In the business world, reputation is usually everything. As business owners, you’ll often want to branch out into conferences and shows that gain you traction in both the customer and corporate world. After all, you need to have respect from your peers and reputation amongst your market when it comes to moving your small business into a big business.
If you’re heading to a business conference, you’ll want to have a few tricks up your sleeve that’ll make you stand out from the crowd. Read on and keep in mind a few of these tips for your next big move.
Try Out Some Lanyards
You want people to immediately be able to identify you. Use custom lanyards to exploit your business model and really show off what makes your brand flashy and personal. Go online for the best options and check out customisation website home pages for the whole range of personalized identification that you can get at fast delivery rates.
Lanyards aren’t just an effective form of advertising, they’re also completely practical. Keep an eye on where your employees are at a business conference with these looped fabric pieces. You can also keep out anyone who doesn’t work for your brand, therefore having a tighter reign on your security as well. You won’t have to spend valuable time trying to read a peeling sticker or name tag, and you can have both your brand name and the person’s name on an ID card at the same time.
With lanyards at a business conference, you’ll also be able to tell who is a customer and who isn’t. This is an effective marketing strategy in itself as you won’t waste time on other brands and speakers and will be able to immediately get down to business. To make this strategy more effective, always be wearing your lanyard and don’t take it off until the conference is over. You’ll never know when a would be client might catch your attention and without a lanyard, you’re immediately off to a bad start.
Use Testimonials to Tell a Story
If you have any good feedback and reviews, now is the time to deploy them. A good long term strategy is to display these testimonials on your website, which in itself is an excellent facet of the business. However, use videos and face to face calls from clients to really sell your product. If it’s in their words and on their time, your business will seem a lot more legitimate. After all, over 50% of professionals believe that marketing via video with visual cues is the most effective way to display your brand.
First of all, using a testimonial is a surefire way to build trust between you and your customer base. If another client absolutely loves your business, then others are more likely to come to you and won’t consider you a ‘shady’ dealer. Testimonials will also make you stand out as a trustworthy business as they will be written by customers themselves. This removes the sales element that can be immediately spotted in fabricated testimonies, which immediately draws in other customers. They want to feel like they’ve made the decision instead of you as a business owner using tactics to deliberately draw them in.
When it comes to using a testimonial in an advertising campaign, center your narrative around what the customer has said. This requires using the right feedback, so take a practical approaching one and demonstrate what your products or services can do to help a person, with any characters and themes in an advert based on customer content.
Bring Along a Sample
If you sell products rather than just services, bring your best examples along and show them off to full extent. Having something physical with you to market your brand and business is one of the best ways to represent yourself.
Everyone loves being able to sample something, and it’s a marketing strategy that isn’t aggressive either as it requires no commitment and only a few seconds of someone’s time. You’ll better present your business as friendly and reliable whilst showing off what you can offer that makes you stand out from the crowd.
This is especially important in food production circles. As someone who owns a catering business, having tasters out for clients is the main way to get them to consider you. Alongside this, offering a free product just for someone spending their time on your brand works wonders in keeping them interested.
Interact With Your Customers
Both in and out of the conference room, interacting with potential clients is the best way to represent your business as efficient and friendly. It’s been found that 89% of customers go to competitors due to poor experiences, so having a genuine way to connect to the public is the best way to present you and your employees.
Social media is the best way to accomplish this. Everyone is online, and therefore you should be too. Speak friendly but professionally to anyone who has a query or a complaint, and you’ll show anyone else who sees the thread how well you deal with such situations. It’s also just good practice in business ethics.
Have a bona fide way for customers to leave feedback that doesn’t require too much effort on their part, as this can make them less likely to do it. If you have a retail section on your website, include a box at the end of a checkout for customers to report their experience. On receipts give customers a link to follow to report how well you did today, and even offer a reward for doing so!
Hopefully, a few of these tips were helpful to your planning for your next publicised dab into selling your brand as a whole. Representing your business should be the top priority in your management alongside providing products and services at a high quality. Remember what you’re at a conference for and prepare accordingly, and don’t think you win a good sales pitch!