The Wow Factor: Putting The iPad On Display

Tablets are hot and the iPad is the hottest one on the market. According to Forbes, the iPad accounted for 81% of tablet web traffic in the US and Canada during one week in January, and LinkedIn announced it was giving iPad minis to all of its 3,500 employees. With all the attention on iPads and its powerful uses for business, now is the time to put iPads to work at your next trade show exhibit to attract more potential customers. Here's how.

Build the iPad into your exhibit.

Trade show exhibit manufacturers have seen the trend and created special stands just for the iPad. Of course, the iPad is entirely portable. But if you want to run a presentation on a loop on an iPad, a stand is very handy. You can select and customize the stand to fit your current exhibit.

Create presentations just for the iPad.

As with any technology, you need to get acquainted with the iPad 's capabilities before you are standing in front a crowd. Just like a laptop, it can connect to a projection screen. But if you plan to project the presentation from your iPad, make sure you test the technology first. MacWorld advises that you review Apple's best practices for creating a presentation on a Mac for use on an iPad. You can use either Apple's Keynote program or PowerPoint to create the presentation, but MacWorld author Joe Kissell recommends that you use Keynote to avoid losing any formatting in the import to the iPad.

Make a personal presentation.

With a great sales presentation on your iPad, you can enhance your selling efforts on the trade show floor by demonstrating your products or services one on one. Make sure the presentation is interactive and geared to the audience at that show, and set up a way to capture prospects' email addresses. In fact, you can leave the brochures and products back at the office, if you put all your product information on an iPad. One medical device manufacturer that used 3-D product demonstrations on the iPad estimated that they saved $ 500,000 on annual costs for shipping products to trade shows. In addition, their customer surveys showed that prospects better understood their products and viewed them as an innovative company.

Keep it really mobile.

Although wi-fi is available on most trade show floors, it is best not to rely getting good mobile coverage inside the exhibit hall. To be really mobile, load everything you need on the iPad so you are ready to go without connecting to the internet.

Forrester Research expects tablets to become our "primary computing device" and predicts that 375 million tablets will be sold worldwide in 2016. That means that more of your customers will be adopting iPad technology and expecting your company to do the same.

Incorporating iPads into your trade show exhibit now can be expected to pay off in attracting more prospects and keeping your customers engaged well beyond the next show.