Promoting Your Company at Business Conferences
Trade shows and business conventions are wonderful forums for garnering exposure, but it’s crucial that you have the right marketing materials in place to help you establish those all-important leads. Choosing the right promotional and advertising products can really leverage your business potential. So how do you go about putting together promotional material that will sort you out from the competition at, say, your next marcus evans business convention?
Who is your audience? First, you’ll need to define your target market as accurately as possible. Are you targeting other businesses or individual potential customers? Are you targeting men, women or both? Is your audience mostly comprised of professionals or laymen? What is the age range of your target audience? What common traits and interests define your audience as a whole? What factors might distinguish them into separate groups? Don’t take another step without clearly identifying your market; you may find that you need to do some research before you come to any conclusions.
Then, think about your channel of distribution, as this will often help you determine what promotional products to use. A common distribution outlet – and the one we’ll discuss here – is a trade show or convention-style event, such as those hosted globally by companies like marcus evans. Many marketers find that it’s easier to build an advertising campaign around a specific method of distribution rather than around the promotional products themselves. At these events, like-minded companies and organizations create a presence by setting up exhibits and display booths geared toward potential customers. The most attractive, eye-catching exhibits are likely to garner the most attention; just make sure your display is tasteful – not flashy or tacky. Once the aesthetics of your exhibit have pulled in your target, it’s then your job to supplement your promotional material with solid, compelling information that generates discussion in favor of your product.
How much does it cost to win over one new customer? 10 new customers? 100 new customers? Before pulling the trigger, you’ll need to consider your budget, a factor that can dramatically influence your advertising campaign. How much are your customers worth to you? How many new customers are you looking to acquire from this particular campaign?
If you plan carefully, keeping all of these elements in mind, you’re ensuring that your promotional campaign is highly targeted, within your budget range, appropriate for the distribution event, and most importantly, effective in generating some good leads.
Once you’ve established your budget and set some goals for your promotional campaign, it’s time to choose your advertising material. Do you have budget space for high dollar items? For example, 100 $5.00 items or 500 $1.00 items? Do you want something that’s useful (i.e., ink pens or desk clocks) or something that has more of an aesthetic quality (i.e., lapel pins or paper weights)? Do you want to have individual items or hand out gift bags with a variety of items and, say, some reading material on your product? You might even consider giving out samples of your product itself if applicable. Jenny Heart