How to Stand Out at Any Event
When it comes to promoting your business a very powerful opportunity can be a business stand. Notice the word “can” in that sentence though, because many business women make critical mistakes when it comes to having a stand at an event.
You see it’s not just about what you do on the day – the before and after are important components in making any event work for you and your businesses success.
So here’s some quick top tips to having a stand and getting the most out of any opportunity.
Tell everyone you know beforehand that you are going to be at that event. Firstly this gives people a chance to learn more about your business without feeling pressurised. They can learn about what you offer in a nonchalant fashion which can be very useful for people who are new to what you offer, or who want to learn more without having to commit. This is great for potential customers and to business owners who you network with who want to be in a position to promote and refer you. It also allows you to promote yourself in a different format to your existing leads and customers by telling them what your business has coming up.
Offering a special offer, an event only price, or free ??? at the event gives people incentive to pop by and say hi to you.
Make sure at the event your stand is engaging in more than one way. Businesses assume that being there with their products and services is enough to ensure people will be attracted to you. It’s not!
You need to have something visual that instantly attracts people’s attention. Say for instance an event last 5 hours and you want to have the opportunity to talk in depth and explain more about what your company offers to people, and that will take 15 minutes per person. That means you can see 20 people effectively on your own. What will you do to ensure the rest of the world passing by stays of their own accord?
Your business signage needs to be easily read – in the time it takes to walk past your stand – ie 3 seconds.
You need to ensure your business cards are easily spotted – people have every intention of “Popping” back if you are busy talking, but a busy event means they can easily get distracted – what do you do to ensure they DO come back?
Remember everyone will have signage, freebies and highly likely many will have a bowl of sweets and / or the requisite bottle of bubbly raffle – so what do you do to stand out?
The most important point about this day for you is that you gain as many contacts and potential quality leads as possible. And that is why the free raffle is so popular. But how can you do this with a twist?
Remember the most important part for you of any event is to be remembered for all the right reasons because the vital work comes AFTER the event and that is in the follow up. So what do you do to be remembered so that when you contact potential leads they are raring to go and can’t wait to hear from you?
What about QR codes at the event with your social media links, with free how to guides or free YouTube videos – that people can access at the event, and appreciate later?
What about asking people for their social media links, so that you can give them a shout out while you are at the event?
Whether you spoke to 50 or 500 people, after the event is where you need to shine – Every time.
How will you communicate with your contacts after?
What will you say?
What will you offer?
If you have free advice and reports available, now is a good time to make potential leads aware of them. The thing about effective marketing is that many different formats will drip, drip, drip snippets of your business fabulousness to them all of the time, making them feel like you already work for them. So it can feel like a natural progression in to working together. What will you do to ensure people want to interact with you?
How will you choose to interact with these potential leads after the event?
In knowing this information BEFORE an event you can ensure that DURING the event you are getting what you need to ensure effective follow up AFTER the event.
And effective follow up leads to more customers – which was the reason you had the stand in the first place.
For more top tips to help your business shine at any event get in touch – and we can’t wait to see you at the Big Christmas Event this December (15th), book early to avoid missing out on a stand.
