Marketing is all about connections, and the best way to establish a business partnership with someone is to actually do it in person, and what better way to meet a lot of physical connections than by attending conferences and industry talks.
It’s important to remember that spending potentially thousands of dollars on event tickets without any understanding of how to market yourself at conferences is going to be devastating towards your budget, and your experience. To help with this, here are some simple tips that will help you better market your business at conferences, and create the kind of connections that will last and bring about fruitful results.
1. Multi-day Events
There is a huge variety of conferences, and the ones where we are usually going to attract the most customers and attention to our business are the ones that last for several days at a time. The provides you more time to connect, share, and explore ideas with your peers. You have to be careful, however, when it comes to attending conferences at the other end of the world, only to realize that this particular conference is focusing strictly on the latest industry developments and doesn’t leave much time to network at all.
2. Know The Audience
It’s possible to make any event a good one, for your business at least, but first we must conduct some research and look into things like who are the key players attending the conference, and what is the best way to reach out to these key players beforehand. It’s nice to give others heads up about your plans, like the plan to approach them at the conference, and this usually boosts your chances of being able to share a few minutes of their time. Some conferences will happily provide you with a list of people who are planning to attend, really maximizing your chances of making new connections.
3. What’s The Catch?
What is your ultimate plan at the conference? What are you looking to promote, and how are you going to do it? Entering a hall full of people blindly, in hopes that you will land new clients, is nothing but a one way street towards failure. Before meeting any of your potential new clients, practice your story and how you are going to hook others on the idea that your business could somehow help theirs. Don’t expect anyone else to do all the talking for you, and come prepared; those who do are the ones who walk away with new clients, simple.
4. Double Check Your Resources
What’s more embarrassing than handing out business cards to your new potential clients, only to realize that the email on the business card is printed wrong? Small things like this can completely break and devastate your conference experience, and this applies to everything: your actual product, the website you operate, your contact details. Make sure that everything is intact and in accordance with what you are currently using to manage your business operations. Create solid Press Kits, insightful and self-explanatory Feature and FAQ pages that will help others to get a good grasp of your business without having you talk about it for hours at a time.
5. Plan In Advance
As previously stated, reach out to the people you plan on speaking to at the conference beforehand, invite them to have a cup of coffee with you at a well-known location in the city. Start the conference journey before you actual reach it, as this will add to the excitement, and will certainly help you to get to know the other person much better, which in turn could be in big favor to you.
Have you attended any conferences in the past? What are your best tips? Share them with us in the comments!