Best tradeshow marketing tips and case studies. Call 800-654-6946.
Best tradeshow marketing tips and case studies. Call 800-654-6946.

Record Keeping

Why Professional Photography of Your Trade Show Exhibit Is a Must-Have Investment

The Snap That Lasts

Trade shows move fast. One minute, your booth is a buzzing hub of activity; the next, the carpet’s being rolled up, and all that’s left is a pile of dismantled displays and a stack of business cards. But long after the crowds have gone and the swag bags have been unpacked, professional photography of your exhibit ensures that the impact of your presence lasts far beyond the event itself.

Too often, companies put enormous effort into designing a standout booth but forget to properly document it. A few blurry smartphone shots taken in a rush don’t do justice to the work (and budget) that went into the display. Professional trade show photography isn’t just about capturing memories—it’s a strategic tool that can enhance marketing, drive engagement, and maximize your trade show ROI.

Why Invest in Professional Photography for Your Trade Show Exhibit?

1. Showcasing Your Brand at Its Best

A trade show is a considerable investment of time, effort, and money. High-quality images allow you to showcase your brand’s presence in the best possible light—literally. A professional photographer knows how to capture the right angles, lighting, and composition to highlight the visual appeal of your booth, ensuring that all the details you worked so hard on are documented beautifully.

2. Marketing Gold for Future Events

Your trade show doesn’t end when the event does—at least, it shouldn’t. Professional photos can be repurposed across multiple marketing channels:

  • Website – A “Trade Shows & Events” gallery can add credibility and showcase your industry involvement.
  • Social Media – Engaging images from the event can drive online conversations and keep your audience engaged.
  • Email Campaigns – A well-placed trade show image in your follow-up emails reinforces your brand and reminds leads of their booth visit.
  • Future Promotions – High-quality images from this year’s event can help generate excitement (and attendance) for next year’s show.

3. Media and PR Opportunities

Publications, blogs, and industry websites love visually compelling content. If you’re featured in an article, press release, or industry roundup, having a set of high-quality images on hand makes it easier to get coverage. The better your visuals, the more likely your booth—and brand—will stand out in industry news.

4. Internal Documentation and ROI Analysis

Beyond external marketing, professional photos serve as a valuable internal resource. They can be used for:

  • Post-show reports – Visually demonstrating booth traffic, engagement, and overall presentation.
  • Stakeholder presentations – Showing executives and decision-makers the tangible results of your trade show investment.
  • Future booth planning – Documenting what worked (or didn’t) for reference in designing future exhibits.

5. Competitive Benchmarking

Ever wish you had better visuals when researching your competitors’ booths? Well, so do they. A well-documented trade show presence helps you compare your booth’s impact against others in your industry and analyze design trends. Did your competitors have better attendee engagement? Was their layout more inviting? Professional photography gives you a valuable tool for strategic improvements.

How to Maximize Your Trade Show Photography

Hiring a professional photographer is step one, but to get the most out of your investment, consider these tips:

Plan Ahead – Give your photographer a shot list, including wide shots of the full booth, close-ups of key details, interactions with attendees, and any live demos or presentations.

Capture the Energy – Staged shots are great, but action shots of your team engaging with attendees add authenticity.

Think Beyond the Booth – Get images of key signage, event branding, and the general trade show environment to provide context.

Use Images Strategically – Don’t just let your photos sit on a hard drive. Incorporate them into case studies, testimonials, and content marketing.

professional photo of a trade show exhibit

Final Thoughts

A trade show booth is a fleeting moment—but professional photography ensures its impact lasts. High-quality images provide marketing value, internal insights, and future planning resources that far outweigh the cost of hiring a photographer. If you’re going to invest in a trade show presence, invest in capturing it properly. Because in the end, if no one remembers your booth after the show, did it even really happen?

Have you used professional photography at trade shows? How has it helped your brand? Let’s talk in the comments! 📸✨

50 Essential Tradeshow Tips in 50 Minutes or Less (video replay)

Not a bad way to kick off June! I sat down with Mel White of Classic Exhibits, along with a few dozen viewers, for a presentation on tradeshow tips for newbies and wannabes. He invited me as part of their ongoing “Fast and Furious” webinar series, and I was grateful to be asked and glad to join. We nicknamed the presentation ‘From Tradeshow Stupid to Tradeshow Smart in 50 Minutes,’ but whatever you want to call it, I jammed a lot of stuff into the presentation. Take a look – hope you get something out of it, and thanks to Classic Exhibits for inviting me!

8 Records to Keep at Your Tradeshow Appearance

Ever have one of those moments when you wish you had a picture of something from the tradeshow appearance you did, oh, six months ago, but you can’t find it? Setting up your exhibit at a tradeshow is a fleeting moment, and the more photos you take and the more records you keep, the better off you’ll be as you prepare for next year’s show. Here’s a quick video on a handful of things you might consider tracking from show to show:

TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee, April 6, 2020: Heather Haigler

While many of us are working from home, trying to juggle work schedules with kid demands and more, we are looking forward to a time when things return to at least semi-normal. On this week’s TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee, I chatted with Heather Haigler of Switch Four about their new tradeshow management software, WorkTrip – for the remainder of 2020 they are offering free access. Here’s the conversation we had about that and other things that were on our minds:

Links mentioned in the show:

This week’s ONE GOOD THING: free streaming for the next few weeks on EPIX, thanks to XFinity, where you can find all of the James Bond movies!

What Data are You Measuring When Exhibiting at Tradeshows?

Face it, we’re all swimming in data. Every time we walk out the door, drive to the store, buy a cup of coffee, order something online or even just sit at home watching TV, that information is getting logged. If you have a doorbell camera, there’s a good chance that you also chose to connect with local law enforcement agencies, who now can use the images to theoretically catch the bad guys. Stories abound, good and bad, about how all of that data can be used.

So yes, the data at times can be overwhelming. But what about your tradeshow booth? Are there any ways to track data during a show that can be helpful?

Let’s say you set up a time lapse camera in your booth. Put it somewhere that allows you to track the number of visitors, that can show you how long people stayed, or what they interacted with in the booth. That would be one way. Certainly, it would take some time to go through the video after the show, but my guess is that you would get some good intel as a result.

Other data you could consider tracking isn’t so high tech: leads generated, sales made (and dollars brought in as a result of those sales), new customers. You might also look at web traffic you got during or right after the show. And be sure to look at social media impact: number of likes, retweets, engagements and so forth.

Back to tech, here’s a great article from the Event Manager Blog on ways to track visitors using smart mats, wi-fi monitors and heat maps, badge scanners, wearables, beacons and more. Loads of stuff to digest, and some of it may actually be useful in certain situations.

Gathering data to examine from a single show is certainly valuable. But it’s just one piece of the data-gathering path. When you gather the same type of data at show after show, year after year, you can see trends develop.

All of this information can help you make more informed decisions on how to approach and shape your marketing messaging by uncovering what makes things tick.


Gearing Up for Natural Products Expo West 2020

In three weeks, Natural Products Expo West will be launching in Anaheim California. It’s a show that TradeshowGuy Exhibits is most involved with of all the shows our clients go to each year. For the past couple of months, we’ve been working with new and current clients to finalize artwork, shipping and logistic schedules and more. It’s a crazy wonderful show. I’ve met hundreds of people there over the years and gained clients with almost every appearance. And of course, I’ve met people from companies that seemed to think they’d become clients, but it never happened. Maybe next year!

Schmidt’s Natural Products

The preparation for a big show for many clients goes well beyond making sure the tradeshow exhibit is up to snuff and sporting new graphics or furniture or counters or new AV elements or lights. It’s about making sure they’re positioned right with new products and services. It’s about making connections with old colleagues and meeting new ones. It’s about seeing what your competitors are launching.

It’s also about all of the details and all the moving parts: scheduling labor, electrical, shipping, flooring, furniture, you name it. There are endless details when it comes to tradeshow marketing. Handling it each year and making adjustments at the next show to improve is not uncommon.

Bob’s Red Mill

We’ll report more from the show during and after, but if you want to see how last year went for us, well, it went pretty well. I don’t think we’ll be quite as busy this year as a few of those clients are not making changes to last year’s presentations. But yeah, we’ll be busy.

I look forward to walking the floor for a few days, seeing what people are doing, talking with exhibitors, learning their challenges. I look forward to being in warmer climes than Oregon during early March! I look forward to connecting with an old friend in LA and catching up on a spare night (there aren’t many).

Organixx

But most of all, I look forward to seeing the clients we’ve worked with, whether for decades, years, or even a few months. I look forward to seeing how all of the hard work is received. It’s great to make clients look good, not only to their immediate supervisors who may not have been intimately involved in the new exhibit or upgrades, but also the clients who come away impressed with the exhibit.

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Tradeshow Guy Blog by Tim Patterson

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