Choosing the Right Banner Stands

Banner stands are among the most affordable and versatile marketing tools that any company can use at trade shows, point of purchase displays, business lobbies and dozens of other settings. You can buy basic banner stands for well under $100, which is an affordable business expense for even the smallest companies. If you’re willing and able to spend a little more, you can take advantage of many different models of banner stands. Your space availability, budget and needs will help you choose the best banner stands for your needs.

Tip: When choosing among the many banner stands on the market, consider how portable and easy to set up the various choices are. Lightweight, portable retractable banner stands are often less expensive, as well as cheaper to ship, and easier for your salesmen to set up and break down.

Sizes

Banner stands come in a variety of sizes from those small enough to fit on a tabletop at a trade show to those that can hold a banner that can be read from the highway. Table top banner stands are an ideal solution for traveling sales presentations and for use in retail settings with limited floor space. Larger banner stands have more impact and are perfect for use as backgrounds for presentations and booth walls at trade shows.

Retractable Banner Stands

Possibly the most portable banner display available, retractable banner stands offer easy storage, transporting and setup for your trade show displays and graphics. They’re lightweight, break down and set up quickly and can usually be carried under your arm and transported in the back seat of your car. You just unroll the graphic, hook it into place and you’re all set, usually in less than a minute.

Scrolling Banners

Some banner stands feature a motor that will scroll your banner to attract attention in high-traffic trade show venues. Most of them are battery-operated and inexpensive to operate, but give you high impact results.

Double-Sided Banner Stands

Catch your audience coming and going with two-sided banner stands. Double-sided banner stands are viewable from more than one angle. They display two different banners and hide the hardware between them. They’re an ideal choice for sidewalk banner stands or for placing at the edge of your booth space where they can be seen and read by passers by approaching from either direction.

Outdoor Banner Stands

Some banner stands are designed specifically to be set up outdoors. They use weatherproof materials and usually have a base that can be filled with water or sand to weight the banner and prevent tipping. Outdoor banner stands are ideal for use on the sidewalk outside a retail establishment or at flea markets and other outdoor events.

Choosing the right banner stands can help you make the most of their marketing potential. Consider all your options, then choose the one that works best for your business.

Retractable Banner Stands for Versatile MarketingRetractable

When you’re operating on a small marketing budget, you need to stretch your money as far as it will go. One of the best ways to get a lot of bang for your marketing bucks is to invest in marketing tools that do double and triple duty. Retractable banner stands are among the most versatile tools in any marketer’s toolbox. If your knowledge of using banner stands is confined to what you’ve seen at the typical trade show, you may be missing out on the many different ways that banner stands can help you market your message or your product. Here are just a few of the many creative ways you can make your banner stands work for you in many different applications.

Grab Passersby with a Message

Outdoor banner stands come in very handy if you’re competing for attention with other Main Street stores. If you have usable sidewalk or parking lot space, you can put it to good marketing use by posting an invitation to passersby to stop in and see what you’ve got. Don’t confine yourself to the obvious “SALE” messages, though. One of the most creative uses of outdoor banner stands we’ve seen is the coffee shop owner who did record business during a heat wave when he mounted a banner outside his store with a simple message for harried shoppers and office workers: Air Conditioned!

Increase POS Sales with Banner Stands

One of the best uses for banner stands is to post a message to the most captive audience in your retail store – your cash register line. It’s a great place to post outstanding specials, entice customers to sign up for in-store credit or invite customers to sign up for a mailing list. Choose banner stands with literature pockets if you want to distribute flyers, brochures or credit card applications. It will give your customers something to read while they’re waiting to pay for their purchases and ensure that your message is seen by everyone who buys in your store.

Create Traffic Patterns

Many shoppers follow the line of least resistance when shopping in a store. If there’s a clear center aisle, they’ll navigate directly down the middle of your store without looking left or right. One of the easiest ways to pull them off track and into the racks is to stagger banner stands so that they catch customers’ eyes and draw their attention to nearby merchandise.

Those are just a few basic creative ideas that demonstrate the versatility of banner stands for marketing. If you’re operating on a tight marketing budget, choose affordable and versatile banner stands that you can press into service in many different ways.

Banner Stands Offer Great Advertising Options

Banner stands, often found in large concentration at exhibitions, trade shows and in retail stores, are among the most effective marketing and advertising tools available to today’s salesperson. The free-standing banner holders offer many advantages over other types of trade show displays, including the fact that they can be entirely self-contained. The variety and versatility of banner stands make them the ideal solution in a wide variety of marketing situations.

Portable banner stands are among the most popular types of exhibit stands in use. There are a number of styles of stands that break down for easy portability on the market, but the most popular are easily retractable banner stands. Unlike typical banner stands, where the banner and the display hardware are completely separate, retractable banner stands feature an integral banner that pulls out of a case that is attached to the vertical pole of the stand. This makes retractable banner stands remarkably easy to set up, convenient to transport – most fit into the back seat or trunk of a standard passenger car – and more durable, since the case protects the banner from dirt, moisture and things that might tear it or damage it.

Banner stands are designed to display – what else? - banners, graphically designed advertising that’s meant to attract attention to your products or explain something about your company and the services it provides. They come in many different sizes, each of which will accommodate a range of banner sizes. Depending on the design of the banner, you may even be able to make effective 2-in-1 banners that offer one message when they are completely opened and another one when they are only partly displayed. It’s all a matter of being clever and creative with graphic design.

One of the biggest benefits of portable banner stands is, as one might expect, their portability. Their lightweight and stand-alone nature means you can move the banner and stand to the place that it will be most effective. They make effective attention-getters at the entrance to your store as well as at the checkout register. You can put them in the middle of the aisle to slow down traffic at spots where you want your customers to hold up and take a look at merchandise on either side. They can be posted outside on the walk to entire passers-by to enter or at the rear door to direct customers to turn around and head out in the other direction.

In short, banner stands – especially retractable banner stands – are an excellent, all-purpose advertising tool that you should have in your arsenal.

Creative Uses for Banner Stands

Banner stands are not just a trade show staple or point-of-sale display to get your customers to part with a few more dollars. In fact, they have many creative uses and can do many different jobs. If you have a need to give information, direct traffic or otherwise communicate a message to a group of people, banner stands just may be your best media choice. Here are just a few of the creative ways that businesses have used banner stands in their establishments.

Showcase New Menu Items and Specials

Restaurants often use banner stands to display a new menu or highlight special meal deals. A retractable banner stand with a replaceable banner allows you to change out the banner periodically to keep up with the changing seasonal specials.

Group Them to Create a Mural

Trade show display systems can be quite expensive. Many smaller companies have gotten around the cost of a full-scale trade show booth by grouping two or more retractable banner stands to create a mural wall or booth backdrop. It’s considerably more affordable than a trade show booth – and far easier to set up, break down and transport.

Outdoor Banner Stands Entice Customers to Car Dealerships

Auto dealerships take full advantage of outdoor banner stands to entice customers onto the lot. The heavyweight bases keep them from tipping over and the big, colorful graphics definitely catch eyes on the side of the road.

Showcase Your Company at Job Fairs

If your company recruits applicants at job fairs, banner stands with your company logo and eye-catching graphics can set your booth or table apart from the crowd. A pair of retractable banner stands can even create separate “booths” at a table to provide prospective applicants with a feeling of privacy.

Honor Donors at a Charity Event

The sponsors for charity events make donations in return for mention on the event program and other items related to the event. You can make sponsorship even more attractive by offering banner space for gold or silver level donors. You can design the banners for pop up banner stands yourself or allow the sponsoring companies to create the design. Either way, being featured on a banner stand at the entrance to the event or on the dais is a potent incentive to prospective sponsors.

Next time you have an important message to deliver, consider the many ways that you can use banner stands to get it out to your audience. A graphic design company or company that sells banner stands can offer you even more ideas.

Five Things to Know When You Order Banner Stands

If it’s been a while since you’ve ordered equipment for a trade show display or exhibition, you may find that there have been a lot of changes and updates in one of the most common marketing tools – banner stands. A few years back, there were just a few types of banner stands available on the market – the basic X-frame banner stand with which any traveling marketer is familiar. Today, there’s a dizzying array of banner stands with updated features that make them easier to transport and use. When you’re ordering banner stands, you should know these five things to help you make your decision.

Where Will You be Using the Banner Stand?

If you’re planning to use a banner stand as a display at a trade show or exhibition, be sure to check the regulations to find out what’s allowable and what isn’t. Generally, you’ll be fine if you choose a standard model, but if you’re planning something oversize or planning to use a banner stand in an unexpected way, be sure that you’ll be allowed to do it.

Will You be Displaying Your Banners Outdoors?

If you’re planning to put up your banner display in the great outdoors, you’ll want to choose a banner stand designed to withstand the weather. Outdoor banner stands feature bases that can be weighted to resist tipping, and banners designed for outdoor banner stands are often made of fabric that allows the wind to pass through and printed with fade-resistant inks.

Will You be Traveling With Your Banners?

Retractable banner stands make it easier to transport and set up your banners at trades shows and exhibits. If you use a banner stand as part of a traveling presentation, you’ll be able to cart it around in the back seat of most vehicles, and most of the retractable banner stands are light enough to be carried by one person.

How Big do You Want Your Banner to Be?

There are banner stands available that can handle multiple sizes of banners, but most have a fairly limited range. You can get tabletop banner stands as well as floor models and those that are one to two stories tall for high impact banners.

Who Will Design Your Banners?

Many companies that sell banner stands and print banners also have a design team that can work with you on the design of your banner. If you don’t have a professional design team, it may be worth your while to take advantage of their expertise.

Choosing the best banner stands ensures that you get the best deal for your marketing money. Research properly and find the best deals.

Finding Banner Stands to Suit Your Needs

Banner stands are among the handiest and most versatile marketing tools available to today’s small business person, but choosing the perfect banner stand for each of your needs can be a tricky process. There are dozens of styles and sizes of banner stands, each of them suited to a particular purpose. If you’re confused about the right banner display stands for your needs, this quick cheat sheet can help you make your decision.

Portable Banner Stands

Do you need to pack up and go with your graphics? Do you use banner stands as part of trade show display booths and on-the-road sales presentations? Your best options include retractable banner stands that are lightweight and easy to set up. Because the banner graphic rolls up into the case on the stand, you never have to worry about forgetting the most important part of your display – or protecting it while you travel. Most retractable portable banner stands will easily fit into the back seat or trunk of a passenger car, and most come with a carrying case you can carry in one hand.

X-Frame Banner Stands

Are you on a limited budget? Is your use for a banner stand mostly confined to one location, such as your retail store? X-frame banner stands are a little more complex to set up than retractable banner stands, but if you’re not setting it up and taking it down frequently and you have no need to transport it to trade shows, flea markets and other events, they’re definitely adequate for your needs.

Outdoor Banner Stands

Do you intend to set up your banners or booth at outdoor events, such as flea markets, craft shows and community events? Then you want to choose a banner stand that’s expressly designed for being set up out of doors. Outdoor banner stands generally feature a tip-proof base and heavier frame to prevent the wind or passers-by from knocking your banner display over. Often, the base to outdoor banner stands are designed for you to fill them with sand or water to make them lighter for transporting. While you’re at it, discuss weather-proofing options for your banners, as well. Banners designed for outdoor use are printed on different materials with fade-proof inks, and may feature wind vents to let the breezes pass through instead of ballooning them off into the distance.

Choosing banner stands can be confusing, but if you consider your needs, you’ll be able to match them to the ideal banner display option.

How to Use Banner Stands Effectively at Trade Shows

Many companies first purchase banner stands when they make the decision to take part in a trade show. Retractable banner stands are among the most common types of banner stand bought because they simplify the process of set up and breakdown of your trade show area, and because they’re lightweight and easy to transport. They’re the ideal choice for a small company that sends one or two reps to a show. The versatility of banner stands allows you to use them in many different ways.

Among the most popular ways to use retractable banner stands over the past few years is to substitute them for a more traditional truss system to create a backdrop or wall for the exhibit booth. Truss systems are heavy, metal frameworks designed to create a “room” or a structure for your exhibit. They’re difficult to transport and complicated to set up, often requiring an entire crew to get the entire thing wrestled into place. Unless you need the solid, heavy duty structure provided by a truss system – to hang lights, for example – a backdrop created from retractable banner stands can offer all the same benefits and be much simpler to put together.

Pull up banner stands are designed to hold a pre-designed banner which rolls up and stores in the base of the stand. The banners are the most important part of the package, at least in terms of marketing, and the best way to ensure that they do their job properly is to have them professionally designed. A professional banner designer understands the psychology of color and space, and is trained to put them together in ways that attract attention and get your message noticed.

That training is vital if you’re planning to use your banners to create a wall or backdrop for your booth and your products. If, however, your budget doesn’t allow for a pro designer for your banners, keep these rules in mind.

Use Space to Call Attention to Your Message

Avoid crowding words and images on your banners. Put plenty of space around the elements of your design so that each part stands out.

Branding is Key

Your banners should reflect your company’s brand – the colors, shapes, logo and styles that represent your company. This extends as far as the logos chosen for any text on your banners and the quality of the banners and banner stands themselves.

Put Your Message up High

Condense your message – the key points you want people to take away – and put them high on the banner. Remember that the lower half of the banners may be hidden by tables, your product or people standing around your booth.

For more hints on how to design banners for retractable banner stands, consult your vendor. Most vendors have designers on staff who can help you with the technical and design details of your banner.