Small business print collateral essentials this autumn

The last few months have been unprecedented.  Further to some down time over the summer, September is a perfect time of year to review how business is going, refocus on where you are heading next and re-confirm your marketing approach for the final quarter of the year.  As part of this work, to consider what print collateral you have and what you may need over the next few months to support any planned marketing activity is a good place to start.  We know from many of our recent client conversations that it is a good time to reprint prospect brochures, refresh business cards, design a new brochure or of course, ensure that you have the right, branded COVID protection in place to keep all of your team safe.

For many of our clients they are also starting to prepare for their next round of exhibitions that we hope will resume early next year.  Exhibitions are a fantastic way of driving brand awareness and connecting with your audience in one hit.  But, after recent months how do you make sure that you stand out at your next exhibition?  Below we share four-tips to help get you started:

1. Stand Out

Often, with hundreds of exhibitors attending an exhibition, you need to make sure you are seen. There are some great cost effective ways of achieving this with different kinds of print collateral from roller banners to flags.  Statement backdrops are also a great tool within a large area to help you showcase your brand, as well as providing you with space to include snippets of information about your company and offering.  Remember though, less is definitely more and your message objective would be to encourage your audience to come and speak to you directly at the show.  Once you engage with your audience, then you have the opportunity to leave them with your business card, brochure and hopefully sign them up to your newsletter.

2. Keep it short and sweet

When displaying information about your company at an exhibition you want your audience to quickly understand what it is that you do.  Less is definitely more, strong imagery, clear branding and a few succinct points will often have great impact and achieve cut through. Your target audience may even pass by without realising that they have read it which will certainly help resonate with them later on.

3. Stop them in their tracks

Having an eye-catching stand with supporting print collateral will make people want to stop and see what you are all about.  It’s important to engage, but also to understand that they will want to move on, so make sure you have some literature for them to take away and read at their leisure.  Do be proactive and follow up after the show to either arrange a discovery call or discuss their requirements further.  How this will work, will vary, depending upon if you are a product or service based business.

4. Out of sight, out of mind?

Everyone loves a freebie so be sure to have some giveaways so when you are out of sight, you’re not out of mind.  We can organise all kinds of quirky items and they don’t have to be too expensive, if you can have a budget in mind then we can certainly help to guide you in the right direction.  We find gifts that are tactile and useable items work very well, especially if they can be left on a desk to keep in the forefront of someone’s mind, so that when they need your product or service they think of you first.  For example, a magnet or simple trolley coin is surprisingly well received. Branded with your logo you’ll be remembered every time somebody picks up their keys, goes shopping or uses the locker at the gym – you’ll pretty much be with them 24hrs a day.  Now that’s what I call cost effective advertising!

We can help you to get all of your marketing and exhibition print collateral needs organised from on-site branding to give-aways and much more.  If you have more than one exhibition planned for next year, why not order for all, saving you money in the long-term as the more you order, the cost per unit reduces.  Make sure you buy enough, I often see that my clients perhaps underestimate the interest that such an event may generate, if you have some give-aways left over, they can always be reused at another event or given out to staff as an internal PR thank you.

So, now is the perfect time to be thinking about your marketing print collateral and exhibition needs as we head into the final quarter of 2020 and into 2021.  Please do get in touch to arrange your no obligation discovery call.

Raina Joyce

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