4 Event Marketing Strategies to Try for Your Next Exhibition

Sales and marketing teams know the value of both attending and planning events. Trade shows, conferences, exhibitions, and even intimate in-house events can help launch a new product or service, drive brand awareness or consideration, and — most importantly — generate more business in the long run. 

And while many of these big events have outlines to help brands exhibit, sponsor, or attend, there is so much more guidance beyond that to help you be the best you can be. 

Our recommendation? Utilize these event marketing strategies to show off your brand in the best light and get your marketing materials into more [revenue-generating] hands.

Get Social

Even before your event begins, whether you are hosting or not, the first of your event marketing strategies that you tackle should be building awareness on social media. 

On your own personal channels as well as your company’s pages, let people know where you’re going to be and how to get in touch with you via social media event marketing. Whether that’s LinkedIn, TikTok, or Instagram, get your network in the know! 

Beyond the awareness play, social media event promotion is a great marketing tool to grow your event attendance. Take advantage of less-expensive advertising options, like running a contest on your own channel, or hiring relevant brand ambassadors to influence their followers to attend your event.

While you’re at the event itself, your social media team should still be working — they can be posting content or even live streaming to your followers to increase engagement and maybe even bring more people to your booth who wouldn’t have otherwise known you were there.

Design Strategic Outreach Pre and Post Event

Weeks, or even months, before an event begins, you should be promoting your event, locking in attendance, and making a game plan for a conference. This can be done digitally, with paid advertising and sponsored email, or offline. 

Offline outreach can sometimes be more effective, as people tend to spend more time reading physical flyers or postcards than they do scrolling past an online event notice. By printing your event marketing collateral and mailing it to fellow attendees and/or potential clients, you’ll be increasing your exposure at the event — before you even step foot in the event hall. 

After the event ends, maintain your momentum and follow up with everyone you met — and even those you didn’t, but could be solid strategic partners. Email campaigns with event photos and videos are a good start, as are post-event surveys, case studies, and roundups, or even follow-up sales enablement events to continue building relationships. 

Bring Value with Marketing Materials for Events 

Sure, everyone is going to have business cards and brochures to hand out at these events (as they should!), but what will make them stand out? Not much. 

That’s why the next item on your event marketing strategies to-do list is decking out your booth, your table, or your whole event with top-quality event collateral. Having your company name flash on the TV screen behind you isn’t going to cut it —  you’ll need unique event experiences , event booth design ideas that will draw passers-by in, and of course branded event merchandise. 

One company that can help you with all of your event printing services, including program printing, event signage (like display signs and tabletop signs), and branded items for events, is Mimeo. Mimeo will print on demand any event poster size you need and help you brainstorm event merchandise ideas. 

Just make sure everything you print is high quality and stands out among your competitors so they’ll want to hold onto it. There’s a lot of noise at these events, and Mimeo can help you cut through the clutter. With branded event merchandise, aka SWAG, you can stay top of mind among customers and future clients long after the event ends. 

Know Your Audience and Give Them What They Need 

Marketing teams know that understanding their audience is important if you want to serve them well. Targeted ads, optimized information, and the right language are important to connect with current and future customers. 

But what if you serve a number of different industries? At a conference, for example, you could be meeting leaders from healthcare startups, financial institutions, and one-woman powerhouses. They may all use your service but for different reasons. 

The event marketing strategy to combat that is to create separate marketing materials for all of your audiences. And no, it doesn’t need to be more expensive than printing 1000 of the same brochures. By using an on demand print company, you can print as many different print marketing materials as you need — no more, no less— saving you money and warehouse space. Plus, it’s more sustainable for the planet. 

Mimeo is an online printing platform that provides all of the marketing materials you need to fulfill your event marketing strategies and will have them shipped to you or 500 of your unique recipients as soon as tomorrow morning. Your marketing events will never be the same — they’ll be better.