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One of the most effective and affordable methods of marketing our small business owner clients use to spread awareness of their new companies is setting up a vendor table at a local event.  While it doesn’t necessarily fit into the category of “digital marketing” we do love helping clients in any way possible, so ideas of events to attend and designs for tables often come up in consultations as a recommended activity for our clients.  Over the years, we’ve taken note of the following elements that are key to any successful event vendor table.

Who doesn’t love free stuff?!  Nobody.  If you’re in the food/beverage industry and you better be slinging delicious samples of your tasty treats.  If you run a professional service business, give away a service to one lucky winner who stops by your booth.  In the consulting business?  Set aside some time to provide mini-consultations that are reserved ahead of time or give away a certificate to be used later towards a consult.  Are you in retail or have a product to share?  Share it!  Give, give and give some more.

If you aren’t using your vendor table as an opportunity to connect long-term with folks, you are missing the point!  Setting up a vendor table shouldn’t be a one and done kind of experience.  You’re there to build relationships and if you don’t stay in touch and nurture said relationship, you’re going to regret your time spent at these events.  Make a pretty little sign and be sure to tell everyone who stops by your table that you’ve got a blog, email list, etc., for them to keep apprised of all the rad stuff you’re doing.

Your branding better be on point if you’re going to spend your valuable time at an event.  Messaging, tone, colors, typography, overall style.  It all matters!  Do you have plenty of business cards and brochures that all match?  Branded table covers, canopies and pop up banners are highly recommended!  Invest in the tools that will make your business shine in the most professional, interesting way.  Need a brand audit or another set of eyes on your marketing materials prior to attending an event to make sure they are ready to go?  Request the help you need here.

All these lovely humans who are going to stop by your table deserve a treat.  So how will you woo them?  A special coupon code to use on your e-commerce site?  Discounted tickets to your upcoming event or workshop?   A chance to win one of your amazing products or even a stunning gift basket full of products?  Give ’em something to show your genuine appreciation of their time and energy to show up wherever you’re posted up that day.

This one gets me fired up, my friends.  There’s absolutely nothing more damaging to your business’ reputation than a negative first impression in a one-on-one customer interaction.  Now, that being said, there’s a fine line between standoff-ish and laying it on too thick, so toe the line for sure.  Whatever you do, make sure that you or whoever is representing your business can speak confidently, listen actively and share the love for your product/service/nonprofit with a heart-centered conversation.

Need a stellar example to follow?  Troopster Military Care Packages rules when it comes to vendor tables (and many other ways, quite honestly)!  Founder of Troopster, Chelsea Mandello, understands the value in projecting her brand in the strongest, most professional approach and it pays off.  Literally!  Her usage of a branded table cover, brochures, iPad display of her website, an example of a donation care package and delightful personality (of her and her volunteers) showcase the Troopster brand in a manner that sets them apart from the competition by about 100 miles.

Get out there, connect with your audience in real-life and see what happens!  Comment below and let us know if you have any other helpful tips or tricks for running a successful vendor table.  Send Kaycee a message if you want help making sure your vendor table is looking sharp!

So far this year I have had the privilege of hosting a workshop called Optimizing Your Business on Facebook two times.  It’s been pretty amazing as both classes have sold out days ahead of the event and a good amount of my workshop attendees have quickly become Create/Captivate clients.  I’ve cranked out some beautiful websites, brand identity projects and taken on quite a few new one-on-one training/consultation clients (toot toot – yep, that’s me unapologetically tooting my own horn).

That’s all fine and dandy (I mean, YAY!) but if you know me, I’m ALWAYS on a mission to improve/grow/expand my effectiveness.  So, an important part of my workshops is a feedback survey afterwards.  The feedback from this workshop has been pretty dang positive, but I’m not taking feedback to feel good about myself.  I want the constructive stuff – the sometimes gritty, hard to hear feedback that I can use to make big, meaningful changes.

I’ll get a little bit vulnerable now and let you know the teensy bit o’ negative feedback I’m receiving is that there are too many Facebook user skill levels in the workshops; the newbies feel rushed and the experts feel held back.  I can’t keep letting that happen!

Back to the drawing board I go… and after the April 12th Workshop this workshop is getting a major makeover.  It’ll be split into three levels and relaunched with a more honed-in approach.  ALL of the details will be released in the next couple of weeks!

Anyone remember all the way back to early 2017 when I launched a Round Table membership?  It was pretty cool in a lot of ways, but the commitment and price point weren’t ideal for my target audience and honestly, my game plan for it all felt a little rushed.  It lasted a few months and the members who attended raved about how useful it was, so I’m taking the good parts from that experience and smashing it together with other ideas that have been floating around in my head.

First up, I’ll be launching a little content collaboration community.  Think of it as an in-between of attending a workshop and outsourcing your marketing to me.  It’s going to be a place where small business owners can come (or send their trusty assistants) and stay accountable with their content marketing game.  We’ll all put our heads together and hopefully have some really solid collaboration between members.  And if nothing else, it will be that ONE solid hour you know you’ve got carved out for putting together your content plan for the next month.  A little bit of creativity + a dash of accountability + a big ‘ole handful of collaboration is going to = a really, really good & valuable time!

My second type of event launch that’s coming soon is something really different for me.  The reasons behind it are vast, but here’s the lean explanation/description:  walking group info sessions (don’t worry, I’m still working on a real name).  Fresh air and a little sunshine always get my creative juices flowing, so I am going to host a little meet up that will be all about marketing/branding but we’re going to get moving first.  We’ll walk around the Ghent Norfolk neighborhood for about 30 minutes and then I’ll present a branding/marketing topic to the group afterwards.  Participants will be able to get a little extra insight into the latest and greatest topics, tools and resources that are creating buzz in the marketing/branding world all while taking a quick reprieve from being stuck at our desks.  I haven’t ironed out the aspects of frequency or possible rainy day locations, but that will all come together in the near future.

C/C Training and Consultation services are about to be elevated!  Clients subscribing to these services will soon be invited to set up their own login information to the C/C website where they’ll have access to a library of How To videos that they can reference in between monthly or quarterly sessions.  This library of videos will be updated and added to on a regular basis to ensure that clients are receiving the extra boost of education they need to help them conquer the various digital marketing tools and resources they need to run their businesses effectively + efficiently.

Respectfully,