Everyone loves a party … or a Super Bowl game … or a NASCAR race. And, what do these things have in common, you might ask? They’re all great opportunities to host a business event that supports your brand, helps you meet new prospective customers, brings media attention, engages your target audience, and a host of other benefits possible with effective event marketing.
Business marketing events are an excellent way to get some facetime with your existing customers and potentially meet some new ones in a fun, relaxing atmosphere. If you host a successful event or participate in an event hosted by a sporting league, the chamber of commerce, a conference, or even a garden show, you might come away with more than a handful of leads, some media attention, and you build a positive image among your target market.
Successful event marketing
Successful event marketing is a ton of work that starts months before the actual event. You must plan out every detail and coordinate complex logistics to ensure everyone has a great time, while still meeting your business goals. There are a lot of key elements you need to get right when you plan a business event, and bringing everything together at the crucial moment when the event starts makes a huge difference in your success. Here are some elements to consider as you plan your business event:
- A location or, if the event is hosted by another group, ensure you have everything you need at the location such as:
- a table or other setups, such as a seating area or display booth
- electricity to run computers, charge phones, run your equipment (I was surprised the first time I put an event together that this often isn’t provided by the organizer and you need to hire an electrician to bring power to your area)
- a service area, caterer, and food, if you plan to serve at your business event, and who doesn’t want food
- An area for check-in, if you’re hosting the event to ensure you capture information on attendees
- Swag, such as t-shirts, keychains, and bags, as well as prizes to entice visitors to drop a business card or enter their information
- Literature, prototypes, or other displays to promote your products. IBM once brought a working robot to an event I attended. The robot and its handler wandered the event meeting attendees and were a big hit.
- People to man your location and, for long events, enough staff so that you staff the event during breaks for meals and other necessities. Your people must engage attendees, not just respond to queries. You need the right people who are outgoing to attract attention rather than sit passively. I’ve seen way too many of the later types who waste the company’s money by looking at their phones until someone asks a question.
- Banners, tablecloths, and other branded elements so everyone knows who you are
- Logistics to ensure everything and everyone arrives at the event in time to set things up and logistics to haul everything away afterward.
One overlooked element that really makes a splash at a business event is a photo booth. Folks love getting their campy pictures made so much that even weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other events are including them as part of the festivities.
Why you need a photo booth at your business event
Great networking opportunities
Networking is one of the biggest benefits of a business event, but it’s a bit awkward sometimes. Trying to tackle folks as they roam the event or talk in little groups makes it hard to promote your brand. Putting everybody together in a room and waiting for them to start chatting isn’t always the best way to go. And, if they know each other well, they’ll carry on their conversations without a care for your product.
If you want people to make valuable connections at your business event and come away happy, you need to create opportunities for networking. A photo booth is a surprisingly effective way to do that. While people wait in line for a photo op, they get talking and start making connections with people. Now, you have the opportunity to greet them and share business cards. By the time they reach the front of the queue, they have a stack of business cards to take home with them and you made a bunch of connections.
Brilliant for branding
Hopefully, when people take photos in your booth, they share them online. Many companies set up their booth by requiring attendees to enter their information into a computer along with a login for their preferred social network. Once the image is ready, it’s automatically shared on that social platform and their login information erased.
Connecting your photo booth to social media in this way is great for you because it shows off your fun event to those who didn’t attend and builds a positive association between your brand and fun. The images on social media act as a semi-permanent reminder of the brand, as well as an endorsement of the brand to friends of attendees who see the post.
A photo booth at your business event is also an excellent opportunity for branding if you take set the booth up right. If you use a simple tension fabric step and repeat with your logo all over it, your brand is in the background of every single photo. If people have a good time, you have pictures of hundreds of smiling people standing in front of your logo all over social media, and that’s amazing for your brand. As a result, you expose your brand to a large number of prospective buyers, without putting any extra effort in at all.
Makes your event memorable
When you start planning your next business event, you want people clamoring to attend. You only achieve this level of excitement if the events you host are fun and memorable. The thing is, people go to a lot of business events and many of them are pretty much the same. You need to make yours memorable, and a photo booth is a simple but effective way to achieve that. When people have great photos to remember the event by, it won’t just fade into the background like all the other events they went to. This means you’ll find it much easier to fill the guest list next time around.
Conclusion
A lot of people never even consider adding a photo booth to their business event but it has a lot of great benefits, so make sure that you set one up next time.
Need marketing help to support business growth?
We welcome the opportunity to show you how we can make your marketing SIZZLE with our data-driven, results-oriented marketing strategies. Sign up for our FREE newsletter, get our FREE guide to creating an awesome website, or contact us for more information on hiring us.
Hausman and Associates, the publisher of MKT Maven, is a full-service marketing agency operating at the intersection of marketing and digital media. Check out our full range of services.
