It’s not really fair. B2B product displays have an unfortunate reputation for being…well, kind of boring. But it seems unfair for those products not to be interesting. After all, they’re carefully designed and they do vital work that makes everybody’s lives easier.
Nevertheless, B2B products don’t tend to be visually appealing in and of themselves. And no matter how important their purpose is, they’re easy to overlook. When’s the last time you thought about the styrofoam tray holding your takeout or the insulation lining your attic, for instance?
So the challenge of making your product compelling comes up again and again for B2B marketers and salespeople. (That’s a challenge in the B2C space too, but it’s easier to get people excited about a new clothing line or gadget.)
How to Make B2B Products Appealing
One strategy is to try taking some page from B2C marketers’ book. Applying this strategy can mean a variety of things, but creating visual appeal is one that often comes up. But if B2B products themselves don’t have much visual appeal, how can you get them to stand out?
One of our B2B customers, EXCEPTIONAL Metals, decided to invest in unique, creative displays for their products. Like many B2B companies, they sell their products through distribution centers around the country, so they don’t necessarily have salespeople at every location. That meant their product displays needed to stand out and explain the products’ value all on their own.
When they came to us, EXCEPTIONAL Metals asked us to design an engaging B2B product display with two goals. It had to both include as many products as possible and show their products to the best advantage.
Our designers rose to the challenge with an innovative rotating display. The interactive aspect makes the display engaging and encourages people to pay more attention to its contents. The X shape means it also manages to fit almost a dozen different products — four sections’ worth — into a 2-3′ square footprint.
Why Engaging B2B Product Displays Make a Difference
Although B2B product displays might be more challenging to create than B2C displays, the rewards can be great. After we delivered the display units to EXCEPTIONAL Metals, one of our contacts told us, “It really gives you a true perspective of what you’re going to get”.
That’s the benefit of product samples: they give potential customers a feel for the product. There’s no better way to show the quality of a product than by putting it front and center in a display that highlights it. Even the best brochures and catalogs can’t be as interesting or compelling as the real thing.
