the free version offers hundreds of templates. You can also import PowerPoint presentations into Emaze and then upgrade them with new content.

Powtoon: If you want to create slideshows with lots of animation and video, Powtoon is a great choice. Sometimes plain text slides don’t allow you to say what you need to. Powtoon displays and explains more dynamic concepts.

Design Tips for a Powerful Presentation

Creating a slideshow isn’t as complex as it seems. In fact, the simpler your slides are, the better. Try out these presentation design tips, and you can’t go wrong:

• Focus your presentation tightly on your objectives.

• Keep text to a minimum – Use bullet points and other easy-to-read formats, so booth visitors or people on the trade show floor can quickly absorb the information.

• Simplify the layout – This is especially important for looping presentations. Choose a clear font and contrasting colors to make the display easy to read. It’s usually best to put a light font on a dark background to reduce glare.

• Don’t overdo it – A looping slideshow should spend around a minute showing each slide. To keep your presentation at the right length, limit it to 10 slides or fewer.

Viewing Options

What’s the best way to set up a trade show presentation? You generally have two options:

1. A continuous loop:Once the presentation is set up, it doesn’t need any further user input. Slides are auto-timed to change at regular intervals. They can be synced with a voiceover or other audio. When the presentation ends, it begins again from the start.

With this kind of slideshow, each slide should be self-contained. This is important because viewers won’t always watch from the first slide to the last. They might come in at slide 2 or at slide 10. They should be able to understand each slide and catch the gist of your presentation, even if they haven’t seen previous slides.

2. User-directed:The display is static until a visitor starts to interact with it. They can choose how long to view each slide. This kind of presentation has more interactive potential, as the user can click on hyperlinks or use action buttons to modify what they’re seeing.

A user-directed presentation offers possibilities the continuous loop does not. When users have control over the presentation, you can show more complex info. They’ll be starting at the beginning, so each slide can build on information from preceding ones.

You also have the opportunity to collect data about how people use and view your presentation, like:

• How long people spend on each slide
• Whether they click through when given the option to visit a website

You can also add an email entry point, so you have another opportunity to collect contact information.

The Presentation Space

The presentation style you choose should be one that fits your trade show display space. Think about how users will interact with the presentation. Are there are certain locations where they’ll find it easier or more comfortable to view your trade show presentation? Consider:

• The size of your trade show exhibit space
• The lighting
• Furniture and display placement
• Where surrounding booths are located

For instance, the presentation should be in a well-lit area, but not one where glare makes it hard to view. The viewer area should be in a place that won’t be disturbed by traffic in and around the booth. It may be helpful to have a couple possible locations in mind. If your initial location turns out to be unsuitable once you arrive at the show, you have a backup that works without having to rearrange the booth.

Tailoring the Presentation to Your Needs

An effective trade show presentation is focused on helping you achieve your goals. So it’s important to know what your goals are and be confident that you can deliver them. Then build your trade show presentation around those goals. Hit all the key points that your audience is likely to be interested in.

An intimate booth environment, in which you host a smaller number of people, is a good opportunity for an interactive presentation. User-directed navigation, where the presentation is driven by user choices, helps drive engagement. If your company is one that deals in a relatively low volume of visitors and leads, upping the engagement factor is vital for a better conversion rate.

If your booth is geared toward a high volume of visitors, a different tactic is needed. In this case, a continuous loop on the perimeter of the booth space is a better option. A compelling presentation that offers valuable information helps keep your booth full. It also occupies exhibit visitors while they wait to talk to staff members.

Digital Options for Virtual Trade Shows

When it comes to virtual exhibits, much of the above advice still applies. Design and execution are still critical to creating a virtual presentation that gets results. The main difference is in how the message is delivered.

3D Virtual Studio by XtendLive: This high-tech option is a form of mixed reality that lets you create highly immersive virtual environments and powerfully upgrade your presentations at the same time. With a 3D virtual studio, you can give a presentation while simultaneously recording it and inserting it in real time into a 3D virtual world. At the same time, pre-recorded video, slides, and any other info you have can be integrated into the setting, rendering your visual data in a much more interesting and engaging way.

Because it’s all digital, this kind of tech can insert multiple people—in different locations—into the same virtual world at the same time. This means you can use 3D virtual studio production not just for solo presentations, but for group demos, discussions, and more.

Pre-recorded video: Depending on the virtual platform the event uses, your best option for delivering a trade show presentation may be via pre-recorded video. With this method, you’ll record yourself delivering the presentation, then upload it to your virtual trade show booth on the event platform. To view the presentation, people who visit your booth just need to click the appropriate link. With pre-recording, you can put your best foot forward, letting you practice as many times as you need to ensure your delivery is perfect.

The downside to a pre-recorded presentation is the lack of audience interaction. When your presentation is pre-recorded, you don’t get the chance to directly answer visitor questions or engage people personally. However, you can make up for this by inviting viewers to schedule a virtual appointment or contact you personally with questions and comments.

Presenting live online with PowerPoint: There are lots of great alternatives to the trade show PowerPoint, but sometimes PowerPoint itself is a good option! One reason why it’s still popular is that you can use PowerPoint to present live to a remote audience. Using PowerPoint Live in Teams, or Live Presentation in the web version, your audience can view the presentation in their web browser while you’re giving it. It’s easy to set up and is good to have in your toolkit for those times when you need a quick and effective option. One way to use this feature is to schedule product demos or presentations at your virtual trade show booth, then use Live Presentation as your delivery method.

Many PowerPoint alternatives have features that let you do something similar. However, PowerPoint is a good choice for this purpose because it’s a universal option that most people have used before. And it’s more likely than lesser-known options to integrate easily into virtual events platforms.

A Fantastic Presentation Elevates Your Exhibit

Developing a trade show presentation is a simple and effective way to provide a better experience for people who visit your exhibit. It gives you another chance to provide essential information and helps you get the most out of your booth space too.