Building your Brand and Making Them Remember You.

Trade Shows, events, and health fairs can be a great way to promote your business organically through face-to-face communication.  However, they can also hinder your business if not executed correctly.  Appearing disengaged, tired or apathetic can leave a person with a negative opinion of your brand.  The two goals of any event should be to Build your brand and make the attendees remember you.

Building your Brand:
Your brand is a living, breathing thing.  It’s made up of what people know about you, what they don’t know about you, your reputation, yelp reviews, who works for you etc.  On a daily basis many things can be done to positively/negatively affect your brand’s reputation.  Particularly at an event like the OPRF Chamber Health & Wellness Fair, you need to make sure that people’s interactions with you are positive, so that they have a positive memory of your business.  Greet them with an energetic smile, ask them how they are doing and thank them for stopping by your booth (remember that they could have just walked by).  Once you have their attention it is important to succinctly tell them what your business does.  As professionals who think about our business models frequently, it can be easy to assume people understand our industry and how it works.  However, it’s important to treat the person as if they have never heard of your business before.  You are the EXPERT, you can shape their perception of your business.  Also, we can never be sure of the misconceptions that may be out there regarding your business or industry.  Keep the explanation relatively brief, with 2-5 prepared sentences.  That being said, do not feel the need to stick to a rigid script!  Go with the flow of the conversation and get your points across.

Lastly, it is important to brand yourself properly the day of the event.  Maybe it’s company branded clothing, maybe it’s matching costumes that fit with your brand or maybe it’s a three-piece business suit.  Whatever you decide remember that what you wear has a big impact on people’s sub conscious. 

Making Them Remember you
The key to making people remember you at an event is giving them something with Reuse value (along with everything mentioned in the paragraphs above).   Reuse Value is an item that the potential client or customer will use 10+ times.  Examples are lip balm, water bottles, pens, hand sanitizer etc.  Be sure to put a color logo and contact information on the items as well.  You can give these out as prizes for some type of game or activity or you can just have them as takeaways. 

These are just a few examples of what you will need to think about when you are at a booth representing your company's brand. It's not easy to engage with complete strangers, but just remember you are the expert on your brand and people do want to hear what you have to say, so make them remember you.