For those of us with a product we are passionate about, finding an ideal audience can prove to be an incredibly daunting task. Online marketing is a great tool, but there are situations where it just doesn’t do your product justice. One highly successful solution that we at Gravity Jack and several of our clients have used to overcome this obstacle is hitting the road and attending various trade shows.
Trade shows are filled with hundreds to thousands of potential customers searching for a reliable brand. Not only does this sort of exposure get your product’s name out there, it gives you, the biggest champion of your product meaningful face-to-face time with these potential customers.
All that said, we completely understand that bringing your product to a trade show and putting it on display for a large number of people is easier said than done. A product’s shape, size, and functionality are just a few of the many logistical obstacles that have to be accounted for when traveling and setting up for trade shows.
For example, if you sell large machinery, it simply isn’t practical to pack and haul a functioning piece of equipment for every trade show you would like to visit across the country. Sure, pictures and videos of your product are great, but it’s not the same thing as having a functioning machine for customers to interact with.
Not only can Augmented Reality solve all of these problems, it adds to the overall trade show experience.
Incorporating Augmented Reality (AR) and equipping those who visit your booth with a mobile tablet or headset such as the Microsoft HoloLens, will open up a number of possibilities for your product. All they would have to do is activate the AR experience on the headset or mobile device and a fully functioning, true to size, an interactive 3D image of your product will appear as if it were right in front of them.
If you do indeed sell machinery, there are several experiences you could potentially provide for those who visit your booth. For instance, with a quick tap of the screen or a voice command, the interactive AR model could be turned on. From there, users would have the ability to see all of the pieces of the equipment (engine, belts, and other key components) functioning just as if they would in real life. Depending on the type of experience and size of the booth, users could walk around the machine to get a complete view of the product. They could also drag their finger on the tablet to rotate the machine or pinch their fingers to zoom in on various parts.
Is there something special about your product that you want to make sure no one misses? Give it a special call out on your 3D model that allows users to click on and interact with. That interaction could prompt various additional AR experiences such as:
- Diagrams
- Videos
- Photos
- FAQ on the product
Depending on the size of the booth, and the number of AR-enabled devices, people who are actually interacting with the experiences could be limited. As a solution to this, you could tether the Augmented Reality experience(s) to TVs at your booth. Not only do the TVs grab the attention of people passing by, but it gives visitors a preview of the product even if they don’t necessarily have the time to try it first-hand. You never know who could take your business card and give you a call.
Whats crazy thing about all of this is that machinery is just one small example of the seemingly endless possibilities of a trade show experience. The medical, retail, real estate, gaming, and several other industries could all benefit from the opportunities AR has to offer.
As an agency that has both attended trade shows and built use cases for them, we can attest to the number of benefits. Networking and highly targeted exposure are great companions to an amazing product. If you would like examples of our past work or want to simply discuss an idea you have for a trade show, feel free to give us a ring or drop a quick message.
