Smash Your Expo ROI – Week 3

DON’T LET YOUR MARKETING MATERIALS LET YOU DOWN!

A very handy exercise even if you’re not going to an expo… Before taking any marketing material anywhere you need to make sure that absolutely everything you’re handing out is up to snuff. If anything in this list applies to your current banners and literature then you need shiny new stuff!!

You need new marketing materials if:

• Any of your main people. contact details, web links or social media links have changed
• You have rebranded and are still using old stuff
• You have anything at all outdated on your current banners or literature – maybe your company no longer offers services or products mentioned, or now offers shiny new services
• Any of your materials are a bit dull, not eye catching and don’t pack a punch
• There’s anything on there that’s time sensitive and past- eg. it says ‘order by the end of March 2024’ etc
• You have leaflets or cards or banners that might look good on their own, but don’t match anything else you have so they don’t look like a set
• You don’t have business cards as ‘have only been there 3 weeks, months, years’ etc – it doesn’t look good having to use Geoff’s as you don’t have any (this happens more often than you’d think!(
• Don’t be tempted to stick stickers over old information it doesn’t look very professional and won’t make a good impression on your future clients…

Our Top Tips if you’re getting new marketing materials

• Don’t put dates and time sensitive stuff on there unless you’re running an event – then you can re-use the cards, leaflets, banners etc. You can be clever and say ‘call us within 14 days of the expo to receive ….’ etc etc you don’t need actual dates
• Don’t be tempted to fit too much info on to leaflets or banners or business cards etc. Use big fonts, don’t cram too much into the space. They are all invitations to treat, a way to entice people in, they need to be high level and impactful and not too ‘busy’ – the message needs to be clear, concise and blindingly obvious
• Cohesion is key, if you need a suite of new marketing materials make sure they’re all designed at once and match each other, get a co-ordinated design wardrobe – not mismatched bo-ho type stuff – your website and social media are part of this too
• If you’ve used stock photos in the past then consider getting a photographer in to take some self-stock photos for you. Liz Hall is a brilliant corporate photographer and can create you a portfolio to use for literature, social, websites, promotions, anything you need. Real people, real products and real offices (if they are aesthetically pleasing) will sell your company and services much better than stock. If you do use stock photos then make sure to use ones that reflect your company – eg. a stock image of smiling interns with a George Clooney look-a-like standing in a sky-scraping glass office looking at a printed out pie chart might not! If it does then great, can we come and meet George?!
• If your business is one that uses any kind of jargon that clients won’t immediately understand then don’t use it, put things in laymans terms, perhaps get a friend outside the company to check it for you. Prospective clients don’t like thinking they’re thickies!
• Remember your offer you came up with last week? eg. ‘SPECIAL EXPO OFFER! Book your Complementary 60 minute review of your current IT services, worth £149’ or whatever it was – think about getting that written large on a banner. It will draw people in like a magnet, if they can see your offer from 10 yards away that’s a great thing!
• THIS ONE IS VERY IMPORTANT INDEED! If you are supplying your own design, or your own copy then make sure there are NO GRAMMATICAL ERRORS! This could cause a beautifully designed leaflet, and potential client contract, to fall at the first hurdle. 
• As above, be careful as grammar and spell checkers might change a word for you, or they might not notice you’ve used the wrong word – ‘Their, there, they’re’ – always best to get a second (or third!) pair of eyes on something before you sign it off

MARVELLOUS MERCHANDISE!

You can get anything and everything branded these days, the idea being that your branded item hangs out on the desk or in the home of a prospective client and reminds them of you constantly. Check out the wonderful range from our long time exhibitors BusinessGiftUK.com at this link

• Some visitors are like magpies, drawn to shiny exciting things on stands
• Colourful branded promo items add to the visual impact of a stand and also draw in stationery addicts, of which there are a surprising number in the business world
• One of our exhibitors gave bright pink inflatable flamingoes away one year, they’d run out mid-morning as they were so popular!
• Pens in fabulous bright colours are especially popular, you can never have enough pens.
• You can get so many weird wonderful and quirky business gifts these days you wouldn’t believe it. And they don’t harm the planet either. BusinessGiftUK.com have some great gifts.

Everyone loves a free pen, even in this digital age – it’s still mightier than the sword and it’s an enduring piece of merch. Coffee cups it seems are a big hit with folks, especially if they’re sustainably made from recycled materials like at BusinessGiftUK.

Before you dash out and order anything though do have a good think about which items might be a) actually used by the folks that take them – as sometimes folk are like magpies and collect everything then wonder why they did so (true story!) and b) represent your product or message or business in some way. It might not always be possible to do the latter so the trusty pen is always a wonderful go to!

Branded tablecloths are always a good thing too and as you need one for LLE you could consider one of those in corporate colours…..