12 Ways To Promote Your Startup At A Conference Or Event

Wondering how to use the upcoming event to promote your startup? Hyping yourself up can help, but it will be in vain without a proper strategy.

Remember that episode of The Office when Michael tries to attract temp workers to Dunder Mifflin at a job fair? Haven’t seen it? You sure should!

Oh, the strategies!

The single blank piece of paper to represent a paper company. The booth that stands out for its dullness. Michael’s judgment call to chase away the only interested applicant because he’s not cool enough.

All examples of how not to do it!

You Need A Better Strategy To Promote Your Startup

This beloved character also started by hyping himself up. By the end, though, he was utterly disappointed.

Unless you want to face the same disappointment, you’ll need to create a much better strategy. And, a great strategy calls for hard work being done at three different stages. The pre-attendance stage, the actual event, and the post-attendance stage.

Pre Attendance

You can have different roles at the actual conference, from simply being an attendee to having a speech to deliver. A company booth may or may not be involved. Whatever the case, simply showing up without proper preparation is not how to promote your business.

1. Set Clear Objectives

What are you aiming at achieving by participating in the event? Hoping to promote a new product? Or to build new relationships with different stakeholders? Is it an opportunity for you to further develop your personal brand or work on customer loyalty?

Knowing your goals will make it easier to come up with the crucial next steps.

2. Let People Know You’ll Be Attending

You can hope that the word of your attendance will somehow get out. Or, you can get the word out yourself. The latter being the better option.

Craft the perfect outreach e-mails to publicize your involvement to your key customers. Work on press releases. Increase your social media presence in the days preceding the conference.

And, most importantly, use your website to announce the event and invite people to stop by. If you still haven’t created a website for your startup, now’s the time to do it. Not having it is one of the mistakes that could kill your online presence.

3. Research Other Participants

Do you know anything about the other participants yet? What are their hopes and dreams? What is their preferred breakfast food? Are they cool enough?

Okay, scratch that! It’s not the info you need.

But, researching other attendees can open up networking opportunities. You’ll learn how to approach people and perhaps which opening lines to use. Mingling will be easier.

4. Prepare Marketing Materials To Promote Your Startup

Prepare brochures, business cards, press kits and, most importantly, freebies.

People appreciate getting free stuff. Add your logo, your business name and business colors to pens, T-shirts, or whatever it is you’re gifting. Everyone will remember you for the gifts, but it won’t hurt to remind them with a branded one.

5. Develop A Lead Generation System

Imagine leaving the conference without having generated a single lead. Empty-handed. Doesn’t sound appealing, does it? It would be much better if you could generate more than 1000 leads on the conference. Or a different number that will work, depending on the size of the event.

You can make that happen. Engage in discussions. Introduce yourself. And have a database ready for inputting the important names and contact information. 

Promote Your Startup During The Event

So, you’ve gone through all the preparation stages and now you’re ready to rock it at the event? A few things to keep in mind if you want to be successful.

6. Appearance Matters

Don’t judge a book by its cover. An empty phrase we all keep repeating. And yet, we still all, well… judge books by their covers. Appearance matters.

That goes both for you and for the company booth if you have one. You can’t promote your business in sweatpants. Keep the attire professional and the booth attractive. And remember to use company colors, to leave a psychological imprint.

7. Network To Promote Your Startup

Mingle, mingle, and then mingle some more. Networking is what you’re there for. Remember what you’ve learned about other attendees. Remember the objectives you’ve previously set and network to achieve them.

8. Don’t Neglect Your Social Media Pages

We know you’ll be having way too much fun at the event to think about the online world. And yet, you’ll have to think about the online world. Don’t neglect your social media pages. Have someone in charge of posting throughout the conference and remember to use the right hashtags.

9. Have Someone At The Office

You should also have someone at the office during the conference. Not fun, I get it. But someone will need to hold down the fort and handle any direct sale requests. You’re doing hard work on-site, they’re doing it off-site.

Post Attendance

The show is over and everyone has gone home. Is that it? Is the work done? Not quite!

10. Identify Business Opportunities To Explore

Go through those leads you’ve generated and identify any business opportunities that may be worth exploring. You never know what a gem you may find!

11. Follow Up On Your Leads

Don’t let the leads go cold. Follow up immediately after the conference. Don’t be too pushy, though. Sure, you have an offer to make, but you may not want to approach them with it right away.

You’re probably eager to get your first 100 customers as a startup, if not there yet, but patience works wonders.

12. Summarize The Experience In A Blog Post

If you’ve followed the tips, you now have a website! Why not summarize the entire conference experience in a blog post? This way, you’ll assess your performance from a distance, and identify the tips that worked for promoting your startup.

And, of course, you can’t deny the power of blogs for building authority and developing a great personal brand.

Final Thoughts

So, how do you promote your business at an event? The work starts long before you reach the venue. And ends long after the conference has reached its finale.

There are goals to be set, website announcements to be made, leads to be generated, business opportunities to be identified…

There are also materials to be prepared. A single piece of blank paper didn’t work for Dunder Mifflin, and it won’t work for you. Using the tips above is a sure path towards avoiding the Michael Scott scenario.