Despite the fact that most things are done online nowadays, conferences and trade shows are as essential as ever for businesses.  Trade shows help you to develop new business networks, create new markets and spread the word about your company and brand.  One of the most important elements of attending shows and events is your promotional material – attention to detail and creating high quality material, flyers, posters and brochures is vital. 

Promotional Material

Investing in your brochures, flyers and promotional items is essential.  Quality counts and speaks for itself.  Don’t display expensive, well designed and carefully thought out material where it can easily be removed by passers -by; instead keep the better material closely guarded and only available to people who have been drawn into your stand or booth, or settled down for a chat.  This approach offers a ‘reward’ or incentive for those who approach your directly, whilst also ensuring that the right material is in the right hands. 

Effective Flyers and Brochures

Promotional flyers, leaflets and brochures should have strong images, headlines that catch the eye and concise, relevant copywriting to detail the benefits of your products or services.  Ideally, leaflets should focus on your core message for the specific conference and echo the call to action/aim of attending.   

Take Away Treats

Other promotional material (from pens and mousemats to mugs or t-shirts) is a great way to grab and keep people’s attention.  While this technique has been used for many years, it’s still as relevant today as ever.  The beauty of these relatively small, low cost items is that they tend to be everyday items, which means that your brand will be a familiar part of everyday life once your potential customers leave the show – they’ll keep you in mind should they need to use your products or services. Companies like Pavilion Promotional have an eye watering amount of products and merchandise that you can print on.

Digital Presence

In the modern world it’s well worth ensuring that you have a digital aspect to your show too.  Dedicated web pages with perhaps a live blog, Twitter and Face book updates should be part of the overall action plan.  The page can be designed to be re-used for future events and can be a great place to extend your show’s audience to an even wider circle.  Podcasts are also a great feature to add and can extend the number of people from your company who are involved in the event. 

The après-show

Surprisingly, and for no clear reason, a large number of leads get forgotten about after the trade show or conference.  This is possibly the biggest mistake you can make and can mean that attending was a waste of time.  Make it your priority to follow up leads, contacts or provide any quotes that have been requested, preferably within a week of the end of the show, but ideally within a few days.  Because shows are usually focused on a single industry, following up quickly can put you at the top of the pile when it comes to scouting out new customers or networking.