How Printed Merchandise Can Help Your Pre-Event Preparation

Exhibiting at an event is rarely a low-cost option. For this reason, it’s important to have firm business goals in mind that go beyond that of just branding. You need to align all of the opportunities of exhibiting at an event before accepting the invitation to exhibit. It is up to your marketing department to assess the basic viability of attending the event, to outline the opportunities of exhibiting and to asses last year’s attendance to the demographics that you are trying to engage with.The idea behind this guide is to help you make sure that you cover all of the aspects of the event preparation up to, and including, the event.

In many cases, the earlier you confirm your attendance at an event the more of a discount you’ll receive. This is often called ‘early bird access’ and this is standard practice for many companies. The idea behind being an early bird is to book your place at the event 6-weeks ahead of the event to:

1. Confirm your attendace
2. Save yourself money

If you need more space, it´s always a good idea to negotiate additional space for a lower cost within the last four weeks before the event stats in most cases. it’s important to make sure that you ask the question earlier rather than waiting until the last minute to ensure that the event doesn’t become fully booked.

The next, and one of the most important points, is to plan how you will set up the stand before the event starts. We all want our stands to look professional, to entice people to come over and talk to us. This is why it’s important to make sure your unique differential or campaign message is both clear and visible.

If the organiser of the event has a barcode scanner to scan attendee name tags, a good idea is to ask if you can have access to this data as it will help you with any post campaign follow-ups and it can streamline this process and make it a lot quicker and more organised.

At every turn it’s important to highlight the goals and objectives for the company when you’re hosting a stall at an event. This includes communicating

all of the relevant information to stakeholders involved in the planning, execution and attendance at the event. It’s also important to affirm that everyone knows their individual objectives for the company.

When you’re attending, it’s important to give prospective customers something something which they’re going to remember your by. Historically, this was done by giving our business cards but in modern times, you want something which is going to grab their attention and ensure that you’re at the forefront of their mind. Promotional merchandise is invaluable when it comes to getting impressions and also ensuring that any future customers remember your name and brand in the future.

That’s why it’s vital to make sure that all promotional / sales materials are ordered at least 6 weeks before the event starts and you need to make sure that the material is able to fit on the stand at least 4 weeks before the start of the event.

Ordering your merchandise is one thing, making sure that it’s ready at the event location is another thing. You need to ensure that everything is sent directly to the venue in time and that there is plenty of storage space for everything that you will be storing on your stand.

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We have a wide range of promotional materials and we have worked with some of the largest companies in the world on their promotional merchandise strategies and this means that we know what product will help you not only meet, but exceed your targets. For example, have you considered giving away tote bags at an event?

• A study on promotional merchandise showed that 89% of those surveyed remembered the advertiser when the campaign used printed promotional bags – on average 84% of participants remembered the advertiser across all types of promotional products.
• Promotional and incentive marketing experts have noted that there are many opportunities to get brand saturation at an event.
• We have found that the best way to do this is by using printed tote bags.
• The best and most comfortable bags at an event will be much more visible and give the impression that your company was the event’s main sponsor.
• A tote bag is an ideal marketing weapon. Tote bags are tough and durable and are a fantastic, low-cost advertising / branding opportunity.

Your company ought to be pushing a new product, service or campaign to new and existing clients. That’s why it´s imperative to speak to the marketing department and sales team to get a list of all ‘hot new contacts’ and the clients with which you have a good relationship.

By doing this it gives you the opportunity to draft up a personalised email to each of them – you can even segment your lists into different interest groups – and outline the benefits of attending the event and meeting you while you’re there.

It’s important to email all of your communication to your clients with a specific call to action 2-4 weeks ahead of your organisation attending the event.

Attending the event is only one part of the event preparation. Another huge part is communication and this is important in all methods, whether they are traditional methods (telephone) or modern methods (email, social media, etc). It’s important to take advantage of both these methods to communicate your attendance to your clients. About 1-2 months before the event, make sure that you leave a ‘message on hold’ telling your callers about the event.

At the same time, it’s important to make sure that all email signatures of all client contacting staff is changed to communicate that you’re attending the event. Remember that you should include the stand number and even directions of how to find you at the event.

Create a production, creation and distribution plan for all blog and press release content which announces the benefits of meeting your organisation at the event. This should then be distributed via all internal and external channels that are available.

If you have experts from your organisation speaking at the event, make sure that you know everything that they’re speaking about.

It’s also important to speak to others who are speaking at the event to understand what their subjects are to avoid duplication of content and to ensure that your content always sounds new, fresh and exciting.