Maximizing ROI: A Vendor's Checklist for Rocking Your Next Event | Denver Event & Branding Photographer
Attention Small Businesses, Summer is upon us!
Which means it’s time to break out those booths, branded give-away-swag, print more business cards and brochures, and promote your business!
Whether your business is a vendor for a large event, sponsoring a fundraising event, hosting a booth at a community event, or just actively promoting in your community, this can be an excellent opportunity to increase your brand visibility, generate leads, and connect with potential customers.
Top 5 Tips for Maximizing ROI: A Vendor's Checklist for Rocking Your Next Event
To help you successfully plan and execute your upcoming events to ensure that you get the most ROI out of your time and money investment, here is a checklist of what you should know to best prepare for being a vendor at an event:
Research the Event: This may go without saying, but before committing to being a vendor at any event, it’s important to research it thoroughly to ensure that it aligns with your business objectives and target audience. The last thing you want is for it to be a waste of time, energy, and money when you realize that the event attendees don’t want what you have to offer. Look into the event's history, attendance, and demographics, and determine if it's a good fit for your brand and products/services. When in doubt, reach out and ask questions.
Set Event Goals & Budget: It’s best practice to consider how the event will help your business and set goals for each specific event. Based on the event, clearly outline why this event is a great fit for your business, how it will best help your business, and specific goals to focus on while you’re at the event. This will give you a clear purpose and direction for each event, and give you measurable outcomes to review your ROI. Then, depending on the event and your goals, what materials do you need to help you achieve this? Do you have a tent/table? What is the budget for the booth rental for each event, and how many events can/do you want to do this Summer? Will you have staff run your booth at the event? Do you need to order promotional materials and brochures or business cards? Can you reuse supplies for various events?
Design your Booth: This is key for creating brand awareness and recognition, as well as capturing your audience’s attention to learn more during the event. How can you make your booth visually appealing? How can you draw attention to your booth to engage people with interactive activities that showcases your brand, products/services, and messaging? How can you make your booth fun, memorable, and give people something to remember your business by? ALWAYS have signage, and promotional materials with your logo, at the very least.
Offer Value & Capture Information: This is key. You don’t want to be the booth that hands out free swag gear and promotional items for people to walk away from your booth and never hear from them again. You are not there just to hand out free stuff… The best way to achieve your event goals and increase your event ROI is to offer real value and create a follow-up with a person. For example, can you offer a special deal for event attendees only — 20% off your first purchase, a free consultation, a free trial, a free e-book or resource when they sign up on your website, scheduling a demo, etc. By offering value, you start building a real relationship with potential clients, and get their information so you can follow up, nurture them, and get them coming back. Don’t take this step lightly!
Hire a Professional Photographer: Part of your Event ROI is directly related to connecting with potential clients, but a larger part is building your business and brand’s awareness, credibility, and recognition. It’s been proven that it takes 7 times for people to see an advertisement before they decide to buy — this has only continued to increase over the past years with the widespread of social media and digital marketing. In order to increase your ROI being a part of an event, having professional photos is an essential part of your event marketing strategy. This will provide your business with social proof, content, and images that you can continue to share/promote about the event, your outreach and participation to your community, and in your own marketing. You have NO IDEA how effective a single image of a person smiling and interacting at your booth, with your brand logo, colors, and staff can be to another person considering your services who sees this image. These kinds of photos are crucial!
By following these tips, you can make your company summer events a success and leverage them for your marketing and branding efforts, and not to mention, increase your lead generation and sales! Remember that professional photography is an investment that should be considered in your budget, but will certainly pay off in the long run, as it helps you showcase your company's values, culture, and achievements and builds trust and loyalty with your audience. But always ask to make sure the photographer you choose has lots of experience with events from a branding and marketing angle — this is NOT your typical portrait photographer, so do your research!
If you’re around the larger Denver - metro area in Colorado, click here to book your upcoming event with me or ask me questions here. This is my specialty!
